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Tarfumes.com - Orff: Carmina Burana
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List Price: $16.98
Our Price: $16.98
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0028941513625
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Deutsche Grammophon
Release Date: 1990-10-25
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not my cup of tea
Comment: Maybe I am not ready to appreciate this, but for the moment, this cd is just awful to my ears. Sorry for the die hard fans.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Comment: Joseph's Levine's production of Carmina Burana is brilliant. Although most everyone will recognize O Fortuna from "Excalibur" or other Hollywood fare, there is a tremendous depth and power in all of this masterpiece.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Medieval and modern bash heads beautifully ...
Comment: Carl Orff may not have attained "household name" status, but the dazzling "Carmina Burana" has become a staple in the modern classical music repertory. The work has appeared in so many concert halls, recordings, movies, television spots, rock concerts, and presentations that it may rank as one of the twentieth century's most famous classical pieces. And this CD presents a great recording of Orff's most famous work.
But "Carmina Burana" doesn't always sound like twentieth century music. "O Fortuna", the blaring ominous opener, sounds like a blend of classical, medieval, and modern. And the themes of fortune, Spring, Love (and lust), and drinking sound anything but modern. The latin text doubtless lends a large part of the medieval flavor, but German also appears throughout the song cycle.
The text comes from a now famous 11th-13th century collection of some 1,000 poems and songs. Historians believe that the "goliards" (wandering freethinking poets) composed these poems, which laid undiscovered until 1803. In the 1930s these secular and sometimes bawdy songs caught the attention of the very Roman Catholic Orff. "Carmina Burana" premiered in Nazi Germany in 1937 to great acclaim (though some found it "degenerate"). Initially written as accompaniment for elaborate theater stagings, the work usually gets performed in concert halls without the visuals. The music definitely warrants such a performance. It stands completely on its own; ranging from the inexorably powerful to the delicate and lovely. Orff pulled out all the stops when he composed this incredible music.
"O Fortuna" remains justifiably famous with its riveting rhythms and staccato chorus. This tune bookends the entire song collection, suggesting that the work as a whole deals with the ineffable viscissitudes of life. Next, Spring arrives and brings with it dancing (track 6 will get any feet moving), drinking, and the pursuit of sensual pleasures. Though some gain from this happiness, some wallow in misery. "Olim lacus colueram" ("Once I Lived On Lakes") tells a ghastly story from the point of view of a swan roasting on a spit. The tenor solo sings with the perfect amount of agony as the music provides appropriately horrifying accompaniment. "Floret silva nobilis" ("The Noble Woods are Burgeoning") finds a lover bemoaning the parting of her lover. The music punctuates her woe with horse hoof beats fading into the distance. Woes of Fortune and the changes brought with springtime provide the thematic structure for the songs. In the end, the refrain of "O Fortuna" provides a reminder that our pleasures and our misery remain fleeting and subject to the wiles of fortune. Thematically, the piece is timeless.
James Levine and the Chicago Symphony Chorus and Orchestra pull off quite a performance on this CD. Anyone looking for a solid straight through recording of this famous work will find it here. The CD booklet doesn't give much information on Orff or on the work, but it does contain all of the lyrics in Latin/German and English. Regardless, the music prevails and this recording will not disappoint.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The best alternative to Jochum
Comment: While Eugen Jochum's definitive recording of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana concentrated on a rustic, unrefined presentation of the miraculous choral hodgepodge, James Levine's modern, Grammy Award-winning 1984 recording gives the hypnotic work a smooth, meticulous treatment. Levine, a notoriously "glossy" conductor, is in excellent form here, taking the twenty-five mini-masterpieces that comprise the work somewhat slower than Jochum with three of the best soloists ever to be recorded.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus are in terrific order. The choral selections (the primitive "Fortune plango vulnera," the jovial "Ecce gratum," the appropriately flowery "Floret silva," and, of course, the calamitous "O Fortuna!") are presented with almost perfect accuracy and calculation. The pacing is only occasionally disappointing; the Tanz, which contains excellently elaborate percussive sections, is taken too quickly and most of the rich subtleties are lost.
Philip Creech's rendition of the song of the roasting swan, "Olim lacus colueram," is a hilarious and slightly disturbing instance of petrified and bizarre caterwauling. Bernd Weikl, a rather rough-hewn baritone-bass, is a somewhat unsteady but altogether satisfying choice for the baritone soloist. "Ego sum abbas" is definitely his best moment; it is presented accusingly and voraciously, easily juxtaposed to the supercilious ravings and fire-and-brimstone-preaching of a Biblical prophet. June Anderson is simply a treasure as the soprano soloist. Gundula Janowitz, the Jochum soprano, has a less dense, more ethereal voice, which was more fitting for the orgiastic "Stetit puella." However, due to one of Levine's more inspired (and slow) moments, Anderson is able to uncover some of the solo's most invigorating and atmospheric subtleties. She also survives "Dulcissime," a brief but extraordinarily tiring piece that causes most sopranos to languish.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Simply the best Carmina
Comment: When I bought this CD, I expected a beautiful, powerful, austere, haunting, loud piece all rolled into one CD. The CSO, bless their hearts, obliged me here. The brass, as usual are painstakingly precise( as is the chorus when the score calls for staccato passages such as the pianissiomo section on the first track)as seen in tracks such as track 10, the last part of Uf dem Anger. Of course I cannot diminish the other parts of the orchestra but my mind often freezes up when doing these reviews because I have so much I want to say and don't want you to think I'm a babbling idiot. Anyway, really, the only detraction to this recording is the tenor, Creech I believe it is. I find his sqawking irritating( I am speaking specifically of the Roasted Swan Song). I cannot attest to whether that's what Orff actually wanted as another critic here suggests. If that is what Orff wanted, then shame on him. Regardless of that minor flaw, the disc is a proud testament to what happens when Levine meets the CSO.
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