O Fortuna topped a 2009 list of the most-played classical music of the previous 75 years in the United Kingdom. O Fortuna "O Fortuna" is a medieval Latin Goliardic poem written early in the 13th century, part of the collection known as the "Carmina Burana". It is a complaint about Fortuna, the inexorable fate that rules both gods and mortals in Roman and Greek mythology. In 1935–36, "O Fortuna" was set to music by German composer Carl Orff as a part of "", the opening and closing movement of his cantata "Carmina Burana". It was first staged by the Frankfurt Opera on
Carl Orff Orff was buried in the Baroque church of the beer-brewing Benedictine priory of Andechs, south of Munich. His tombstone bears his name, his dates of birth and death, and the Latin inscription (the Ultimate End), which is taken from the end of . Orff is best known for "Carmina Burana" (1936), a "scenic cantata". It is the first part of a trilogy that also includes "Catulli Carmina" and "Trionfo di Afrodite". "Carmina Burana" reflected his interest in medieval German poetry. The trilogy as a whole is called "Trionfi", or "Triumphs". The composer described it as the celebration of the triumph