The Song you ALREADY know! The backstory you NEED to know!
“O Fortuna” from “Carmina Burana”
Every person has a backstory!!
Every song has a backstory! Perhaps look up Billy Joel’s “The Piano Man”!
Be curious! (not judgemental)
You KNOW this Medieval Latin Goliatdic poem (now a song), as part of “Carmina Burana”, whether from a beer commercial or other product, or from movies adding suspense and/or vexations about the inexorable fate that rules both gods and mortals in Roman mythology.
Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in the Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It was also the administrative language in the former Roman Provinces of Mauritania, Numidia, and Africa Proconsulsris under the Vandals, the Byzantines and the Romano-Berber Kingdoms until Latin declined after the Arab Conquest. Medieval Latin in Southern and Central Visigothic Hispanic, conquered by the Arabs immediately after North Africa, experienced a similar fate, only recovering its importance after the Reconquista by the Northern Christian Kingdoms. In this region, it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned as the main medium of scholarly exchange, as the liturgical language (the one spoken during Masses - I remember hearing Latin pre-Vatican 2 (before 1966) being spoken at the Holy Rosary Cathedral masses) of the Roman Catholic Church, and as the working language of science, literature, law, and administration.
German Composer Carl Orff encountered the poem collection in 1934 and worked with a Latin and Greek enthusiast, Michel Hofmann, to select and organize 24 of the poems into a libretto (the spoken dialogue aka the lyrics). Orff composed his “Carmina Burana” using the libretto, in 1935–1936. It was first performed by the German Frankfurt Opera on June 8, 1937 to great success. The cantata is composed of 25 movements in five sections, with "O Fortuna" providing a compositional frame, appearing as the first movement and reprised (repeated/brought full circle) for the twenty-fifth, both in sections titled "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi" (Fortune, Empress of the World).
Scott Horton wrote (in Harper's Magazine) that the text of the poem highlights how few people, at the time it was written, "felt any control over their own destiny" while at the same time, it "rings with a passion for life, a demand to seize and treasure the sweet moments that pitiful human existence affords."
The “O Fortuna” poem in English, was originally composed by a de-frocked Priest. Think about his situation, having been at the altar saying Mass, and now having been “de-frocked” (kicked out of the Catholic Church!). What a fate! What a change of Fortune! Where will he go, where will he eat, who will take him in, how will he survive?
Orff was inspired both by the poem and the medieval symbol of the Rota Fortunae, or Wheel of Fortune, which the goddess Fortuna spins at random, causing some people to suffer while others find wealth. The Rota Fortunae appears in a version of the poetry collection known as the Codex Buranas. The repetition of the musical accompaniment draws a comparison to the spinning of the wheel.
Full Carmina Burana to hear in its entirety of - hour and 11- minutes:
As usual, musicians are of many talents including graphic arts and rewriting lyrics which are “misheard”. IF YOU DARE: watch this YouTube of “Gopher Tuna” BUT be forewarned that once you've heard it, you can NEVER un-hear it! Mwaaaaaaahhhaaaaaaahaaaaa!!!!!!!!
Gopher Tuna: https://youtu.be/nIwrgAnx6Q8
"O Fortuna" opens at a slow pace with thumping drums and energetic choir that drops quickly into a whisper, building slowly in a steady crescendo of drums and short string and horn notes peaking on one last long powerful note and ending abruptly. Conductor Marin Alsop wrote that it "begins with all forces at full throttle, then immediately scales back in an ominous warning repetition that builds to a climactic close". The tone is modal, with melody built around a tonal center, until the last nine bars. The last syllable of the song shifts in both key and emotional valence, from d minor to D Major to punch through Fortune’s fates as applied to us humans.
Alsop describes the piece as "a spectacle" which appeals to all of the senses, intentionally defying neat categorization. According to David Clem, "the music signifies the upturn of Fortune's wheel, while the text represents the downturn.”
“O Fortuna”:
O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing
ever waning;
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
playing with mental clarity;
poverty
and power
it melts them like ice.
Fate – monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,
you are malevolent,
devoid of security
and ever fading to nothing,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;
now through the game
I bring my bare back
to your villainy.
Fate, in health
and virtue
is against me,
driven on
and weighted down,
always enslaved.
So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;
since Fate
strikes down the strong,
everyone weep with me!
