Bath Bach Choir's Mid-Autumn Concert, 'Carmina Burana'

Bath Bach Choir’s mid-autumn concert will bring together an array of exciting international musicians, with Carl Orff’s famous cantata Carmina Burana as the centrepiece of what’s set to be an upbeat and scintillating performance.

World-renowned drummers BackBeat Percussion Quartet will open the evening and then raise the roof in Orff’s own arrangement of Carmina Burana for two pianos, voices and drums, with concert pianist Nurry Lee, fresh from performing at Carnegie Hall, playing the piano opposite Marcus Sealy. A thrilling setting of 24 secular poems (‘songs of Beuern’) written in Middle High German and Latin by medieval monks in Bavaria, this much-loved work describes physical and spiritual love, the joys of spring, gambling, dancing in the meadows and drinking in the tavern – all subject to the whims of Fortune (‘O Fortuna’), empress of the world.

Orff initially envisioned Carmina Burana as a full stage work for theatre, with sets, costumes and dancers, and it was thus staged at its premiere in 1937 at the Frankfurt Opera. With its pulsating rhythm, racy themes and chant, it is also a highly successful concert piece.

British-Spanish soprano Ana Beard Fernández, who recently recorded a song collection with Roderick Williams, and Britten Pears Young Artist Hugo Herman-Wilson, baritone, will represent the lovers being drawn together – one moment in love, the next catastrophising on loneliness, the next mining the pleasure to be found in love’s fleshly joys and weighing up desire against chastity.

With Nurry Lee also set for a solo spot, don’t miss this rip-roaring display of superbly talented musicianship at Kingswood Theatre (Kingswood School, Bath BA1 5RG).

Approximate end time; check with organiser