' (''Songs of Catullus'') is a

cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning of ...

Carl Orff Carl Orff (; 10 July 1895 – 29 March 1982) was a German composer and music educator, best known for his cantata ''Carmina Burana'' (1937). The concepts of his Schulwerk were influential for children's music education. Life Early life Car ...

dating from 1940–1943. He described it as ''ludi scaenici'' (scenic plays). The work mostly sets poems of the Latin poet

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...

to music, with some text by the composer. ''Catulli Carmina'' is part of '' Trionfi'', the musical

trilogy A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, and video games, and are less common in other art forms. Three-part wor ...

that also includes the ''

Carmina Burana ''Carmina Burana'' (, Latin for "Songs from Benediktbeuern" 'Buria'' in Latin is a manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces are mostly bawdy, irreverent ...

'' and ''

Trionfo di Afrodite ''Trionfo di Afrodite'' (Italian for ''Triumph of Aphrodite'') is a cantata written in 1951 by the German composer Carl Orff. It is the third and final installment in the '' Trionfi'' musical trilogy, which also includes ''Carmina Burana'' (1937) ...

''. It is scored for a full mixed choir, soprano and tenor soloists, and an entirely percussive orchestra – possibly inspired by

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...

's ''

Les noces ''Les Noces'' (French for The Wedding; russian: Свадебка, ''Svadebka'') is a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. The composer gave it the descriptive title " ...

'' – consisting of four

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...

bass drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter much greater than the drum's depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. Th ...

, 3

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three Edge (geometry), edges and three Vertex (geometry), vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, an ...

castanets Castanets, also known as ''clackers'' or ''palillos'', are a percussion instrument (idiophone), used in Spanish, Kalo, Moorish, Ottoman, Italian, Sephardic, Swiss, and Portuguese music. In ancient Greece and ancient Rome there was a similar ...

maraca A maraca (), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas (from Guaraní ), also known as tamaracas, were r ...

s, suspended and

crash cymbal A crash cymbal is a type of cymbal that produces a loud, sharp "crash" and is used mainly for occasional accents, as opposed to a ride cymbal. It can be mounted on a stand and played with a drum stick, or by hand in pairs. One or two crash cy ...

antique cymbal Crotales (, ), sometimes called antique cymbals, are percussion instruments consisting of small, tuned bronze or brass disks. Each is about in diameter with a flat top surface and a nipple on the base. They are commonly played by being struck ...

(without specified pitch),

tam-tam A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

lithophone A lithophone is a musical instrument consisting of a rock or pieces of rock which are struck to produce musical notes. Notes may be sounded in combination (producing harmony) or in succession (melody). It is an idiophone comparable to instrumen ...

metallophone A metallophone is any musical instrument in which the sound-producing body is a piece of metal (other than a metal string), consisting of tuned metal bars, tubes, rods, bowls, or plates. Most frequently the metal body is struck to produce sound, ...

, 2

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. The glo ...

s, wood block,

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in the ...

, and tenor xylophone.

Dramatic structure

The piece is divided into three parts: a prelude with Latin text by Orff, the central dramatic story using Catullus' poems, and a short postlude which recalls the music of the prelude. In the prelude, groups of young women and young men sing to each other of eternal ("eis aiona" – "forever" – two words of Greek in the otherwise Latin text) love and devotion, along with quite explicit statements of the erotic activities they intend with each other. (In the texts distributed with programs and early recordings, such as the Turnabout (Vox) one, many lines in the translation are left blank.) A group of old men interrupts with sarcastic comments and charges the young people to listen to "the songs of Catullus". The story proper tells of Catullus, a lovesick young man who falls in love with

Lesbia Lesbia was the literary pseudonym used by the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus ( 82–52 BC) to refer to his lover. Lesbia is traditionally identified with Clodia, the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer and sister of Publius Clodius Pulc ...

, a woman who does not remain faithful to him. The tenor and soprano soloists portray Catullus and Lesbia respectively. This story is based loosely on the factual relationship between Catullus and

Clodia Clodius is an alternate form of the Roman '' nomen'' Claudius, a patrician '' gens'' that was traditionally regarded as Sabine in origin. The alternation of ''o'' and ''au'' is characteristic of the Sabine dialect. The feminine form is Clodia. R ...

, with a text mostly constructed from the poems of Catullus, in which he did address Clodia by the pseudonym Lesbia. Catullus wrote many poems about this relationship and the ones selected for the cantata take the audience through its several phases. In this listing, the poems are given the standard numbers. Subject to occasional textual variants, the poems are as written by Catullus, except for some interpolations in Latin ('O mea Lesbia' and the like, and exclamations of approval by the old men) and the curious extra words in poem 109.

