95116
CD1
71’35
CARMINA BURANA
II. In Taberna
Cantiones profanae
11 11. Estuans interius (baritone-solo) 2’30
Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
12 12. Olim lacus colueram (tenor-solo) 3’46
1 1. Fortuna (chorus)
CA R L O R F F
TR I O N F I Ca r m i n a B u r a n a Cat u l l i C a r m i n a Trio n f o d i A f r o d i t e
2’35
2 2. Fortune plango vulnero (chorus) 2’40
I. Primo vere
13 13. Ego sum abbas (men’s choir) 1’30 14 14. In taberna quando sumus
3 3. Veris leta facies (semi-chorus) 3’21
III. Cour d’amours
4 4. Omnia Sol temperat
15 15.1 Amor volat undique
1’49
2’45
(baritone solo)
5 5. Ecce gratum (chorus) 6 6. Tanz
1’34
7 7. Floret silva (chorus)
2’51
8 8. Chramer, gip die varwe mir
(chorus)
9 9. Reie
1 (andante poco esitante)
2 Swaz hie got umbe (chorus)
3 Chume, chum geselle min
(semi-chorus)
4 Swaz hie got umbe (chorus)
3’15 4’05
10 10. Were diu werlt alle min (chorus) 0’52
15.2 Siqua sine socio
2’18
(baritone-solo)
17 17. Stetit puella (soprano-solo)
2’00
18 18. Circa mea pactora
2’12
(baritone-solo)
19 19. Si puer cum puellula
20 20. Veni, veni, venias
1’02
(male semi-chorus) 1’00
(double choir)
21 21. In trutina (soprano-solo)
2’17
22 22. Tempus est iocundum
2’12
(soprano-solo, baritone-solo,
chorus and boys)
23 23. Dulcissime (soprano-solo) 2
3’04
(soprano-solo boys)
16 16. Dies, nox et omnia
Uf dem anger
2’57
(men’s choir)
0’45 3
CD2 Balnziflor et Helena 24 24. Ave formosissima (chorus)
1’42
Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi 25 25. O Fortuna (chorus)
2’35
Celestina Casapietra soprano Horst Hiestermann tenor Karl-Heinz Stryczek baritone
1
Actus I (chorus, tenor, soprano)
I
Odi et amo
II
Vivamus, mea Lesbia
III Ille mi par esse deo videtur
IV Caeli!
V
65’29 7’45
Trionfo di Afrodite
13 VI Canto di novelli sposi dol
Concerto scenico
5
Nulli se dicit
I
Canto amebeo di vergini e
6’52
giovani a Vespero in attesa della
sposa e dello sposo (Catull)
6 II
Corteo nuziale ed arrivo della 2’09
sposa e dello sposo (Sappho)
2
Actus II (chorus, soprano, tenor)
Rundfunkchor Leipzig Horst Neumann chorus master
VI Jucundum mea vita
7
VII O mea Lesbia!
1. Za tèlexaman onar Kyprogenaia
Dresdner Kapellknaben Konrad Wagner chorus master
3
Actus III (chorus, tenor, soprano) 8’23
2. Espere, Espere panta phereis
VIII Odi et amo
3. Katthanen d’imeros tis...
IX Amabo, mea dulcis Ipsitilla
4. Eis aei
X
XI Ah! Miser Catulle
Catulli Carmina Ludi scaenici
Praelusio (chorus)
XII Nulla potest mulier
1. Eis aiona
4
Exodium (chorus)
2. In te habitant
Eis aiona tui sum!
3. O res ridicula
4. Sublata lucerna
4
8
Ameana puella defututa
26 26.
