Carmina Burana (WARNING - BAD PUN ALERT)

[Craig Clark]

davemarc <davemarc at panix.com> writes:


> Dashed off by Paul Siskind, an *extraordinary* musical academic currently
> living in Minneapolis:
> 
> "I might get my PhD revoked for saying this, but I think that 
> Carmina Burana is a phenomenal piece!  Beyond it's [hey, nobody's
> perfect--davemarc] obvious surface 
> attractiveness (driving rhythms, flashy orchestration, etc.), I think that 
> there's a lot of compositional substance underneath the surface (i.e. 
> large-scale pacing, etc.), if considered in light of the style of the piece.  I 
> also think that Orff's style is very well matched to the (wonderful) poetry he 
> chose.  Further, it's hard in 1996 (i.e. post-Minimalism) to appreciate how 
> innovative Orff's style was back in the 40s.  I really do think that it is a 
> masterpiece of 20th-century art music."

Er, is this in doubt? I fell in love with the piece when I was ten 
years old and was dragooned into being one of the ragazzi for three 
performances (I'll leave it to you foax to imagine a nascent P-lister 
standing singing "Amor volat unique..."). For a kid who thought, in 
those heady days (1973) that Slade and Gary Glitter were where it was
at, it had to be one helluva piece of music. 

I saw a wonderful sig a few months back that I'd like to share with 
you...

"You say Car-MEE-na, I say Car-MY-na
 You say Bur-AH-na, I say Bur-AY-na
 Car-MEE-na, Car-MY-na, Bur-AH-na, Bur-AY-na -
 Let's Carl the whole thing Orff."

Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
 the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
 on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"