CARMINA BURANA: What’s the score…with Maestro Peter Bay
By Eva Kahn
In the fall of 2005, Maestro Peter Bay raised his baton before the artists of Austin Symphony Orchestra, Conspirare Symphonic Choir, and Ballet Austin inside the Long Center for the Performing Arts. With a flick of his wrists, Bay launched into “O Fortuna,” one of the most famous musical opening movements in the world, as three performing arts organizations debuted Ballet Austin Artistic Director Stephen Mills’ CARMINA BURANA.
Now, more than two decades later, Maestro Bay prepares to conduct this intoxicating mix of music, song, and dance for the third time. He shares his thoughts on the score and its evolution and on the three-way coordination necessary to bring this fan-favorite back to the stage.
What exactly is CARMINA BURANA and how is it intended to be performed?
BAY: CARMINA BURANA is a multimedia production — dance, some visuals, staging, and of course live singing and playing by an orchestra. The (musical) piece premiered in 1937, and it took (composer) Carl Orff about a year and a half to write it.
It’s most often done as a concert piece with the orchestra on the stage, and the chorus and the soloists. Orff’s original intent was for it to be accompanied by dance. The concert version sort of took over, and it’s probably a little cheaper (for many presenters) to do it without the dance.
Carmina Burana’s score is partially responsible for creating a musical revolution. How was it received upon its premiere?
BAY: I believe the initial reviews were very positive, but a lot of critics were very perplexed by the piece. As Carl Orff was a German composer, his predecessors would have been Wagner, Brahms, and so forth, and Carl Orff’s music is nothing like theirs. It’s very colorful, yet it doesn’t follow a symphonic form. There are individual, little movements. There’s no development as such, they’re just a collection of songs. It did strike a lot of music critics as a very strange and unusual piece.
It really didn’t come into its own until the early 1950s, when a recording of it came out, which spawned more recordings, and now it’s arguably one of the most popular pieces of music for live performance.
What is the secret to Carmina Burana’s popularity?
BAY: This piece has become very popular for a number of reasons. The music itself is very colorful — there’s a lot of humor in it, there’s some romance in it. The orchestration is so huge at times, it’s bursting with energy and volume.
I guess in the last decade or two, the first movement, which is called “O Fortuna,” has taken a life of its own. It became a disco tune; it’s been used in commercials; I almost hear it 2–3 times a year during football games. It’s taken on a lot of “non-Orffean” connotations since the piece was written. It is now one of the most recorded pieces.
When did you first hear Carmina Burana? What did you think of it?
BAY: The first time I heard the piece was on a record. The record jacket was appealing. And I think the recording was by Eugene Ormandy*. I took it out of the library as a kid, and I was really fascinated by the sounds. It was unlike any other piece I’d ever heard, and I understand that the recording sold many many copies.
Since then, there are a lot of other recordings that have taken over. There’s one by Eugen Jochum** that was done with Orff’s supervision; he was there for the recording sessions. To this day, that’s one of my favorite, if not the favorite recording. It’s a combination of the conducting, the singing, the chorus — these three soloists were spectacular — and the stereophonic sound quality of the recording. It’s a classic.
*Hungarian-born American conductor Eugene Ormandy began his musical career as a violinist and became the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra for 44 years.
*Conductor Eugen Jochum founded the Bavarian Radio Symphony and embodies the epitome of the German Kapellmeister tradition, one in which the conductor is considered a servant of the music.
It must be daunting to be responsible for coordinating the activities of the orchestra, choir, and dancers. How do you approach the challenges of conducting CARMINA BURANA for Ballet Austin?
BAY: Since I’ve been in Austin, I believe this is the sixth time I’ve been involved in Carmina Burana. Four of those times have been concert versions and in a way, that’s the easier way of conducting it. It is a difficult piece to conduct and to coordinate with the orchestra, choruses, and three soloists, but having them all in one place is a lot easier.
When I’ve conducted CARMINA BURANA for Ballet Austin, the orchestra is in the pit and the chorus is behind the scrim of the stage. The chorus has to follow via television monitors and that creates its own set of complications and challenges. The times we’ve done it, it’s worked out very well. With ballet, it’s always challenging, and part of that challenge is making sure the tempos for each of the movements is what the ballet dancers need, whether it’s for solo dancers or ensemble dances.
The process of getting the right tempos for the dancers is made a little simpler by Stephen Mills, who provides me with the recording that he used to choreograph. Based on that recording, I know what tempos he wants, so it’s a really simple process of me absorbing the tempos on the recording, and repeating them in rehearsals and performances.
Stay tuned! Next week, hear from Conspirare’s Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson on how he prepares his choir to sing one of the world’s most well-known choral works.
BALLET AUSTIN in CARMINA BURANA
Featuring the GRAMMY® Award-winning CONSPIRARE Symphonic Choir
With live music by the Austin Symphony Orchestra
FOUR SHOWS ONLY — Sept. 20–22
The Long Center
Tickets starting at $15 at balletaustin.org