Act 1

*" Odi et amo" (poem 85) *" Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus" (poem 5) *" Ille mi par esse deo videtur" (poem 51) *"Caeli! Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa" (poem 58) *"Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle quam mihi" (poem 70)

Act 2

*"Jucundum mea vita" (poem 109, with the apparently Italian words ''Dormi, dormi ancora'' interpolated) *"Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle mereri" (poem 73)

Act 3

*"Odi et amo" (poem 85) *"Amabo mea dulcis Ipsitilla" (poem 32) *"Ameana, puella defututa" (poem 41) *"Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire" (poem 8) *"Nulla potest mulier tantum se dicere amatam" (poem 87) *"Nunc est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpa" (poem 75) This selection and sequence of poems is apparently intended to tell the young people on stage that love will not last forever. However, in the postlude, the young people have clearly decided to ignore the message and the cantata ends with their continued exclamations of "eis aiona" (meaning "forever"), to the exasperation of the old men.

The music

The orchestra only plays in the prelude and postlude, whereas in the Catullus play itself, the soloists are only accompanied by the chorus, which takes the part of a

Greek chorus A Greek chorus, or simply chorus ( grc-gre, χορός, chorós), in the context of ancient Greek tragedy, comedy, satyr plays, and modern works inspired by them, is a homogeneous, non-individualised group of performers, who comment with a collect ...

. The piece experiments with repeated phrases and syncopated rhythms even more so than ''Carmina Burana''. Scholars have debated the reason why this is such a lesser-known work, compared to its predecessor. It has been suggested that, with the fall of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and the depressed feeling of Europe in the aftermath of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, for a long time it simply did not have the opportunity to be presented to any large audience.

Recordings

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...

(recorded June 1954, Nov 1955; reissued on CD 474 131-2):

Annelies Kupper Annelies Kupper (21 July 1906 – 8 December 1987), was a German operatic soprano, particularly associated with Mozart and the German repertory. Kupper was born at Glatz (now Kłodzko) in Lower Silesia. She studied in Breslau and was a music te ...

(soprano), Richard Holm (tenor); Bavarian Radio Chorus;

Eugen Jochum Eugen Jochum (; 1 November 1902 – 26 March 1987) was a German conductor, best known for his interpretations of the music of Anton Bruckner, Carl Orff, and Johannes Brahms, among others. Biography Jochum was born to a Roman Catholic family in ...

(conductor). * CBS BRG 72611 (original LP): Janice Harsanyi, Richard Kness;

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Ba ...

Choirs;

Philadelphia Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the " Big Five" American orchestras, the orchestra is based at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs its subscription ...

;

Eugene Ormandy Eugene Ormandy (born Jenő Blau; November 18, 1899 – March 12, 1985) was a Hungarian-born American conductor and violinist, best known for his association with the Philadelphia Orchestra, as its music director. His 44-year association wit ...

(conductor}; Robert Page (choral director). * Arts Music (CD reissue): Ruth-Margret Pütz (soprano),

Donald Grobe Donald Roth Grobe (16 December 1929 – 1 April 1986) was an American tenor, lyric tenor who sang at the ''Deutsche Oper Berlin'' during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He made his début in Chicago, in 1952, as Borsa in ''Rigoletto''. He sang at his ...

(tenor); Cologne Radio Choir; Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester;

Ferdinand Leitner Ferdinand Leitner (4 March 1912 in Berlin – 3 June 1996 in Zürich) was a German conductor. Leitner studied under Franz Schreker, Julius Prüwer, Artur Schnabel and Karl Muck. He also was a composition student with Robert Kahn. Starting as ...

(conductor). * Deutsche Grammophon DGG 2530 074 (original LP):

Arleen Auger Joyce Arleen Auger (sometimes spelled Augér ; September 13, 1939 – June 10, 1993) was an American soprano, known for her coloratura voice and interpretations of works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Monteverdi, Mozart, and Schubert. She won a posthum ...

(soprano),

Wiesław Ochman Wiesław Ochman (; born 6 February 1937) is a Polish tenor. Life and career In 1960, he graduated from the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków. Ochman began learning voice under the direction of Gustaw Serafin in Kraków (1955–1 ...

(tenor); Chorus of the

Deutsche Oper Berlin The Deutsche Oper Berlin is a German opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin. The resident building is the country's second largest opera house (after Munich's) and also home to the Berlin State Ballet. Since 2004, the De ...

;

(conductor).Robert Anderson, "Record Reviews: ''Catulli Carmina''" (December 1971). ''

The Musical Times ''The Musical Times'' is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom and currently the oldest such journal still being published in the country. It was originally created by Joseph Mainzer in 1842 as ''Mainze ...

