In taberna quando sumus


"In taberna quando sumus" is a medieval Latin Goliardic poem, part of the collection known as the Carmina Burana, written between the 12th and early 13th centuries. It was set to music in 1935/36 by German composer Carl Orff as part of his Carmina Burana which premiered at Frankfurt Opera on 8 June 1937. Within Orff's Carmina Burana, this drinking song is the 14th movement in section 2, In Taberna. The poem is largely in trochaic tetrameter.

Carl Orff's lyrics

Differences from the manuscript

The lyrics used by Orff show a change in the last stanza where the original parum durant centum sex nummate / ubi ipsi immoderate is changed to parum sexcente nummate / durant, cum immoderate. The musical arrangement also adds the exclamation io! at the end, repeated nine times.