SoNA
Symphony of Northwest Arkansas
Masterworks II: Carmina Burana February 1, 2020 Walton Arts Center Paul Haas, conductor
finesse, using the orchestra’s different instrumental groups—strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion—in broad brush strokes that propel the musical narrative. The Thunder Bay Symphony premiered Angelique last winter under Maestro Haas’ direction. This is the second performance. Haas’ score takes advantage of the larger orchestral forces available this evening; tonight’s performance is the premiere of his revised version.
Carmina Burana Carl Orff b 10 July 1895, Munich, Germany d 29 March 1982, Munich, Germany
Angelique
Carl Orff once said: “Music has little or no raison d’être apart from the words to which it is fashioned.” What a tribute to his gift as a composer
Paul Haas
that Carmina Burana, his 1937 choral masterpiece, has such visceral
b 18 January 1971, San Francisco, California
impact and immediate appeal apart from its hedonistic texts! But words are crucial to a maximum appreciation of this remarkable work, which
A biography of Paul Haas appears on page 4 of tonight’s program.
Orff thought of as a theatrical cantata. While Carmina Burana is usually presented in concert today, the original texts are highly dramatic, a
The impetus for Angelique is a book by James Stevens published in
quality that is essential to an understanding of Orff’s unique settings—
2010. It is the story of Angelique Mott, a 17-year-old woman from the
and that lends itself very well to the dance.
Métis (a Canadian of mixed indigenous and French ancestry) who was abandoned on a Lake Superior island from summer 1845 until spring
An ancient manuscript: the sacred and the profane
1846. Thunder Bay filmmaker Michelle Desrosier—an indigenous woman
The manuscript from which Orff took his texts for Carmina Burana
herself—subsequently made Stevens’ book into an award-winning
was discovered at the Benediktbeuern monastery in the Bavarian Alps
screenplay; her film, Angelique’s Isle, was released in 2018.
by Johann Andreas Schmeller, who published it in 1847. Dating from the 11th through 13th centuries, the poetic texts are a wide-ranging
James Stevens’ book made a powerful impression on Paul Haas. His
compendium of languages and subjects. Topics range from love poetry,
composer’s note explains.
satirical verse and drinking songs to liturgical dramas, moral lessons, and praise of Alexander the Great. A few are in medieval German, others
In early 2018 I read a fascinating book called Angelique, which
in Latin, still more in old French. They deal with religion and moral issues,
tells the true and riveting tale of a Métis woman stranded with
the worldly and the metaphysical. Simple language in some of the poems
her husband on Isle Royale over the long and brutal winter. (The
ranges in content from naïve to vulgar. Other, more sophisticated texts
men who hired them to find and guard a huge boulder of copper
include both cynical and philosophical points of view. Authors of wide
promise to return shortly, but they never return.) She survives, but
educational and cultural backgrounds contributed to the compilation.
her husband does not. Stevens’ story inspired me to pay musical homage to this incredible woman. I wanted to portray glimpses of
Orff was a late bloomer as a composer. Born in Munich in 1895, he
time and emotion—this was not to be a retelling of the plot. The
studied at that city’s Akademie für Tonkunst. For many years he earned
first movement is a backdrop of how greed and grasping shape our
his living as a theatrical rehearsal pianist, an experience that gave him
history. The second and third movements are musical miniatures,
a keen understanding of the mechanics of drama. In the 1920s he
showing us Angelique’s wise and magical mother and then the
adapted several works by Monteverdi for the stage. He later directed the
whimsical Angelique herself. The fourth is the fateful lake voyage,
Munich Bach Society for several years. These experiences developed his
with all of its ominous forebodings, and the fifth is the moment
strong interest in early music.
when all water has turned to ice. The sixth and final movement is the heart of the piece. It represents for me the most extreme
Reconciling old and new
moment for Angelique, when she finds her dead husband and
Orff became acquainted with the Benediktbeuern manuscript in the
somehow transforms that pain into an unimaginable resilience.
early 1930s. He was fascinated by the sounds of its medieval languages.
The cover of the beautifully illuminated manuscript, depicting a wheel of
Haas’ music is richly evocative of the heroine’s shifting states of mind
fortune, also made a big impression on him. Its musical manifestation
over the course of her journey. He manages tension and anxiety with
was the massive hymn Fortune that frames Carmina Burana.