Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra will give a charity concert in support of the Foundation for Pulmonary Medicine, which has been operating for almost 30 years and was established to support Korányi National Pulmonary Institute. The Institute is a renowned centre for pulmonary medicine in Hungary, with unparalleled merits in the prevention and treatment of respiratory diseases, as well as in related research and education. The Foundation contributes to supporting the quality of the outstanding professional work carried out at the Institute and to improving the working environment and conditions.
The concert will feature Carl Orff’s work, which was premièred in Frankfurt in 1937 and has enjoyed unbroken popularity to our days. Following in the footsteps of Stravinsky, through its exciting musical barbarism Carmina Burana takes the listener into a world of student songs proclaiming the fleeting fortune and fleeting love. The songs are taken from a medieval German codex found in the 19th century in the monastery of Benediktbeuren. They exhibit a peculiar ‘carpe diem’ spirit but also some moralising, delivered in sometimes gentle, sometimes humorous, sometimes lyrical tone, that eventually turns to obscenity or mischievousness.
From the abundant material Orff chose a poem on the vicissitudes of fortune (O Fortuna) to be the motto of his work. The cantata-like composition then continues with poems about the awakening of spring and young people playing happily in the spring meadows. The second part is subtitled “In taberna” – in the tavern. The drunken priest appears on the imaginary stage (the short movement is an actual Gregorian parody), and then begins an amusing list of whoever drinks and however they drink (making a summary, too: “a hundred drink, a thousand drink…everyone drinks immoderately and immeasurably”). The third part is about love, including some racy, erotic lines here and there. Finally, the motto-like “O Fortuna” makes a return.
