“Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, printed, can be destroyed,” declared composer Carl Orff to his publisher following the successful premiere of Carmina Burana. Orff based Carmina on 24 poems — but a far cry from love sonnets, these verses deal in lust, gambling, drinking, and the fickle hand of fate (“O Fortuna!”). Orff sought to impart to his audiences a sense of “oneness with the universe,” reminding us that the same Wheel of Fortune which makes men kings can also knock that crown away.