13’34
7’17
1’00
III Sposa e sposo (Sappho)
IV Invocazione dell’ Imeneo
(Catull)
9
Inno all’ Imeneo (Catull)
Ludi e canti nuziale davanti
V
9’05
14 VII Apparizione di Afrodite
1’42
talamo (Sappho) 2’07
Euripides)
La Sposa – Isabella Nawe soprano La Sposo – Eberhard Büchner tenor Corifea – Renate Krahmer soprano Corifeo – Horst Hiestermann tenor Corifeo – Reiner Suß bass Renate Krahmer soprano-solo I Regina Werner soprano-solo II Karl-Heinz Stryczek bariton-solo
3’08
Rundfunkchor Leipzig Horst Neumann chorus master
3’08
Rundfunkchor Berlin Wolf-Dieter Hauschild chorus master Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Leipzig HERBERT KEGEL conductor
al talamo
10
La sposa viene accolta
Lesbia – Ute Mai soprano Catullus – Eberhard Büchner tenor
1. Claustra pandite ianuae
2. flere desine, non tib’, Aurunculeia
Jutta Czapski piano I Gunter Philipp piano II Wolfgang Wappler piano III Gerhard Erber piano IV
11
La sposa viene condotta alla 2’40
camera nuziale Tollit’, o pueri faces
12
Epitalamo (Catull)
Rundfunkchor Leipzig Horst Neumann chorus master
1. lam licet venias
2. ille pulveris Africi
3’37
6’51
5
CARL ORFF Trionfi
Recording: September 1971 (Catulli Carmina), October and November 1974 (Carmina Burana), Studio Versohnungskirche, Leipzig; June 1975 (Trionfo di Afrodite), Hous Auensee, Leipzig Recording Producer: Eberhord Geiger Balance Engineers: Eberhard Richter (Carmina Burana, Trionfo di Afrodite), Bernd Runge (Catulli Carmina) Recording engineer: Hartmut Kölbach Editing: Annelene Dziengel (Carmina Burana), Martina Schön (Catulli Carmina, Trionfo di Afrodite) Edition: Verlag B. Schott’s Söhne, Mainz Cover image: William Blake, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, 1805-1810. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC p 1973, 1976, 1978 Edel Gesellschaft für Produktmarketing mbH © 2015 Brilliant Classics Licensed from Edel Germany GmbH
6
One of the best-known works from the pen of Carl Orff (1895-1982) is his scenic trilogy Trionfi, which comprises Carmina Burana, Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite. The title, a throwback to the Italian Renaissance, recalls the triumphs of ancient Rome, those ceremonial processions in which the Senate escorted victorious generals from the Campus Martius across the Forum Romanum to the Capitoline Hill amid cheers of enthusiasm from the populace. Later on the triumphs developed into spectacular aristocratic pageants involving dialogue, music and dance. In this form they made their way into opera, the highly effective form of entertainment that emerged during the late Renaissance period. Clearly indebted to classical models, Orff’s Trionfitrilogy is made up of three parts that differ considerably in design but share a common idea – the triumph of love - under changing social and historical circumstances and in various settings ranging from personal tragedy to orgiastic rites. As it had not been Orff’s original intention to create an integrated work, the first and the last part being separated by fifteen years of experimenting, the listener will notice an unmistakable development of expressive possibilities, in particular between Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite. Whereas in Carmina Burana the earthy, lifeasserting sentiments of the collective panegyrics to love show Fortuna to be stronger than Venus generosa, we witness in Catulli Carmina the triumph of love as individual passion which may destroy even someone with a strong character. But here, too, Eros as the mainspring of human relations provides a link with the first part as emphasized in striking manner by the rhythmic vigour of the subsidiary plot. In fact, the closing jubilant shouts of the boys and girls, »Light the torches«, point forward to the third part, the wedding. Carmina Burana (Songs of Benediktbeuren) is the popular title given to a manuscript containing several hundred songs by mostly anonymous medieval authors found in an old Bavarian monastery. From the four different sections of the Codex (moralizing satirical verse, love poems by wandering scholars, goliardic drinking and gambling songs, and religious plays) Orff selected the most eloquent and formally satisfying pieces 7
