O Fortuna

James and I went to the Royal Concert Hall to listen to one of our favourite pieces of music tonight - Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. We have seen it twice before and we both love the music and the words. It is based on twenty-four of the poems from a medieval collection also known as Carmina Burana (Latin for "Songs from Beuern"). Discovered in a monastery in Bavaria at the beginning of the 19th century, the texts were about life and love and fortune and fate, and were written in a mixture of Latin and German. Orff put them to music in the 1930s and they have been popular ever since, with orchestra, choirs and soloists making the music very vibrant and striking. My personal favourite is the rollicking drinking song in the tavern which lists all the revellers, but it's all good. One song is even sung in a high falsetto by an understandably miserable roasting swan - what's not to love!