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Carmina Burana

Sunday 22nd June, 3.30pm Butterworth Hall, Warwick Arts Centre

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 10

Orff - Carmina Burana

Conductors - Paul McGrath, Lucy Griffiths

Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony was described by one young Russian composer as “an optimistic tragedy”. After an intense attack from Stalin in 1948, Dimitri Shostakovich made the decision not to write any more symphonies during his oppressor’s lifetime. In March 1953, he awoke to the news that Stalin was dead. Soon after, he began urgent work on his tenth symphony. This grand and powerful work encompasses a maelstrom of emotional states, from the optimistic anticipation of new beginnings to the release of the personal and artistic subjugation the composer suffered under the dictator’s reign.

The University of Warwick Symphony Orchestra and Chorus join together to perform Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. The piece is based on twenty four of the poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana. The work is split into five major sections:

  • Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi - Fortuna, Empress of the World
  • Primo vere - Spring
  • In Taberna - In the Tavern
  • Cour d'amours - Court of Love
  • Blanziflor et Helena - Blanziflor and Helena

Much of the structure is based on the idea of the turning Fortuna Wheel. The drawing of the wheel includes four phrases around the outside of the wheel "Regnabo (I shall reign), Regno (I reign/I am reigning), Regnavi (I have reigned), Sum sine regno (I am without a kingdom)

Tickets: £6 (concessions £4) available from the Box Office on 024 7652 4524 or online at www.warwickartscentre.co.uk