'', 112 (1546): pp. 1178–1179. *

Supraphon Supraphon Music Publishing is a Czech record label, oriented mainly towards publishing classical music and popular music, with an emphasis on Czech and Slovak composers. History The Supraphon name was first registered as a trademark in 1932. T ...

1112 1462 (original LP, copyright date on label 1974); Helena Tattermuschová (soprano), Ivo Židek (tenor); Ludmilla Tržická, Vladimir Topinka; Vladimir Menci and Oldřich Kredba (pianos), Czech Philharmonic Chorus,

Prague Symphony Orchestra The Prague Symphony Orchestra (Prague, Czech Republic, cs, Symfonický orchestr hlavního města Prahy ''FOK'') is a Czech orchestra based in Prague. The orchestra has traditionally been known by the acronym 'FOK', standing for 'Film-Opera-Koncert' ...

, Václav Smetáček (conductor). * Vox PL 8640 (LP, first issued 1954, re-issued 1963): Elisabeth Roon (soprano); Hans Loeffler (tenor);

Walter Klien Walter Klien (27 November 1928 – 9 February 1991) was an Austrian pianist. ] Career Klien was born in Graz in 1928. His mother was the artist Erika Giovanna Klien (1900-1957). She emigrated to the United States in 1929, and their only furth ...

Michael Gielen Michael Andreas Gielen (20 July 19278 March 2019) was an Austrian conductor and composer known for promoting contemporary music in opera and concert. Principally active in Europe, his performances are characterized by precision and vivacity, aid ...

, Eduard Mrazek, Walter Kamper (pianos); Vienna Chamber Choir,

Heinrich Hollreiser Heinrich Hollreiser (24 June 191324 July 2006) was a German conductor. Born in Munich, he attended the State Academy of Music there and went on to serve as the conductor at the opera houses in Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Duisburg. From ...

(conductor). * Philips 6500 815 (original LP): Ute Mai (soprano);

Eberhard Büchner Eberhard Büchner (born 6 November 1939 in Dresden) is a German operatic and concert tenor. He made his debut in 1964 as Tamino in Mozart's ''Die Zauberflöte'' at the Mecklenburg State Theatre. Recordings * Franz Schubert: Messe G-Dur for sop ...

(tenor); Jutta Czapski, Günter Philipp (piano), Wolfgang Wappler,

Gerhard Erber Gerhard Erber (21 November 1934 – 4 September 2021) was a German classical pianist and academic teacher. He played as a member of the East German ensemble Gruppe Neue Musik Hanns Eisler, which focused on contemporary chamber music. He was a pro ...

(pianos); Chorus of Radio Leipzig;

Herbert Kegel Herbert Kegel (29 July 1920 – 20 November 1990) was a German conductor. Kegel was born in Dresden. He studied conducting with Karl Böhm and composition with Boris Blacher at the Dresden Conservatory from 1935 to 1940. In 1946 he began co ...

(conductor). * EMI Classics (released in 1995 and 2005):

Dagmar Schellenberger Dagmar Schellenberger (born 8 June 1958 in Oschatz) is a German operatic soprano with a large repertoire ranging from Bach to Wagner. She sings Blanche on the critically acclaimed DVD of the La Scala production of Francis Poulenc's opera ''Dialogu ...

(soprano); Lothar Odinius (tenor); Mozart-Chor Linz;

Munich Radio Orchestra The Munich Radio Orchestra (German: ''Münchner Rundfunkorchester'') is a German symphony broadcast orchestra based in Munich. It is one of the two orchestras affiliated with the Bavarian Radio (Bayerischer Rundfunk), the other being the Bavarian ...

;

Franz Welser-Möst Franz Leopold Maria Möst (born 16 August 1960), known professionally as Franz Welser-Möst, is an Austrian conductor. He is currently music director of the Cleveland Orchestra. Biography Franz Leopold Maria Möst was born in Linz, Austria, ...

(conductor). * Forlane UCD 16610 (CD released January 25, 1995), recorded live at the 20th Festival International de Sofia 1988/89: Elena Stoyanova (soprano); Kaludi Kaludov (tenor); Bulgarian Radio-Television Symphony Orchestra and Mixed Choir, Michail Milkov (conductor). * Newport Classic NCD 60118 (1990), Susan Crowder (soprano); Philip Bologna (tenor), Choral Guild of Atlanta, William Noll (conductor).

References

External links

Praelusio ''(the first part)'' — Commentary and translation
{{Authority control Cantatas Compositions by Carl Orff Ancient Rome in art and culture 1943 compositions