Reimagining the Classics: 5. Ray Manzarek’s Carmina Burana
by David Barker

It had been my intention that the next article in this series would be on Emerson, Lake and Palmer, but in the process of writing a review of a new recording of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, I stumbled across this, and felt I needed to write about it first. Despite all the research I’ve done for this series of articles, not one list, AI-generated or otherwise, included Ray Manzarek’s 1983 Carmina Burana. It is not mentioned on the Wikipedia page, even in the Arrangements section. The LP went out of print in the year of its release and while it was released on CD in the 1990s, sales were never strong.

Given its driving rhythms, relatively simple harmonies and over-the-top drama, Carmina is perhaps an obvious candidate for being adapted for the rock genre. Asked who could have done so, I might have said Queen (despite the band having no track record in this area), given that I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to see Bohemian Rhapsody as the offspring of glam rock and Carmina. I would certainly not have said Ray Manzarek, keyboardist for 1960s band The Doors. Adding to the surprise was the record’s co-producer, a certain Philip Glass, who by this time was already a big name in avant-garde classical music. Sadly, I can’t find any specific details about how the two got together.

Manzarek, who had long admired the work, did the arrangements and played piano, organ and keyboard, alongside (now) longtime Glass collaborator Michael Riesman who played synthesisers and conducted where necessary. The ensemble was rounded out by guitar, bass, drums, more synthesisers and flute and saxophone, plus a small vocal group. If you do choose to give it a try, the best advice I can give is to listen to the small-scale arrangement of Carmina that Orff endorsed: two pianos, percussion and small choir – because I think it has more in common with Manzarek’s than the full-size version.

It is not simply an arrangement for rock band. The twenty-five movements and hour duration of the normal Carmina Burana have been adapted to sixteen movements, taking just over forty minutes. There are no solo vocal parts, all the singing is by the vocal group.

Inevitably, it is rather hit and miss. Without question, the most successful tracks are those where Manzarek gives his rock instincts full rein, and the least when he attempts to follow Orff too closely.

The small vocal group do their best to project O Fortuna, which here becomes “The Wheel of Fortune”, but it is fairly underwhelming, and the syncopated rhythms of the verses that follow sound a little hokey on piano. “The Wounds of Fate” (Fortune plango vulnera) is a lot better. Heavy on synthesisers, it retains the drive of the original. “The Face of Spring” (Veris leta facies) may be the best of all: the gentle opening is given to piano and synthesiser, answered by harsh guitar chords and drums in the best rock tradition. Orff’s version calls for a small section of the full choir, so Manzarek’s small vocal group is not outmatched. The remainder of the Spring section is a mixture. “Sunrise” (Omnia Sol temperat) is a gentle instrumental, the baritone line replaced by keyboard, and is a quiet repose that works well after the energy of the first four tracks. “Welcome” (Ecce gratum) is, for the most part, like a rather banal pop song (but then some might say the original is one of Carmina’s low points anyway).

“Dance” also doesn’t fare well, with the simplified rhythms and synthesisers making it sound like something out of a circus sideshow. Having used the first six movements of the original as the first six tracks of the album, Manzarek made substantial changes to the Auf dem Anger section. The middle three movements are gone, and Dulcissime (as “Sweetest Boy”) is moved from near the end to the track following “Dance”. Like “Sunrise”, it has been left as an instrumental without attempting to replicate the extreme high soprano line.  

The tavern section is the weakest on the album. “Boiling Rage” (Estuans interius) survives best, with guitar and keyboards backing the choir, and there is even a relatively brief synthesiser solo for good measure. Manzarek wisely decided against any of the singers attempting to portray the dying swan, giving that role to the electric guitar. It is, however, too gentle, not tortured in any way. “In the Tavern” (In taberna quando sumus) is a real dud, with none of the original’s aggressive jollity, replacing it with an almost monotone chant.

The most uniformly successful part is “The Court of Love”. The first two tracks – “Love Flies Everywhere” and “The Young Girl” – are essentially instrumental, and work very well, while “Come, My Beauty” (Veni, veni, venias) begins as though pages from Love Her Madly, one of The Doors’ biggest hits, have accidentally found their way into the score (in a good way). The contribution of the vocal group here is perhaps the best on the album with the driving rhythms sustained and strong. “The Lovers”, with the jangling keyboard backing the voices cannot match a full choir and orchestra but is still very good.

I did ponder whether this was in fact prog rock, despite being a product of the 1980s. To me, it has a lot in common with Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Pictures At An Exhibition, but against this, there aren’t any ten minute synthesiser solos, indeed the longest track is just over four minutes. None of the few sources I found certainly suggested that it might be prog, so I will go with the flow.

This is certain to remain a curiosity. Classical purists will tut (though perhaps the real classical purist tutted at the original anyway), and Doors aficionados may be a little nonplussed at how little of it sounds like the band. I’m certainly not among the former; I wouldn’t be writing this series if I was, and while I wouldn’t number myself in the latter, I do like a lot of their music, and I found Manzarek’s vision of Carmina interesting but flawed, fluctuating from enjoyable to banal. Perhaps the best judgement comes from Spotify statistics: unsurprisingly “The Wheel Of Fortune” has the most plays of any of the Manzarek tracks with a little under 150,000, while The Doors’ biggest selling single, Light My Fire, has almost 400 million (August 2026). The defence rests, m’lud.

David Barker