The festival will conclude with a piece that will captivate even those who don’t normally listen to classical music. Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana – the most performed cantata in the world – will be heard in all its spontaneity, drama and playfulness of medieval songs.

Carl Orff
Carmina Burana

Alžběta Poláčková – soprano
Josef Moravec – tenor
Filip Bandžak – baritone
Czech Academic Choir Brno
Michal Vajda – choirmaster
Hradec Králové Children’s Choir Jitro– children’s choir
Hradec Králové Philharmonic
Kaspar Zehnder – conductor

The famous cantata Carmina Burana by German composer Carl Orff ranks today among the most frequently performed works of 20th-century classical music. The premiere of this full-length composition took place in 1937 in Frankfurt am Main. Its phenomenal success, however, came only after it was taken up in the early 1940s by leading German conductors Karl Böhm and, above all, Herbert von Karajan.

“Everything I have written so far can be destroyed. It is only with Carmina Burana that my work truly begins!” the composer is said to have declared after the premiere. For his cantata, Orff selected twenty-four songs taken from medieval manuscripts discovered in the early 19th century at the monastery of Benediktbeuern in the Bavarian Alps. The texts—often vulgar and blasphemous in nature—were once sung by hedonistic students and wandering monks celebrating their boisterous pleasures.

Orff conceived the musical setting on a truly monumental scale, calling for massive forces: three vocal soloists, three choirs (including a boys’ choir), and a large orchestra with triple woodwinds, two pianos, and no fewer than five percussionists. The infectious power of Orff’s music has secured the work’s immense popularity, allowing Carmina Burana to permeate film, advertising, and popular culture.