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Carmina Burana was successful from its first staging by the Frankfurt Opera in 1937, propelling Carl Orff's career and becoming his best known work. "O Fortuna" in particular has become one of the most recognizable compositions in popular culture. In 2009, it topped a BBC list of most widely heard classical tracks, with BBC Radio 2 head of programming calling it "a timeless piece of music that continues to be played, performed and loved over 70 years after its composition." A Radio Netherlandsdocumentary attributes its popular appeal to the combination of choruses, large orchestra, interesting instrument combinations, tight rhythm, and the extent to which it is singable and memorable.
In The Oxford Handbook of Music and Advertising, Clem highlights how the poem's themes like human struggle and fate are commonly divorced from popular usage. He takes as an example the use of the music in an Applebee’s advertisement which changes the words to be about a new promotion, drawing on the arrangement simply for its signification of the vernacular concept of "epic" (an "epic deal").
Widespread use of "O Fortuna" in advertising and other forms of popular culture may have begun with the trailer for the 1981 movie “Excalibur”, which uses the song in its entirety.
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Feel free to google the other songs including my favourite Section 4:
4. In Taberna (In the Tavern)
An exclusively male section filled with raucous songs about drinking, gambling, and excess.
Estuans interius: An angry, fast-paced baritone confession.
Olim lacus colueram: A grotesque and difficult tenor solo sung in falsetto, representing a baby swan (the cygnet) being roasted on a spit. In the YouTube, this starts at the 34:50 mark.
Ego sum abbas: A "drunk" baritone parodying a church abbot.
In taberna quando sumus: A massive, frenetic drinking chorus listing everyone—from the pope to the beggar—who drinks.
Lyrics:
In taberna quando sumus - in the YouTube it starts at 32:15mark - (The raucous Tavern Song when trombones play oompahs oompahs + high & low notes and generally are “in the bar!) (think about this one Hee Hee Hee)
When we are in the shop (the Tavern)
We don't care what the ground is
But let's get to the game
To whom we always swear
What is going on in the shop? (the Tavern)
Where the cash is the waiter
This is the work to complain
If I say anything, let it be heard.
Some play, some drink
Some live indiscriminately
But in the game they stay
Some of them are naked
Some are dressed there
Some are dressed in sacks.
There no one fears death
But instead of Bacchus they cast lots
First, for wine coins
From this the libertines will drink
They will drink once for the captives
After this they shall drink three times for the living
Four times for all Christians
Five times for the faithful deceased
Six times for the vain sisters (“Nuns”)
Seven times for the soldiers of the forest
Eight times for the perverted brothers
Nonies for the scattered monks.
Millions for sailors
Eleven thousand for disagreements
Twelve times for penitents
Thirteen for the travel agents
Both for the pope and for the king
All will drink without law.
The old man drinks, the old man drinks
The soldier drinks, the clergy drinks
He drinks, she drinks
The servant drinks with the maid
He drinks fast, he drinks lazy
He drinks white, he drinks black
He drinks constantly, he drinks wildly
He drinks raw, he drinks big.
The poor man drinks and is sick
The exile and the unknown drink
A child drinks, an old man drinks.
The prince and the dean drink
The sister (known now as a Nun) drinks, the brother (nowadays a friar/deacon) drinks
The old man drinks, the mother drinks
She drinks, he drinks
A hundred will drink, a thousand will drink.
A little six hundred coins
Durant, when immoderately enough
They will all drink to no end
Although they were drinking in their minds
Thus all nations gnaw at us
And so we will be in need
Let those who bite us be confounded
And they are not written with the righteous.
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I started playing professionally in 1980 at the age of 19, then moved into the Regina Symphony Orchestra (RSO) in 1987 once a position was available. On October 29th, 2019, my left eye had a central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO) which instantly stopped my playing permanently. I could still drive with one eye, and I continue to have eye injections every 6 weeks to maintain what vision I can still have.
I have been so pleased in my 39-year professional career to have played “Carmina Burana” twice, with its fabulous (and loud and raucous trombone section parts from piannissimo super high notes to forte - what a crescendo!!)! - to the frenetic drinking chorus (Hokay, so perhaps I’ve had frenetic drinking times,……. maybe,……. always good times!) First time was in the 1993-1994 season when I was expecting Laura who was born in March 1994. Under the baton of the wonderful Conductor Kathryn Laurin, the RSO musicians with the fabulous voices of the Regina Philharmonic Chorus + soloists, presented a most wonderful performance! During our brief breaks in rehearsals, there were many people who bee-lined for the bathrooms, and the Chorus & my fellow musicians always let me (the “pregnant one”) cut in line for captain obvious reasons!!!! Everyone helps each other!
Ever song has its backstory and THIS is one of my favourites! Enjoy, and be curious!
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