‘O Fortuna’ – the number that opens and closes Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana – is the music that launched a thousand TV commercials and epic film scores. Its popularity is hardly surprising: those huge, crushing blocks of choral and orchestral sound are enough to stun anyone into submission. Then, quite suddenly, they give way to the hypnotic whirling of life’s Wheel of Fortune … at first the tone is hushed, then the chanting strikes home with terrifying power. Brilliantly theatrical, ‘O Fortuna’ raises the curtain on a rollicking hour of medieval scene-painting – frequently raunchy, often charming, occasionally grotesque – but always exuding an irresistible life force.
