Carmina Burana – Carl Orff

Love, sex, drinking, gambling, fate, and fortune – EastEnders plotlines any day of the week; but there is nothing new here. Composed in the 1930s and written exclusively for entertainment, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana tackles those very same themes with gusto, style and passion. Inspired by a set of medieval poems, this is a huge favourite among concert-goers and one of the most popular pieces in the classical music repertoire.

It has inspired others to produce their own versions, from the death metal group Therion to rappers Naz and Puff Daddy. We have decided that 130 voices simultaneously rapping do not show the choir to its best, so we are sticking to Orff’s original choral version.

Conductor Christopher Fletcher is looking forward to this concert and says:

“After our spring performance of Stabat Mater, the summer concert programme is more main-stream as Carmina Burana is hugely popular with both the choir and our audience.”

From the Bavarian Highlands – Edward Elgar

In the autumn of 1894 Edward Elgar began a succession of holidays in Bavaria. The landscape, people, their folk songs and dances inspired Elgar to compose this collection of six choral songs. The lyrics are by his wife Alice who gave the songs sub-titles in recollection of favourite places visited during the holidays.

Christopher says the piece reminds him of a holiday photo album:

“These days we take our cameras on holiday with us to capture memories of the places we visit. Elgar couldn’t do this and so, being a composer, made his holiday memories musical ones. In his own unique and brilliant way he shares with us his love of Bavaria, creating a portrait of the landscape and its people with words and sounds.”

CARL ORFF (1895-1982)

The German composer Carl Orff is widely known for his work in music education, particularly in exploration of the connections between music and movement. In his compositions he found a similar connection between the dramatic and the musical, couched in his very personal style of writing, with its insistent, repeated patterns of notes and compelling rhythms.

The best known of all Orff’s works is Carmina Burana, a large scale work making use of the medieval Latin and Old German lyrics found at the monastery of Benediktbeuern. The work has become even more familiar to unmusical audiences by use of elements from it in advertising and in films. Carmina Burana is generally performed only as a form of secular oratorio, in the concert hall, rather than on the stage, as is Catulli Carmina (Songs of Catullus), again intended for theatrical use.

(naxos.com)

EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934)

Edward Elgar was the greatest English composer since Purcell, and the first to win widespread international recognition. The confidently crafted surface of his music conceals a complex and sensitive personality, shaped in hidebound Victorian society by consciousness of his status as an outsider: he was the son of a music shopkeeper and piano tuner in provincial Worcester, and brought up as a Catholic. Elgar had a practical training as a performer on the violin and other instruments, and taught himself composition.

His reputation was slow to spread beyond the West Midlands, but he attained national prominence in 1899 when his ‘Enigma’ Variations were premiered in London. His next major work, the oratorio The Dream of Gerontius, quickly became successful in Britain and Germany. A heady decade followed which saw the composition of two further oratorios, The Apostles and The Kingdom, and a stream of orchestral works culminating in the First Symphony and the Violin Concerto.

Elgar moved to London, and took on the conductorship of the London Symphony Orchestra for the 1911/12 season. But the Second Symphony, the choral ode The Music Makers and the symphonic study Falstaff were discouragingly received.

After the premiere of the Cello Concerto in 1919 and the death of his wife the following year, Elgar moved back to the West Midlands and went into virtual retirement. However, he was working with renewed energy on an opera and a Third Symphony when he died in 1934.

(bbc.co.uk/music)

CARMINA BURANA

The name has Latin roots – “Carmina” means “songs”, while “Burana” is the Latinised form of Beuren, the name of the Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuren in Bavaria.

So, “Carmina Burana” translates as “Songs Of Beuren”, and refers to a collection of early 13th-century songs and poems that was discovered in Beuren in 1803 – although it has since been established that the collection originated from Seckau Abbey, Austria – and is now housed in the Bavarian State Library.

The songs (over 1000 of them) were written in a mix of Latin, German and medieval French by the Goliards, a band of poet-musicians comprising scholars and clerical students, who celebrated with earthy humour the joys of the tavern, dance, nature, love and lust. Although Orff set the original texts, he chose not to use the primitive musical notation that accompanied some of the songs.

(extract from www.classicfm.com)

FROM THE BAVARIAN HIGHLANDS

During the 1890s, the Elgars spent a succession of holidays in Southern Bavaria, staying in Oberstdorf in 1892 and in Garmisch in four of the following five years. In those days, Garmisch had not developed into the bustling resort it is today and evening entertainment was sparse and unsophisticated. The Elgars spent a number of evenings in local hostelries where they drank while watching displays of folk dances of the region. During the day they walked and admired the Alpine scenery.

