Carl Orff's O Fortuna in popular culture a direct version of it. Carl Orff's O Fortuna in popular culture In 1935–36, the 13th-century poem "O Fortuna" was set to music by the German composer Carl Orff for his twenty-five-movement cantata "Carmina Burana". The composition appears in numerous films and television commercials and has become a staple in popular culture, setting the mood for dramatic or cataclysmic situations. For instance, it is used to portray the torment of Jim Morrison's drug addiction in the film "The Doors." In 1983, Doors' keyboardist Ray Manzarek released his third solo album, "Carmina Burana", which is an interpretation of the piece in
Carmina Burana (Orff) movement, the wheel of fortune turns, joy turning to bitterness, and hope turning to grief. "O Fortuna", the first poem in the Schmeller edition, completes this circle, forming a compositional frame for the work through being both the opening and closing movements. Orff developed a dramatic concept he called "Theatrum Mundi" in which music, movement, and speech were inseparable. Babcock writes that "Orff's artistic formula limited the music in that every musical moment was to be connected with an action on stage. It is here that modern performances of "Carmina Burana" fall short of Orff's intentions." Although "Carmina Burana" was