Work of the Week – Enjott Schneider: Orbe rotundo

The world premiere of Enjott Schneider’s Orbe rotundo will take place on the 5th of December in Munich’s Herkulessaal. Hayko Siemens conducts the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Münchner MottetenChor. The soloists are Sandra Moon (soprano), Robert Sellier (tenor) and Todd Boyce (baritone).

Commissioned by the Münchner MotettenChor for their 50 year anniversary, Orbe rotundo is a contemporary counterpart to Carl Orff’s classic work Carmina Burana which will be performed in the same concert. Using the same instrumentation as Orff - triple winds, two pianos, celeste, five percussionists and large string orchestra - Schneider’s oratorio follows other traditions by starting and finishing with a glittering choral number. In homage to Orff, Schneider sets excerpts from the Carmina Burana but differentiates his own work by incorporating words by Oswald von Wolkenstein and Neidhart von Reuenthal as well as texts from the bible to illustrate the cycle of seasons:

Spring is followed by a bewitching Walpurgis Night, May and midsummer celebrations of fire. Then comes autumn in praise of creation and the pleasures of drinking. Winter conjures up death and a requiem, but this merely provides the transition for a renewed ecstatic celebration of spring. (Enjott Schneider)

With imaginative, colourful orchestration and a rhythmical, dance-like vitality with drone-based tonalities, Schneider’s orbe rotundo wonderfully captures the life-affirming and nature-revering character in the texts.

• Enjott Schneider - Profile
  
• Münchener Motettenchor