Carmina Burana - A Medieval Collection (4CD)

A landmark collection of medieval music, available for the first time in many years.

The Carmina Burana is the most famous of all treasuries of medieval Latin and Middle High German poetry, named after the Bavarian monastery where it was compiled and preserved. It is best known today for Carl Orff’s hour-long selection from its rich collection of love lyrics, student songs and religious poetry, written in Latin and old German. During the 1960s and 70s a few early-music ensembles made more or less successful efforts to capture the unique mix of secular and sacred idioms brought together by the original manuscripts. But a systematic approach to the Carmina Burana had to wait until the late 1980s when one of Britain’s most innovative early-music groups undertook a project to record over a quarter of the 200-plus songs at the behest of Decca’s L’Oiseau-Lyre imprint.

MORE INFORMATION

The first volume of Carmina Burana was only the second recording made by the New London Consort and its founder-director Philip Pickett but the album was quickly recognised as a signal event in the wider dissemination of medieval music. Critics praised the fidelity to the spirit as well as the text of Carmina Burana; the eloquent and often witty text-centred singing of Catherine Bott, Michael George and others; and the imaginative use of a full medieval instrumentarium.

TRACK LIST

Carmina Burana: A Medieval Collection

CD 1
Carmina Burana: Volume I

CD 2
Carmina Burana: Volume II

CD 3
Carmina Burana: Volume III

CD 4
Carmina Burana: Volume IV

New London Consort
Philip Pickett