Phila. Chorale and Orchestra perform 'Carmina Burana'

Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos is conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra and Philadelphia Singers in the Orff cantata. (STEVE J. SHERMAN)

GALLERY: Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos is conducting the Philadelphia… (STEVE J. SHERMAN )

By David Patrick Stearns, Inquirer Music Critic

Posted: February 17, 2013

Carmina Burana, the Carl Orff cantata that inspires extremes of adoration and revulsion, emerged a changed piece Thursday night. It ascended from its typical semiprofessional performance circumstances to the best this city can offer: the Philadelphia Singers Chorale at its full-tilt best, with the Philadelphia Orchestra in precise form under guest conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.

Frühbeck came into this string of Kimmel Center performances (opening Thursday and continuing Saturday) with strong, distinctive ideas of what the piece can be, apart from bombastic adaptations for TV ads and other accumulated layers of cultural associations.

The 13th-century poems and songs on which the piece is based give a cross-section of humanity wrestling with God and nature but also drinking and fornicating, plus raging against "O Fortuna" - a world that's never fair or just.

The combination of folk culture, punchy tunes, and infectious rhythms was quite in step with the cultural atmosphere of 1930s Nazi Germany, where the piece was written. But what often sounds like simplistic goose-stepping was, perhaps, music from a composer who had only just found his voice and couldn't yet manage a broad spectrum of expression - compared with that in his later works, such as Antigonae.

No performance by a conductor of Frühbeck's cultivation is going to feel simplistic. Orff's rhythms became aggressive expressions of passion. Frühbeck even softened the cool, metallic edge that comes from a percussion-based orchestration.

Rather than conjuring images of comic-book crusaders, the music suggested Bruegel's people-scape paintings, thanks to the earthy showmanship and animated vocalism of baritone Hugh Russell. The hapless roasted swan was sung with comic resignation by Nicholas Phan, while the American Boychoir and soprano Erin Morley were glimmering outposts of ethereal beauty amid Orff's musical mudslinging.

Few programs find suitable bedfellows for Carmina Burana. In this one, the first half showed two other composers in fledgling artistic states similar to Orff's. However, Haydn's Symphony No. 1 and the Hummel Trumpet Concerto felt tired. The exception was Hummel's melancholy slow movement, played beautifully by the orchestra's principal trumpet, David Bilger, who certainly deserves something more substantial. Maybe the newly penned Night Pieces for trumpet and orchestra by local composer Michael Hersch?

Additional performance: 8 p.m. Saturday at the Kimmel Center. Information: 215-893-1999 or www.philorch.org.

Contact David Patrick Stearns

at dstearns@phillynews.com.