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March 29 Fortuna Imperatrix MundiFortuna Imperatrix Mundi (Fortune, Empress of the World)
The lyrics to Carl Orff's O Fortuna from Carmina Burana
O Fortuna O Fortune,
velut luna like the moon statu variabilis, you are changeable, semper crescis ever waxing aut decrescis; and waning; vita detestabilis hateful life nunc obdurat first oppresses et tunc curat and then soothes ludo mentis aciem, as fancy takes it; egestatem, poverty potestatem and power dissolvit ut glaciem. it melts them like ice. Sors immanis Fate - monstrous et inanis, and empty, rota tu volubilis, you whirling wheel, status malus, you are malevolent, vana salus well-being is vain semper dissolubilis, and always fades to nothing, obumbrata shadowed et velata and veiled michi quoque niteris; you plague me too; nunc per ludum now through the game dorsum nudum I bring my bare back fero tui sceleris. to your villainy. Sors salutis Fate is against me et virtutis in health michi nunc contraria, and virtue, est affectus driven on et defectus and weighted down, semper in angaria. always enslaved. Hac in hora So at this hour sine mora without delay corde pulsum tangite; pluck the vibrating strings; quod per sortem since Fate sternit fortem, strikes down the string man, mecum omnes plangite! everyone weep with me! Who wrote the music?
Carl Orff was born in Munich on the 10th July, 1895 (and died on March 29, 1982 at the age of 87) and was an educationalist as well as a composer.
Orff wrote a secular cantata, titled "Carmina Burana" based on the poems from the manuscript, but did not use any of the original melodies. The poems comprise religious, political, moral, erotic, Bacchic and Satirical verses. When Orff discovered the Carmina Burana for himself, the poems changed his entire career. He was past forty years old and more prominent in his native Munich as a music educator than a composer. In writing Carmina Burana, he found his own, unmistakable style.
His work contains driving rhythms and exultant hedonism, and brought him to wide attention in the musical world.
Lyrics and their originThe poems include the freshness of medieval love lyrics, exuberance of the drinking song, the zest of the sinner's 'confessions', the wild humour of the hymns to gambling and gluttony, the stoic litany to Lady Luck ('Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi') which Orff chose to open and close his score. Sex is also a dominant theme in many of the songs. Who were these richly gifted poets? They called themselves 'goliards' (defrocked monks and minstrels). Traditionally they have been identified as 'vagantes' (vagrant students, vagabond monks and minor clerics), said to have been 'better known for their rioting, gambling and intemperance than for their scholarship'. Yet whatever their social status, their artistic and technical skill seem to place them among the clerical and academic elite of the age. The language used is Latin, with some songs (Numbers 8,9 and 10) in Middle High German.
All of this info came from a great site at http://members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/Carmina/index.html
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