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
Carmina Burana chess. Older research assumed that the manuscript was written in Benediktbeuern where it was found. Today, however, "Carmina Burana" scholars have several different ideas about the manuscript's place of origin. It is agreed that the manuscript must be from the region of central Europe where the Bavarian dialect of German is spoken due to the Middle High German phrases in the text—a region that includes parts of southern Germany, western Austria, and northern Italy. It must also be from the southern part of that region because of the Italian peculiarities of the text. The two possible locations of its origin