Orff - Carmina Burana

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2009-06-19 rating:
I'm Disappointed in this Performance
Although the playing is pretty clear as are the voices, the speed of many of the sections is really too fast to be enjoyable - I've certainly never heard a faster Carmina Burana. br / br /I bought this CD on the basis of an Amazon review but would not have bought it had I heard those fast sections first.

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review by: date: 2008-12-29 rating:
Fantastic for any price
This is quite simply spectacular. Having played, heard and owning many copies of Carmina Burana I have to say that this is the best recording I have found. The tempo is bang on all the way through, not so fast that it just sounds like a dog's dinner but lively enough to keep you awake. There is a massive energy to the playing and singing that is difficult to capture on a CD but my goodness they've managed it. The playing is precise, especially the fantastic trumpet part in Fortune Plango Vulnera - you can hear every note which isn't easy to do! You can hear every single part and yet it still sounds like an Orchestra rather than a mish-mash of soloists all trying to be heard! I'm aware that I'm rather over-using the superlatives here so I will finish by simply saying that this is the kind of quality you would happily pay mega-bucks for, so at this price it's even better!


review by: date: 2007-03-01 rating:
First-Rate 'Carmina Burana' in First-Rate Sound
What is it about Carmina Burana that makes it so popular? I can still remember hearing it the first time when I was a college student in the 1950s and it was like being hit in the gut. It became a huge hit on our campus and I even participated in a performance of it with student forces. I also remember one night of drinking and snuggling to strains of Orff's masterpiece; the music seemed particularly appropriate somehow. In the ensuing more than fifty years I've never heard or seen a bad performance of it. Something about it makes it bullet-proof. And there's something for everyone in the score: the big lush orchestral and choral outbursts, the chamber music passages with delicate bell sounds, the pounding drums, the passages for almost-unaccompanied solo voices and best of all the many memorable melodies and driving rhythms. And then there's the text which is lewd, lascivious, religious, celebratory, amorous, tender, primitive, barbarous and everything in between. That the text is in Latin and old German makes it more palatable for the prudes amongst us. (Although I remember shocking a little old lady with an off-the-cuff translation of one of the more, erm, interesting bits.) And who can forget the roast swan? br / br /So, how do Alsop and Bournemouth orchestra, chorus, children's chorus and soloists do with this score. Magnificently! There is plenty of vigor and snap in the louder parts and delicate tenderness in such passages as the Vera leta facies. Alsop certainly has the measure of the piece. I mustn't forget to mention the fine soloists: Claire Rutter, soprano; Tom Randle, tenor (who was so wonderful in the recent DVD of Britten's 'Gloriana'; here a fine roast swan), and Markus Eiche, baritone. And the sound recording is possibly the best feature of all even though it is not in SACD. This is a clear, rich, present, resounding and yet transparent sound world. Huzzah to the producer, Tim Handley, and the engineer, Phil Rowlands. br / br /This is a no-brainer: Buy it! br / br /Scott Morrison

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