This program lured people away from their hearths and (TV) couches, even on a Sunday evening: Carl Orff’s "Carmina Burana" and Leonard Bernstein’s "Chichester Psalms" led to bursting full rows of seats at the Musikverein. Not a single concert-goer regretted it. Erwin Ortner, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Arnold Schönberg Choir and the Tölz Boys Choir turned Orff’s songs of fate into a grandiose spectacle. In the positive sense of the term: Ortner shaped the pathetic passages as well as the ironic parts in loving detail.

The Arnold Schönberg Choir and Tölz Boys Choir were well-prepared. The Polish baritone, Artur Rucinski and the soprano Anna Siminska, who jumped in for Daniela Fally, presented sovereign performances. And tenor Kenneth Tarver was able to draw numerous laughs with his portrayal of the roasting swan. The Bernstein Psalms could be heard in a performance with lots of élan and a fantastically professional boy soloist (whose name unfortunately did not appear in the program). tom

Translation by John Allan Moffatt.