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
Cantus Buranus Cantus Buranus Cantus Buranus is an album by the German medieval revival band Corvus Corax that employs the medieval text "Carmina Burana". "Cantus Buranus" is a stage opera of eleven poems from "Carmina Burana" for orchestra, choir and medieval instruments, incorporating medieval, classical and modern musical idioms. It is not the first time Corvus Corax has worked with "Carmina Burana"; the band Tanzwut (which is another Corvus Corax project) used the poems "Fautue" and "Caupona" in their album "Ihr Wolltet Spass". The "Cantus Buranus" CD was released August 8, 2005 by Roadrunner Records. A live recording in Berlin spawned a