‘Carmina Burana & the 9th symphony’

This is the challenge of these musicians coming from Prague who specialized year after year in this specific and grand repertoire. It became a passion. And the way they succeed, also year after year, to capture their audience proves, without any doubt, the Excellency of their performance.

PART 1: BEETHOVEN’S 9th SYMPHONY: a timeless masterwork whose end choir “Freude, schöne Götterfunken ….” (Ode an die Freude) became the symbol of the European community.

The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (sometimes known simply as "the Choral"), is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best-known works of the repertoire of classical music. Among critics, it is almost universally considered to be among Beethoven's greatest works, and is considered by some to be the greatest piece of music ever written.
The symphony was the first example of a major composer using voices in a symphony (thus making it a choral symphony). The words are sung during the final movement by four vocal soloists and a chorus. They were taken from the "Ode to Joy", a poem written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785 and revised in 1803, with additions made by the composer. Today, it stands as one of the most played symphonies in the world.
In 2002, Beethoven's autograph score of the Ninth Symphony, held by the Berlin State Library, was added to the United NationsWorld Heritage List, becoming the first musical score to be so honoured.

PART II: CARMINA BURANA FROM CARL ORFF: the most famous oratorio in the world. The lyrics were found in 1803 in an old German abbey. Written in Latin, old German and medieval French, they were never translated, but sung over the whole world.

Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936. It is based on 24 of the poems found in the medievalcollection Carmina Burana. Its full Latin title is Carmina Burana: Cantiones profanæ cantoribus et choris cantandæ comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis (Songs of Beuern: Secular songs for singers and choruses to be sung together with instruments and magic images.) Carmina Burana is part of Trionfi, the musical triptych that also includes Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite. The first and last movements are called "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi" (Fortune, Empress of the World) and start with the very well known "O Fortuna".

In 1934, Orff encountered the text in the 1847 edition of the Carmina Burana by Johann Andreas Schmeller, the original text dating mostly from the 11th or 12th century, including some from the 13th century. Michel Hofmann (de), then a young law student and Latin and Greek enthusiast, assisted Orff in the selection and organization of 24 of these poems into a libretto, mostly in Latin verse, with a small amount of Middle High German and Old Provençal. The selection covers a wide range of topics, as familiar in the 13th century as they are in the 21st century: the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of the return of Spring, and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony,gambling and lust.
(subject to changes without prior notice)