Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata by the German composer Carl Orff, first staged in 1937. Scored for large chorus, soloists and orchestra, it is characterised by elemental, rhythmically driven textures, modal melodies and emphatic percussion setting medieval texts in Latin and Middle High German, and the work marked a turning point in Orff's career by consolidating his interest in rhythmically centred, text-centred music and influencing later 20th-century choral-orchestral writing.
