MIT Concert Choir & MIT Symphony Orchestra: Carmina Burana

MIT Concert Choir & MIT Symphony Orchestra

Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana is a striking scenic cantata that transforms raw, 13th-century secular poetry into an explosive and visceral 20th-century masterpiece

Carmina Burana is above all a story of love at first sight, namely an instant infatuation with a collection of medieval poems chanced upon in an antiquary in 1934. They were most certainly written by goliards: young and impoverished clergy who travelled around Europe writing drinking songs, romantic ballads satirical songs about the Church and exhortations. Their output was extensive and mostly anonymous, and flourished throughout the 18th century; the ‘Songs from Beuern’ themselves were written in Latin, High German and Old French, between 1220 and 1250. They cover themes such as the joys and pains of love, the beauty of nature in springtime, and drinking’s guilty pleasures.

Sarah Moyer, soprano

Srinivasan Raghuraman, tenor

Sumner Thompson, baritone

Adam Boyles, conductor