that he believed were best-suited to his ideal of a world of Venus generosa. He went on to fashion them into a self-contained cycle, using a combination of Medieval Latin (the language of clerics and scholars) and Middle High German with a strong French flavour (the language of minstrels and goliards) to lend the text a highly intriguing colouring. The 25 numbers which make up the score were arranged into three carefully balanced sections (I. Primo vere/Uf dem anger, II. In Taberna and III. Cour d’amours) flanked by a grandiose chorus of near-fateful significance, O Fortuna. The first section (Spring) tells of the reawakening of nature and love, depicting the exuberant merrymaking of various social groups in Uf dem anger, a sequence of dances and roundelays punctuated with more tender, lyrical episodes of great charm. The second section (ln the Tavern) offers reflections on the bad state of the world and on abuses in the church and society like the opening baritone-solo Estuans intedus, the confessions of the famous Archipoeta, one of the most brilliant of those wandering minstrels of the 12th and 13th centuries who made a notable contribution to the Carmina Burana but who were fated to remain nameless. The third section (The Court of Love) invokes the exalted realms of courtly love before leading on to the final scene which consists of the apotheosis Ave formosissima and a restatement of the chorus O Fortuna. The scenic representation, which Orff prescribed in the title (Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis - Secular songs for soloists and chorus with instrumental accompaniment and magic images), is meant to symbolize the turn of fortune’s wheel (Fortune, plango vulnera), the vicissitudes of human existence: the experience of nature (Veris leta facies), of life’s temptations (In taberna) and of love (Amor volat undique). A notable stylistic device which Orff employs for the musical treatment of these levels of expression is the alternation of choral and solo songs, both strophic in design. The ingenious use and blending of the two principal forms of medieval song the litany and the sequence - allows for a considerable diversity of form that clearly intensifies and enhances Orff’s somewhat monotonous diatonic melodic patterns with only occasional melismatic and arioso passages (Dies, nox or Stetit puella). Unlike his later scenic works, Carmina Burana was scored for a large orchestra of the traditional kind with a normal complement of string and wind instruments, but with an outsize percussion section. Rather than use these musical forces for traditional scoring, 8
however, Orff aims at subtly balanced sonorities. Apart from the woodwind, which is employed for solo passages, the other instrumental groups serve mainly to produce rhythmic and tonal effects together with the extensive percussion. This typical idiom is the dominant feature of Orff’s style, one of the most impressive and distinctive of 20th-century music. It was in Carmina Burana, composed in 193536, that this style first came to full fruition, and it has since captivated audiences everywhere with its sheer vibrancy and near-hypnotic power. The scenic cantata Catulli Carmina (1943) was modelled on Carmina Burana, but in structure and substance it comes closer to the stage work Die Kluge. It is a kind of parable in which dancers illustrate the action while the chorus and two soloists (soprano and tenor) interpret the text proper. Orff compiled a selection of love songs by Caius Valerius Catullus (87-54 B.C.) telling of the Roman poet’s unrequited love for Clodia, a beautiful patrician woman who appears under the name of Lesbia, and surrounded the story with a subsidiary plot of his own invention. Choruses of young men and women assemble on the apron to give utterance to their ecstatic feelings of love for each other. A group of nine old men try to impress on them the transience of earthly delights. When this attempt fails, they invoke the fate of the poet Catullus as a warning. The ensuing mimed action takes place on the main stage at three different levels while the chorus and the soloists perform the poet’s finest songs a cappella behind the scenes. We learn that Catullus is wooing the beautiful Lesbia who deserts him in favour of his friend, Caelius, where-upon the lovelorn poet seeks solace in the arms of two courtesans, Ipsitilla and Ameana, in an unsuccessful attempt to forget the object of his affection. Lesbia eventually decides to return to Catullus only to be repulsed by the poet, now a broken man. While the subsidiary plot (Praelusio and Exodium) involves an orchestra comprising 4 pianos, 4 kettledrums and a large array of percussion instruments operated by 10 to 12 players to accompany the chorus of maidens, youths and old men, the music of the scenic representation is presented solely by the a cappella chorus and the two soloists. Orff’s concept of the homo ludens, the ideal of a singeractor moved to dance by the rhythmic and melodic element of the plot, is very much apparent here, providing the foundation for a formal design that owes its effect to two opposite poles of musical treatment. Whereas the subdued passion of Catullus’ verse 9
