I had the lovely opportunity to see Carmina Burana live on Sunday. It's a piece I knew existed, but I've never paid much attention to it, but I loved it and am now in search of a 'definitive' recording. Any and all comments/suggestions are most welcome.

Hey there!

I've never thought that this was a piece where one needs to be picky about a particular version. If anything, I'd go on who the vocal soloists are; I think that would be the main factor that distinguishes performances from one another.

I was lucky to be the rehearsal pianist for my college chorus when they were preparing the piece for a concert so I got to know it well, before it started getting used for TV ads....

Yeah, that probably isn't a bad idea.


Oh really? I'll bet that was fun. I know the TV ad part is fairly overdone, but there is so much more music there than just the parts used for ad jingles.

That's right. I don't think I've ever heard anything used except the 1st mvt.

Critical consensus has generally rated the recording on EMI by Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos as the best.

That recording dates from the '60's, so sonically it might be a bit dated.

I'm not a big fan of the piece (its political associations have been glossed over, hypocritically I think), yet I have not heard a better recording so far than the EMI. But do check the date of the work's premiere, and in what country, perhaps one might see it differently.

I almost mentioned the political stuff but figured no need. I've always felt some conflict about Orff's music on this account, but not severely, despite being from a family that was deeply affected by the Holocaust.

Favorite Carmina recording =

Didn't too far into that...wacky surrealism can be fun, but sometimes I'm just not in the right frame of mind, I guess.

Interesting in that he's playing on one of those 9' 6" Stuart (Australian) pianos, pretty rare in the rest of the world, I think.

Regards,

I absolutely adore that piece. It is so powerful it leaves me breathless every time I listen to it! As for recordings, I would go with Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos too.

I like recordings where the Latin is a more historically correct Middle Germanic Latin and not a straight ecclesiastical Latin. This goes for other Austrian-German pieces up until the early Classical. Guess it's my training coming through.

Wonder what Hugo von Hofmannsthal might say to that.

Zeek zemper zaecula Amen?

I have no idea what that means... and I'm not inclined to think it means anything at all, other than a power trip. A Google search turned up nothing that made much sense, so you win.

Now about Hofmannsthal, though?

I thought you'd know about Germanic Latin pronunciation, so I wrote it that way. I have no idea how Hofmannsthal figures into this.

The original Latin text is "Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen." Except in Germanic Latin you'd apply many of the German pronunciation principles, so it'd be "zeecoot" and not "seecoot", etc.

Sorry mate, I suppose I should know -shame on me - but my only other language is French.

Thanks for the clarification, and apologies for any disrespect.

I like Muti's.