Carmina Burana 布蘭詩歌 (2015, rev. 2017)

Team

Mixed Voices, A Capella

Preface

Carmina Burana was commissioned by Hong Kong Voices, an ensemble of local musicians who often highlight the rich sacred choral tradition in their performances. I wanted to respond to their repertoire by writing a work that uses a sacred Latin text (or at least one that references the church), but also write specifically for a chorus that can speak and sing in fluent Cantonese. For this work, I chose two poems from the Carmina Burana, the same set of 254 poems from an 11th- or 12th-century manuscript that Carl Orff used for his famous 1936 cantata.

The original Carmina Burana manuscript included poems that can be roughly divided into three thematic areas: songs about morals which sometimes also satirize the church, songs about love, and songs about drinking and general merriment. The three movements of my Carmina Burana similarly reflect these themes; I used a poem that warns of a corrupted clergy (Recitative: Ecce sonat in aperto) and a lively dance-song about students taking the day off to play and celebrate (Primo vere: Tempus hoc letitie). For “love”, I turned to a beautiful poem of unrequited love by Song-dynasty poet 賀鑄 (also from the 11th and 12th century).

Heard

• June 20, 2015 Hong Kong Voices, China Congregational Church, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

• June 3, 2017 Hong Kong Voices, St Andrew’s Church, Kowloon, Hong Kong
  
  

Image and select photos from the June 2017 concert by Tang Ho-ching.