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The popularity of "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff isn't hard to figure out.

"It has lots of color and powerful rhythmic energy that erupt in every part," says Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra music director Manfred Honeck. "'Carmina Burana' is something outstanding, also, because it's a piece which illustrates key elements in the history of the 20th century in music, including irony and, especially, rhythm."

Honeck will lead vocal soloists Celena Shafer, Christopher Pfund and Hugh Russell, the Mendelssohn Choir and the Pittsburgh Symphony in performances of "Carmina Burana" from Friday through Sunday at Heinz Hall, Downtown. The program also will include Joseph Haydn's Oboe Concerto.

Orff wrote "Carmina Burana" in 1935 and 1936, and it is regarded as the first composition in which he found his voice. It remains his most popular composition, recorded dozens of times and often used for ballet, locally by Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre as recently as March 2008.

Two sequels, "Catulli Carmina" and "Trionfo di Afrodite," are much less dramatic and colorful musically.

Although "Carmina Burana's" orchestral writing has great impact, Honeck says the choir has the main role. Orff used medieval poems that were discovered in 1803 in the Benedictine abbey of Benediktbeuren, and published in 1847.

The influence of Igor Stravinsky, especially "The Rite of Spring" and "Les Noces," on Orff in "Carmina Burana" is apparent. Honeck says composers such as "Stravinsky, Orff and John Adams have fantastic rhythm," but he adds, "you can never really make music without melody."

Orff arranged "Carmina Burana" in three parts -- "Spring," "In the Tavern" and "The Court of Love." It begins and ends with a hymn to "Fortune, Empress of the World."

"It is a human oratorio, full of eroticism, the opposite of a sacred piece," Honeck says.

The conductor says he loves the irony and sarcasm in the old texts. "Sometimes, it seems that the whole monastery is only about drinking and eating."

The concert also features the orchestra's principal oboist, Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida, playing a concerto ascribed to Joseph Haydn, who often is described as the father of the string quartet and symphony. The surviving score of the concerto provides no proof of authenticity. In fact, Haydn's name appears in a different handwriting than in the rest of the pages.

As far as Honeck is concerned, if the Oboe Concerto wasn't by Haydn, it should have been.

"When you looked through Haydn symphonies or the masses (pieces of undoubted authenticity), you are always surprised by many things," he says. "His Serenade has been proven to be by someone else, but it remains just as beautiful."

Honeck says he enjoyed listening to one of DeAlmeida's commercial recordings, "Mist Over the Lake," and that she's "one of the rare oboe players. She has this tone which can be extremely elegant and thin, or extremely fat. She can do everything with the instrument."

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