By staff reporter ZHANG HONG

Christianeum High School Chorus performing at No.8 Middle School in Beijing.

In 1803 a collection of 13th century stories, poems and songs, known as the Carmina Burana, was discovered in a Bavarian monastery. The celebrated German composer Carl Orff selected various pieces from it, and transformed them into his greatest work. On March 4 this year, Hamburg’s well-known Christianeum High School Choir enthralled young Beijing musicians with their performance of this classical music.

Orff’s Carmina contains a dramatic blend of music and lyrics adapted from the centuries-old collection, and the 310-strong choir of German school children put on a fine performance. Dressed in black and white, they recreated a merry medieval world for the Chinese audience.

Founded in 1738, Christianeum High School specialized in the humanities. All pupils are required to study 4 foreign languages; Latin and English are compulsory, while the other two may be selected from two groups, one comprising ancient Greek and Russian; the other French, Spanish and Chinese.

Christianeum is one of four middle schools in Hamburg that offer Chinese classes. Until 2001, when the school hired Mrs. Chai Ming, a graduate of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, who played the piano at the recent performance, all its Chinese teachers were from Taiwan. When Mrs. Chai started the job, she had just eight students in her class, but now she has more than forty. During the concert, Chai Ming performed several roles – that of teacher, pianist and interpreter.

The students’ visit to China was big news back in Hamburg. A local newspaper sent a reporter, and two filmmaking parents also made the journey to capture the event on camera.

While the choir was in Beijing, the children met with their Chinese counterparts, No. 8 Middle School’s Star of Hope Symphony Orchestra. Founded in 1949, it is among the best in the Chinese capital. The orchestra performed their own compositions, as well as some European classical works. The German guests greeted all the pieces with warm and prolonged applause. As the President of Christianeum remarked, people speak different languages, but music traverses all borders.