A second-hand bookshop’s much-thumbed book catalogue referring to a 13th century Austrian manuscript of songs and poems changed one composer’s fortunes and gave us one of our best-loved choral works.

Carl Orff wrote Carmina Burana in the mid-1930s in Nazi Germany and its use of bright tonal colours, visceral rhythms and mix of sacred plainchant and secular German bawdy drinking songs has delighted listeners ever since.

And with the opening chorus O Fortuna – influenced by Stravinsky as much as by Baroque music – Orff has entered popular culture and provided the soundtrack to movies and TV advertisements.

Sydney Chamber Choir’s association with this work is strong, especially as in 2016 the late Richard Gill, who had studied with Carl Orff in the 1970s and played piano for one of his performances of the cantata, conducted it when he was the choir’s Artistic Director.

For their latest outing Artistic Director Sam Allchurch chose three excellent soloists in soprano Celeste Lazarenko, tenor Russell Harcourt and baritone Simon Meadows.

Sydney Chamber Choir. Photo supplied

There is no doubt that the baritone gets all the...