The Justice

The piece never reaches a grand climax or rousing finale-the singers' voices, crying to God, sometimes break free, but the clanging, ominous percussion always beats them down again. Suffering from a somewhat weak and thin soprano sound and unfortunate carelessness with the ends of phrases, the piece was nonetheless sensitively conducted, ably performed and well-received.

The centerpiece of the concert, Orff's Carmina Burana, is possibly the most well-known piece of choral music in the world, after Handel's Messiah. Carmina Burana, especially its ominous first song, "O Fortuna," has been so endlessly quoted, imitated and echoed that by now it ought to have become clichéd and unexciting. It has not.

From the cheerful pastoral of the "Springtime" movements to the bawdy enthusiasm of the many odes to love and lust, every mood was fully explored by the chorus, the percussion and the soloists, particularly baritone David Kravitz and soprano Janet Brown, who performed at Brandeis last semester with the University Chorus and Brandeis-Wellesley Orchestra. This is not to say that the performance was perfect-the sopranos were again underwhelming, and some puzzling conducting choices left the audience and the performers at a loss-but the visceral power of the work came through, as it always must.

Orff's masterpiece is a gargantuan, exhausting undertaking, and one could understand if the Cantata Singers' final iteration of the signature "O Fortuna," which closed the concert, was tired or sluggish, but the finale was just what a finale should be-deeply satisfying-emotionally and musically. They were rewarded with a three-minute standing ovation, in which the audience demanded five bows from the performers-a well-deserved compliment on a job beautifully done.

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