More than melodramatic mood music, Carmina Burana is a song cycle composed by Carl Orff using poems found in a Bavarian monastery in 1807. Written in a dialect form of Medieval Latin by monks and theology students of the 11th to 13th centuries, the verse satirizes the excesses and hypocrisies of the church.
The pieces ponder the grinding wheel of fortune (the explosive and massive first song), celebrate sex and drinking, lament losses at the gaming table, and revel in the joy of love in springtime, all leading, of course, to incomprehensible death.
In this Altria Masterworks series concert, conductor Alastair Willis will lead the Richmond Symphony, accompanied by the Richmond Symphony Chorus, under the baton of Erin Freeman. Performances are set for Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. and Sept. 27 at 3 p.m. in the reopened Carpenter Theatre, with tickets ranging from $17 to $72. For more information, call 788-1212 or visit richmondsymphony.com .
