Carmina Burana - Musical Settings

Musical Settings

About one-quarter of the poems in the Carmina Burana are accompanied in the manuscript by music using unheighted, staffless neumes, an archaic system of musical notation that by the time of the manuscript had largely been superseded by staffed neumes. Unheighted neumes only indicate whether a given note is pitched higher or lower than the preceding note, without giving any indication of how much change in pitch there is between two notes, so they are useful only as mnemonic devices for singers who are already familiar with the melody. However, it is possible to identify many of those melodies by comparing them with melodies notated in staffed neumes in other contemporary manuscripts from the schools of Notre Dame and Saint Martial.

Between 1935 and 1936, German composer Carl Orff composed music, also called Carmina Burana, for 24 of the poems. The single song "O Fortuna" (the Roman goddess of luck and fate), from the movement "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi", is often played or excerpted in many settings such as films. Orff's composition has been performed by many ensembles.

Other musical settings include:

• Pieces by Norwegian doom/gothic metal band Theatre of Tragedy, such as "Amor volat undique" and "Circa mea pectora" in the song "Venus" on their 1998 album Aégis
• Synth/Medieval, French band Era recorded a mix called "The Mass" featuring pieces of "O Fortuna" from the original Carmina Burana.
• Composer John Paul used a portion of the lyrics of "Fas et nefas ambulant" in the musical score of the video game Gauntlet Legends.
• Philip Pickett and the New London Consort issued a 4-volume set of Carmina Burana settings using medieval instrumentation and performance techniques.
• Pieces by the Norwegian gothic metal musical group Tristania ("Wormwood" from their 2001 album World of Glass)
• German band Qntal set several hymns of Carmina Burana to electro-medieval music.
• German band Corvus Corax recorded Cantus Buranus, a full-length opera set to the original Carmina Burana manuscript in 2005, and released Cantus Buranus Werk II in 2008.
• Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu used portions of "O Fortuna", "Estuans interius", and "Veni, veni, venias" for the final boss theme "One-Winged Angel" in Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII.
• The Trans-Siberian Orchestra included the song "Carmina Burana" on their 2009 album Night Castle.
• German electronic band Enigma used samples from Carmina Burana in their 2000 album The Screen Behind the Mirror.
• Composer Ryan Scott Oliver quoted parts of the text (particularly "O Fortuna") in the song "Good Lady" that he wrote for the musical 35mm.