Carmina Burana has become one of the favorite compositions of the 20th century, Carl Orff's setting of the profane medieval Goliard poems has been performed countless times and the opening movement is recognizable by nearly everybody.
Judith Lynn Sebesta has written a book about the text and Orff's music, while some reviewers seem to think the book is intended for adolescents, the complexities of the questions and the illustrations suggest otherwise.
The information in the book is useful. After an overview of the Goliards and the history of the text, Sebesta breaks the Latin text up into segments. Within these segments are the Latin text with definitions, a poetic English translation, and analysis of the text and Orff's setting of the music. The final section contains an alternate English translation.
There are several great things about this book. First, there's nothing else like this out there right now, so it remains a good source. Sebesta is effective at analyzing the text and areas of special interest. The illustrations are also interesting additions, and the Latin definitions can be helpful. For these reasons, this book is recommended to anyone performing CB.
This book is far from perfect. Sebesta asks direct questions of the reader about the relationship between text and music. While this engages the reader's thought, Sebesta provides few answers, making the book less of a resource.
In addition, the book seems to have a fragmented structure. One has little idea what to expect when one turns to the next page. Moreover, the musical analysis is quite lacking.
Despite its shortcomings, this seems to be the best book out there on the subject. Hopefully there will be a Cambridge Music Handbook or a similar publication regarding CB which will be of the quality which it deserves.
