Hartford Symphony Orchestra of Carl Orff’s "Carmina Burana". After hearing the piece for the first time, audiences jumped to their feet with standing ovations and the local papers overflowed with excellent reviews. On March 27, 1957 the Symphony recorded "Carmina Burana" on the Vanguard record label. Fritz Mahler continued the Hartford Symphony’s recording project with the Vanguard label, recording three new albums: Berlioz’s Requiem, Gustav Mahler’s Das Klagende Lied, and Bloch’s Three Jewish Poems for Orchestra and Copland’s Variations for Orchestra & Fanfare for the Common Man. The sixties opened with a general sense of uneasiness amongst the Hartford Symphony administration over the
Carmina Burana (Orff) the most famous piece of music composed in Germany at the time. The popularity of the work continued to rise after the war, and by the 1960s "Carmina Burana" was well established as part of the international classic repertoire. Alex Ross wrote that "the music itself commits no sins simply by being and remaining popular. That "Carmina Burana" has appeared in hundreds of films and television commercials is proof that it contains no diabolical message, indeed that it contains no message whatsoever." The desire Orff expressed to his publisher has by and large been fulfilled: No other composition of his