A Wonderful Performance of Carl Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana’

Welcome to ‘Dodd’s DSD Discoveries’, a review series from NativeDSD Senior Music Reviewer Bill Dodd. This series focuses on Bill’s latest selections, with new reviews regularly.

Gabor Hollerung conducts the Budafok Dohnanyi Orchestra, The Budapest Academic Choral Society, and 4 marvelous soloists in the Carmina Burana cantata, composed in 1935 and 1936 by Carl Orff, and based on 24 poems from the medieval collection Carmina Burana. It’s sung in Latin, as well as Middle High German. Even if you are not familiar with the work, you’ve heard the first “song” a gazillion times.

This is not music from the middle ages, but it’s music that portrays the middle ages perfectly. I’ve heard many recordings which are simply too polite. The Carmina Burana needs to be tuneful, rowdy, and bursting with life! Here’s a painting by Pieter Bruegel from 1566 (The Wedding Dance) which I think is an excellent visualization of what this music is all about.

I’ve got recordings of the Carmina Burana by Eugen Jochum and Eugene Ormandy that I wouldn’t want to be without, but this superbly recorded performance on Hunnia is a sparkling good time! Don’t miss it!