Songs of a heedless generation wrap TSO year
Fortune’s eternal call heard in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana
From June 19 to June 23, audiences at Roy Thomson Hall will be hit with the ominous blast of “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff’s
Carmina Burana right after their intermission sip of wine.
“Fate, monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, you are malevolent, well-being is in vain, and always fades to nothing … I bring my bare back to your villainy …”
The uncomfortable lyrics bookend a collection of choral and solo songs that celebrate rebirth in spring, the power of lust and love, and the joys of drinking in good company.
It is gut-grabbing, powerful stuff, stitched together in simple music anchored in driving rhythms. Premiered in Naziera Frankfurt 82 years ago, Orff’s cantata instantly became a modern classic.
Besides the compelling musical setting, Carmina Burana continues to entrance us because the emotions expressed in its songs transcend time and place.
About 800 years ago, the church schools of Europe were graduating so many well-educated young men that they were not able to find jobs once they were back out on the street. With active minds, boundless energy, swift-flowing hormones and a general disdain for a system that had sent them into a dead end, these young men did what young men with too much free time like to do: They made a nuisance of themselves.
They called themselves Goliards, followers of Bishop Golias, a fictional cleric. Golias overindulged in all of the earthly pleasures, yet was somehow redeemed by his infectious humour and friendly manner.
The Goliards drank, danced and sang their way around what we know today as France and Germany. And they left behind a trail of satirical and bawdy poetry that pointed its muscular middle finger at the morals of the day.
They were the Dada artists, Beat poets and the rappers of their time. As in the words of Jack Kerouac or Tupac, there is something viscerally compelling about the Goliard message, in a world so well ordered by science and yet still threatening to fall apart at the seams.
One collection of Goliard poetry and songs compiled sometime in the 13th century was rediscovered in the library of a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria early in the 19th century. The book, Carmina Burana (Songs of Beuern), inspired Orff as his country succumbed to the iron grip of totalitarianism.
Ironically, Joseph Goebbels loved Carmina Burana, and the cantata was performed many times before and during the Second World War in Germany. Its premiere outside Germany was at the La Scala opera house in Milan in 1942, just two weeks before it was damaged in a massive Allied bombing raid in October.
Orff was not a Nazi. In fact, it’s possible to say he was being subversive in Carmina Burana. The good and the bad, the powerful and the weak are all brought to the same end by Fortune’s turning wheel.
And so we get to not only hear but experience that visceral truth again, amidst the fears and hopes suggested in today’s news.
The musical forces pulled together by the TSO are a guarantee of a stirring evening of music. Donald Runnicles is conducting the full orchestra along with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, the Toronto Youth Choir, the Toronto Children’s Chorus and four vocal soloists.
Carmina Burana, which runs about 60 minutes, doesn’t really need any company on the program, but the TSO has invited Canadian violin superstar James Ehnes to join in the evening with Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s gorgeous Violin Concerto, from 1945.
The TSO season officially concludes June 28 to 30 with music director-designate Gustavo Gimeno conducting another viscerally satisfying modern classic: Igor Stravinsky’s suite from The Firebird, complemented by concertmaster Jonathan Crow performing Jean Sibelius’ gorgeous Violin Concerto.
For more see tso.ca.
Carmina Burana continues to entrance us because the emotions expressed in its songs transcend time and place
Classical music writer John Terauds is a freelance contributor for the Star, based in Toronto. He is supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Follow him on Twitter @JohnTerauds