Sir Simon Rattle conducts “Carmina Burana” at the 2004 New Year’s Eve Concert

Orff’s cantata is a setting of often highly profane medieval poems named after the Abbey of Benediktbeuren, where these Songs of Beuren were discovered. Written in a mixture of Latin and Middle High German, they graphically hymn the pleasures of eating, drinking, gambling and loving, encouraging Orff to create the musical equivalent of a brightly coloured illustrated broadsheet whose verve and range of colour have turned this into one of the most frequently performed works of the 20th century.

At this Philharmoniker’s New Year’s Eve Concert, the critic of the Tagesspiegel was impressed most of all by “the instrumental colours of the orchestral musicians, by the sound mixtures produced by the chorus and by the seductive skills of the soloists. A trained percussionist, Simon Rattle was able to unleash forces that time and again recalled Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring: a springtime festival that ends on a positive note.” The concert’s no less festive framework was provided by Ludwig van Beethoven’s jubilant Leonore Overture and, as a splendid end to the evening, the “Hallelujah” Chorus from Handel’s Messiah.

Berliner Philharmoniker

Sir Simon Rattle