Many composers are famous primarily for a single work, but few of those have achieved the iconic status of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. Thanks to the transition from the concert stage to movies, video games, sporting events and television commercials, there are few choral works better known by the masses.

Carl Orff (1895-1982) spent most of his life in his native Munich. He was part of a very musical family so he began his studies at the early age of five; however, his formal studies did not last long. Young Orff was less than pleased with his teachers, and he was largely self-taught as a composer. While recovering from injuries during World War I, he began to study the music of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. This began his fascination with not only music of that period, but also with ancient texts.

The text for Carmina Burana (Songs of the Beuren) is made up of 24 medieval, secular Latin poems that were discovered in the early 19^th century at the monastery of Benediktbeuren near Munich. The poetry was written by the goliards, a group of wandering scholars, performers, and poets who flourished from the 10th to 13th centuries. They are often inaccurately thought to have been a religious order because of their satiric order of St. Golias, the fictitious saint of debauchery. The goliards earned food, drink and lodging from their poetry and performances, often reflecting the sentiments of their fictitious saint. The goliards were accepted at first but their growing numbers turned into an epidemic of beggars, and their debauchery provoked the church hierarchy to suppress the movement.

The Goliards' poetry was meant for entertainment and deals with fate, love, sex, gambling, drinking and general debauchery. The poetry was written in vernacular Latin instead of church Latin so that it could be readily understood. The poetry is often humorous or satiric, and no authority, secular or religious, is spared. The overlying theme of their poetry is that man is just the pawn of unpredictable fate. The manuscript is illustrated with a Wheel of Fortune, a common idea of the middle ages. Figures at the cardinal points of the wheel are labeled I reign, I have reigned, I have no reign, and I shall reign again, the full circle of fate.

Orff grouped the poetry for Carmina Burana into four categories: Fortune, Springtime, In the Tavern, and The Court of Love. The piece opens with the famous O Fortuna, which introduces the unreliability of fate and the Wheel of Fortune. The Springtime section contains poems dealing with the coming of spring, when people turn toward romance. A subsection of Springtime known as "On the lawn," is a series of dances. The next section, In the tavern, contains the most vulgar poetry and includes great drinking songs. The final section, The Court of Love, represents a long voyage toward absolute bliss. The piece concludes with a reprise of the opening O Fortuna chorus, as the Wheel of Fortune turns full circle.