Bavarian State Library, Munich, Codex Buranus (Carmina Burana) Clm 4660; detail from fol. 1r: Miniature of the Wheel of Fortune Deutsch: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4660, Codex Buranus (Carmina Burana); Detail von fol. 1r: Miniatur mit dem Schicksalsrad . circa 1230. Anonymous 275 Carmina Burana Wheel of Fortune (detail) From Alamy.com
A concertwas given on the 22nd July 1995 in Christchurch Town Hall of Carmina Burana, Song of Destiny and Serenade to Music. It’s interesting to see that the programme for the concert is small and not particularly extravagant. Nevertheless, the information provided is excellent and informative.
Brian Law retired from conducting the Christchurch City Choir in 2013.
Kenneth Cornish died in 2017.
Mark Pedrotti lives in Canada. (I think)
Song of Destiny Brahms – this is an orchestrally accompanied choral setting of a poem written by Friedrich Hoelderlin and Brahms began working on it in 1868 and completed working on it in 1871. The delay was due to Brahms’s indecision as to how the piece should conclude.
In the poem Hoelderlin describes ‘the difference between our lives in heaven and earth: in heaven’s light-filled heights there is a sense of blissful calm, whereas on earth we wander around restlessly while plunging into uncertainty’. (From the Berlin Philharmonic website).
Prior to Brahms settling in Vienna, he worked as a choral conductor in several locations.
It is scored for two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, three trombones, timpani, strings and a four-part chorus.
The first performance was in 1886 and it was played at Brahms’s memorial concert in 1897.
Serenade to Music Vaughan Williams
This piece was written for a concert on the 5th October 1938 to commemorate the British conductor, Sir Henry Wood who conducted the proms for nearly 50 years. This was the date of the 50th anniversary of Wood’s first concert. It also pays tribute to Shakespeare by adapting to music a poetic discussion from Act V Scene 1 from the Merchant of Venice. From the website www.bachtrack.com ‘in this scene, the declaration of love is juxtaposed with comparisons of music to the movement of celestial bodies and contemplation of the beauty of music by night and by day’. It is a choral meditation on the nature of music and its power to enrapture.
Rachnaminoff played in the first half of the concert on the 5th October 1938 and during the second half he was an audience member. He wept when he heard this piece because he was so overcome by the beauty of the music.
On the 15th October 1938 the first recording was made of this music and the same soloists and orchestra that played at the concert earlier in the month performed. Vaughan Williams and HMV (the recording company) donated the copyright fees to the Henry Wood Jubilee Fund which was established to endow London Hospital beds for British orchestral musicians disabled by infirmity.
It is scored for four sopranos, altos and tenors along with two baritones and two basses. Each singer has a short solo and in addition to this, sings as part of the ensemble.
The Serenade score has the initials of each singer next to their part. Each part was written to suit a particular soloist, their unique voice and style.
It begins with an exquisite violin solo.
Sir Henry Wood, forever associated with the Promenade Concerts which he conducted for half a century. Founded in 1895, they became known after his death as the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts (now the BBC Proms). February 1934 P012308, from Alamy.com
Sir Henry Wood was born on 3rd March 1869 in Oxford St, London. He firstly married Olga Hillman formerly Michailoff, a singer who was born in Russia in 1898. Olga died in 1909 and he married Muriel Ellen Greatrex, also a singer in 1911 with whom he had two daughters. Later he separated from his second wife and for the last ten years of his life he lived with Jessie Linton, a former pupil.
1911 Census
Carmina Burana
This work was first performed in Frankfurt on 6th June 1937. Carmina Burana is a set of almost 200 medieval poems and songs that were discovered in the library of the Benedictine Monastery of Beuren near Munich in 1803. The poems are a mixture of verses by monks and lyrics by goliards (wandering scholar minstrels). Carmina means songs, while Burana is the Latinised form of Beuren, the name of the Benedictine Monastery in Bavaria. So, Carmina Burana can be translated as Songs of Beuren. They cover a wide range of human aspects – humour, bawdiness sadness, Christian and pagan. Off took 24 of these poems and arranged them in Carmina Burana.
The work consists of three parts, and these parts are preceded and ended with an invocation to Fortune. Fortuna was the Roman Goddess of Fortune, she spins her wheel, and the questions are, who will win and who will lose. The three parts are Springtime, In the Tavern and Court of Love.
Carmina Burana combines the theatricality of medieval procession with simple, powerful orchestration, a perfect combination of music and stage. Off wishes to blend the spectacle of the renaissance pageant with the freedom of modern drama. He saw the theatre as a place where the modern audience should be delighted by sound, movement and colour, yet at the same time be presented with concepts and ideas rather than simple narratives. The work is shot through with medieval symbolism and could be described as a scenic cantata.
Carl Orff from Alamy.com
It demands a large orchestra with a sizeable percussion section which helps to provide a wide variety of orchestral colour. The notes that accompany this page describe that the large percussion section needs to include 5 timpani, 3 glockenspiels, xylophone, castanets, ratchet, jingle, triangle, wood blocks, large and small cymbals, gong, bell, various drums, celesta and two pianos.
The notes state ‘Orff’s style throughout is marked by a simplicity and directness of expression which is really a reaction against the Teutonic intellectualism of his contemporaries like Schoenberg. Orff prefers strophic structures, ostinato rhythms, ‘parody’ melodies (ranging from mock plainsong to Romantic opera arioso), uncomplicated textures (with a complete absence of contrapuntal devices), clear tonality and deliberately ‘primitive’ harmonies (featuring many parts moving in unisons, octaves, thirds and fifths).
Rhythm was often the primary element in Orff’s music, the metre will change freely from one bar to the next.
Part of this work has been used extensively, such as in advertisements. One well-known surfing advertisement in the 1970s used the music for an Old Spice aftershave promotion.
References
British Newspapers online