Carl Orff - Carmina Burana (full opera, the banned version)

[StephenMasten]

Make sure that you select the CC option so that you can also enjoy the lyrics to this excellent opera. 

https://www.youtube.com/v/Gj-tBVq61as  (not available in the United States)

Comment from the YouTube uploader:

This was the dramatic rendition of Carl Orff's most famous piece of music, how he wanted it to look but seldom performed as such nowadays. It was finally filmed by West German TV in 1975 with the close co-operation of Orff in honour of his 80th birthday. The various stories of young lust and gluttony are playfully and skillfully brought to life. This version of Orff's masterpiece of the sacred and profane was hard to find in Germany. Not so strange, it was banned there for decades, most likely because of its almost literal interpretation of the texts Orff put music to. I first saw this when I was 12-13 years old at the Goethe Institute in Bergen, Norway, with my father, sister and mother. Someone had managed to get hold of an 8mm film roll with it and had a secret screening. This was in the 1980s and, believe it or not, there were strong forces opposed to what they considered blasphemous content in films. The mixture of Christian and pagan imagery is completely consistent with the lyrics, which were found in a monastery, and are a mixture of sacred and profane songs, but were obviously too tough to swallow. Copies of the film were destroyed, but luckily, art prevailed.

[StephenMasten]

Updated link:

Carmina Burana , Carl Orff (Ponnelle)

[Albert]

I remember a lecture on psychology and music many years ago at university. As usual the lecturer was a Jew. He brought out a piano and played all manner of styles of music from jazz to rag time, blues and classical. He then put on Carmina Burana by Carl Orf and the whole lecture theatre to his dismay applauded and cheered wildly. I believe the original manuscript was discovered in a cathedral many years ago.
Great stuff! my own personal favourite is "gassenhaur" which was written after the second world war ended... but is like a hitler youth song played out on stone age instruments after Germany began to reforge itself from the ruins. Nobly used in the film "Badlands".

Badlands - by Terrence Malick 1973 (trailer) re-edited with music from Carl Orff: Gassenhauer