Concert programme
Carl Heinrich Maria Orff. Carmina Burana
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On the day before the New Year's Eve, maestro Gintaras Rinkevičius and the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra treat the Lithuanian audience to a fabulous work by the German composer Carl Heinrich Maria Orff (1895–1982), Carmina Burana scenic cantata for soloists, chorus and orchestra. The work, which gained almost immediate worldwide success after its premiere, is based on 24 poems from the medieval collection under a Latin title, Carmina Burana (Songs of Beuern). The manuscript discovered in the Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuern in the Bavarian Alps contains a total of 254 poems and dramatic texts written by anonymous wandering poets, most likely theology students, in the 11th–12th century. The pieces satyrically address such subjects as the fickleness of fortune, the ephemeral nature of life and worldly pleasures and dangers.
Shortly after the remarkably successful premiere at the Frankfurt opera in 1937, Orff said: "Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, printed, can be destroyed. With Carmina Burana, my collected works begin." Carmina Burana has become one of the most famous choral works of all times, and its main theme "O Fortuna", which opens and ends the cantata, is one of the most frequently performed themes of classical music.