Carl Orff

Carmina Burana

Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is amongst the most important compositions of the 20th century. Orff was fascinated by the original power and pictorial imagination of this medieval song collection, compiled in the 13th century in the German monastery of Benediktbeuern. ' The Carmina Burana are our Middle Ages', Orff said in 1970 in an interview. 'With the Carmina Burana being played all over the world, it is not my music that's important but to comprehend the occidental power of this body of poetry and to let it work on our imagination.' According to the medieavalist Wolfgang Maaz it is Orff who, besides Umberto Eco, had the most signifant influence on the perception of the Middle Ages in the 20th century..The autograph score is a fair copy written in blue ink throughout. Additional entries in pencil and coloured pencil turn this into a source of extraordinary significance for musicologists and amateurs alike.