Stanley Fefferman – OpusOneReview

The raw power of Karl Orff’s popular masterpiece, Carmina Burana , made me ecstatic the first time I heard it on record quite a few years ago. Last night’s performance at Koerner Hall by the Toronto Mendelssohn choir brought back that thrill and then some. Such was the punch the mighty Mendelssohn’s 120 voices delivered, that the famous opening, “O Fortuna,” lamenting how humans are constantly frustrated and finessed by the fickle finger of fortune, sounded like a cele bration. The TorQ quartet with two grand-pianists, James Bourne and Michel Ross, gave the accompaniment a startlingly Zen graphic black and white treatment that seemed more natural than the full orchestral palette the work is scored for.

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