"Carmina Burana" is coming up at the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and I am prepping for it. I must be the only person in the world who has to prep for "Carmina Burana."
This is funny too. At work yesterday I ran into my friend Michelle in the newsroom and we were talking about what we were working on and I mentioned Carl Orff. And Michelle said, "Wasn't he known for teaching kids music?"
"Yes, he was," I said. I had just read about how Orff taught kids about rhythm, and this course he came up with is still used, etc. Then I stopped. "Michelle, how did you know this?" I asked. "I did not know this!"
I have just simply never gotten around much to Carl Orff, is all. I do not think I have to be ashamed writing that. When you are into music you have to get around to things. You need time. In my life I have squandered an inordinate amount of time on, say, obscure Schubert songs. There are only so many hours in a day, in a week, in your life. Plus I work a full-time job. So there are some things I have not heard.
The funny thing about "Carmina Burana" is everyone else knows it but me.
I mean, of course I know this.
But I did not know, for instance, this.
I am listening to it thinking: "Isn't that beautiful?" Because I am sorry, whatever your opinions on "Carmina Burana," it is. Orff got it right with this little aria.
Then YouTube starts tossing other recordings up at me. Sarah Brightman sang it. Charlotte Church. Barbra Streisand, for heaven's sake. All these popular popsters. How could I miss it? But I did.
I am the only one in the world who never heard it!
The only one!
I consider your lack of deep knowledge about Carmina Burana to be a sign of your exceedingly good taste and discernment. Even those who love this work (justifiably - it has a lot to offer) will admit, when pressed, it is a bit of a choral-orchestra 'freak show'. I would love to see a graph of those who are enamored of Carmina Burana with those who love the much more nuanced world of Schubert songs. If the two groups were represented by concentric circles, I'd guess the overlap is small. So Mary - you are among the proud, the few, who appreciate both. Hats off to you for all the time you devoted to the familiar and obscure world of those luscious miniatures we call Schubert songs - and doing so before you were taken in by the outsized, easy appeal of Carmina Burana.
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