Both activities fired their imagination. On returning from their 1894 holiday, and despite having already embarked on the composition of King Olaf, Elgar began work setting to music six poems Alice had written in the style of Bavarian folksongs. It should be stressed that words and music were original parodies of the Bavarian style, not translations or transliterations of genuine folksongs. The influence of the Elgars’ recent holidays is, however, clear.

(extract from elgar.org)

Michael Dewis – baritone

Michael Dewis studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (1990-1995), The Opera Course at the Guildhall School (1995-1996) and the National Opera Studio (1996-1997). Prizes and awards include the Schubert Prize of Great Britain, The Harold Rosenthal award for Opera and the Anna Wyburd prize for Lieder.

He has sung regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in roles such as Prince Afron (Le Coq d’Or), Flemish Deputy (Don Carlos), Prince Narumov (Pique Dame), The Narrator (Paul Bunyen-as cover) and others. With the English National Opera he has sung Zurga (The Pearl Fishers) and covered Chou En-lai (Nixon in China). With Welsh National Opera he covered Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) and sang a Dr Falke (Die Fledermaus).

He has sung widely in Europe, including a period as Principal Baritone in the Stadttheater Bremerhaven. Roles abroad have included Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), Marcello (Bohème), Valentin (Faust), Di Luna (Il Trovatore) Renato (Un Ballo in Maschera) Che (Evita) and many others. For the Wexford Festival he has sung Papageno (Die Zauberflöte) and Jack Rance (La Fanciulla del West).

On the concert platform he has sung all of the main choral works with orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Sinfonietta and Symphony and the London Symphony Orchestra in all of the major concert venues in Great Britain (Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, The Barbican etc). Recordings include Tippett’s Child of our Time (France) and Purcell’s King Arthur (Holland with Ton Koopman).

Catherine Hamilton – soprano.

Catherine received a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music from the age of ten. After gaining a BA Hons in Music and English from Southampton University, she returned to the Royal Academy on the post-graduate opera course and was awarded the Diploma of Advanced Studies, the Camden Trust Award, the Flora Nielsen Prize and LRAM with Distinction.

Catherine is an experienced and versatile performer whose international career has incorporated opera, oratorio, recitals and musical theatre.

Her operatic performances have taken her throughout Europe. Her roles have included Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème, and Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen. Closer to home she has sung Valencienne in Lehar’s The Merry Widow and Oscar in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera for Opera Holland Park.

Catherine is in great demand as an oratorio soloist and has sung extensively for choirs and choral societies at major venues across the UK and overseas.  Recent highlights include Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Exultate Jubilate in Dunkirk, Brahms’ Requiem for the Shaldon Festival with Sir David Willcocks, Handel’s Messiah in Arundel Cathedral and Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony in Exeter Cathedral.

She has also enjoyed much success on the concert platform, most notably at the Chichester Gala festivities, the Festivale Saint-Eloi in France, Theatre Royal, Bath and the Dukes Hall at the Royal Academy of Music.

Catherine made her West End debut as the younger Maria Callas in the acclaimed production of Masterclass, and toured Germany as Christine in Das Phantom der Oper. She also performed in Sondheim’s The Frogs at the London Barbican.

Among her recordings is the official royal lullaby for HRH Prince William, the album ‘Chansons Tristes’ accompanied by acclaimed pianist, Jeremy Brown, a live performance on Radio Belge of Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia and a specially commissioned choral work written for Catherine, by composer Cyril Lloyd.

Since moving to Devon, Catherine has been actively involved in all aspects of music in the area, including her role as vocal adviser for Cornwall.

Future engagements include a concert tour of Rome, culminating in a performance of Fauré’s Requiem in St. Peter’s Rome and The Magic of Mozart for Devon Opera later this year.

Leslie Baker – tenor

Leslie Baker trained as a Choral Scholar at Cambridge where he gained a degree in Music. He taught music at Felsted School in Essex for 13 years and then spent a further 6 years as Director of Music at Colyton Grammar School in Devon. Since 1992 he has worked as a freelance woodwind and singing teacher in East Devon. As an opera singer he has sung with companies in Essex and Devon taking leading tenor roles in works by Handel, Mozart, Donizetti, Rossini, Bizet, Lehar, Britten, Sullivan and others.  He has an extensive oratorio repertoire and has performed with many Choirs and Choral Societies in the South West. He also gives concerts and recitals both singing and playing the clarinet and has conducted several local choral and dramatic societies and has just retired after twelve years as Musical Director of the Seaton Choral Society.