Ray Manzarek – Carmina Burana

In 1803 a scroll of medieval poems was discovered in the German province of Bavaria among the debris of the secularized monastery of Benedikt-Beuren ("BURANA").
These lyrics, written primarily in Latin, were determined to be the work of renegade monks and wandering poets of the 13th Century. Their words captured a lost world of rebels and dropouts of the medieval clergy; hard lovers, drinkers, on the move, celebrating existence rather than living the meditative, celibate, cloistered life of the monastery.
In 1935 German composer Carl Orff re-discovered the poems. Impressed with their meaning and rhythm, he composed a cantata utilizing the centuries-old verses. He transformed the writings into invocations and profane chants accompanied by numerous instruments and magical representations.
These songs ("CARMINA") were divided into three primary sections: Springtime - the life force renewed; In the Tavern - drinking and gambling; The Court of Love - passion, sensuality. The sections are pervaded and framed by The Wheel of Fortune ("O Fortuna") perpetually turning, perpetually governing the course of man's existence.
In 1983 Ray Manzarek, long attracted to the spiritual power of Carmina Burana, chose to interpret the piece in a contemporary framework. This presentation intends to create enchanted pictures; to conjure up the ecstasy expressed by the lyrics, an enhanced intense feeling for life akin to the passions and revelry of the wandering poets of so long ago.