finds expression in a rhythmic idiom of great intensity, the proceedings on the stage are marked by the delicate handling of the chorus, which assumes the role of commentator as in classical Greek drama, thus helping to lend the action a more objective character. After all, this is an example of a “play within a play”. For all the critical detachment which this world of expression may provoke in contemporary audiences, the lyric poetry of Catullus makes gripping reading, exploring as it does the whole gamut of emotions from ecstatic outpourings of unalloyed bliss to agonizing bouts of melancholy. Orff tries to balance this at the musical level by overemphasizing sound and rhythm, the two dominant features of his style. Much like the young Stravinsky, he seeks to build up his distinctive idiom, based exclusively on elementary interval structures, to a level of surpassing evocative power. This is at times achieved at the expense of melody, which even in the a cappella sections appears to owe its deliberate primitiveness to the new instrumental combination and technique. As a result, many opportunities for more profound statements are sacrificed in favour of a colourful, all-pervasive texture of rhythmic sonorities. Yet the thrilling and often entrancing effect of this music, which is handled with the utmost sophistication, is nothing short of overwhelming. Ever since the Trionfi began to conquer the world’s opera houses and concert halls almost forty years ago, the tonal attire which Orff chose for Catulli Carmina has counted among the most impressive stylistic devices of 20th-century music. In Trionfo di Afrodite, a work indebted to the world of the Renaissance as can be gauged from its Italian title and subtitles, Orff employed the form of the “scenic concerto” as he had done in Carmina Burana. The text is based on verse of the Roman poet Caius Valerius Catullus and the Greek lyric poetess Sappho (who lived on Lesbos in the 7th/6th cc. B.C.) and on a brief fragment left by the Greek dramatist Euripides (485-406 B.C.). Orff fashioned this material into a lyric and epic plot in seven sections, offering a largely static description of a wedding ceremony in Antiquity: I. Song of the maidens and youths to the evening star while awaiting the bride and groom (Catullus). II. Solemn wedding procession and arrival of bride and groom (Sappho). III. Tender exchanges between bride and groom as a public reaffirmation of their 10
betrothal (Sappho). IV. Appeal and paean to Hymen, the god of marriage (Catullus). V. Games and songs outside the bridal chamber. The bride, emerging from maidenhood amid consoling words from her companions, is escorted to the bridal chamber while the groom takes leave of his bachelorhood, gently mocked by his friends. To the strains of the wedding song the couple are guided to the nuptial bed in a solemn ceremony (Catullus). VI. Song of the newly-weds in the bridal chamber, with ecstatic shouts indicating their love-making (Sappho). VII. Arrival and triumph of Aphrodite (Euripides). Stylistically speaking, Orff once again relies almost exclusively on ostinato effects and recitative-like melodic patterns. The flowing melodic line, which still played a not insignificant role in the two Carmina parts, is abandoned here in favour of a few recitative-like formulas, melismatic glissandi or blocks of choral declamation. The 10 choral and solo passages are spread over the seven sections in such a way that each section contains both a choral and solo episode, with the exception of sections IV and V, which are dominated by the chorus. This arrangement makes for a large measure of formal symmetry in the overall design, but in contrast to the two other parts of the trilogy the final word does not belong to the chorus. Instead, the work closes with an ecstatic outburst of all instrumental forces. Save for two numbers all choral episodes develop over broad instrumental ostinati, with a tonal build-up of evocative and often orgiastic power. The scoring is for a large orchestra comprising triple woodwind, a full complement of brass instruments, strings, 2 harps, 3 pianos, 3 guitars and a formidable battery. Kettledrums, chimes, xylophones, cymbals, bass drums and side drums, various wooden percussion instruments, marimbaphone and rattles help to inject rhythmic and tonal variety into ostinato patterns that may otherwise seem somewhat monotonous and inflexible. © Bernd Baselt Translation Bernd Zöllner
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