Carmina Burana

Tonight was a performance of Carmina Burana in the Lawrence Chapel, featuring the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra, the Lawrence Choirs and other guest choirs and singers. This was a concert of epic proportions, if you will. (Suggested listening: "O Fortuna")

Carmina Burana is a series of ancient manuscripts found in a Bavarian Monastery (228 total), mostly written in Latin, some German and a little bit of Medieval French. The manuscripts are poems split in to six different sections: Songs on religious themes, moral/satirical songs, love songs, drinking songs, religious plays and different versions of earlier songs with textual variations. German composer Carl Orff used 24 of these poems to be put to music. This is what was performed tonight. 

Throughout the night, reading through some of the translation packet handed out, I kept thinking about the accuracy of the translation itself. Augustine would have probably questioned these translations, he would have wanted to analyze the text without sacrificing the clarity of expression.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmina_Burana

P.S. Today was my younger brother's confirmation ceremony at our church, I was his sponsor. Could this be an extra-credit opportunity?