Described by the composer himself as a concerto scenico (scenic concert), the Trionfo is a representation of a ritual for a Greco-Roman wedding, in a similar fashion to Igor Stravinsky's Les noces.

By using the word trionfo, Orff specifically intended to identify the work as a successor to the Renaissance and baroque tradition of the masque and pageant, not as a formal borrowing but as a rather refreshed and extended look on it.

[1][clarification needed] Orff began working on the Trionfo as early as 1947, but could not fully concentrate on the piece until he completed his Antigonae in March 1949.

The score was finally completed in 1951 and premiered some time later, on February 14, 1953, at La Scala in Milan, with Herbert von Karajan conducting.

),[clarification needed] that gave Orff the idea of using bridal torches in his new work and bringing the trionfo d'amore to its concluding climax, with a representation of a nuptial feast, as found in classical literature.

[3] Orff's intentions with the text were not to offer an ad hoc reconstruction of an antique rite, but rather to present the union of an "archetypal couple as the work of the Goddess of Love Aphrodite, as a hieros gamos" (holy marriage).

[1] In this sense, the subtitle of the work, Concerto scenico, implies that there is a deliberate absence of plot, as opposed to the two preceding parts of the triptych.

[1] The challenge that faced me was to fuse these fragments into a new whole – the tiny particles, short stanzas or individual lines which are all that remain to us of Sappho's poems, preserved in literature or protected by desert sands against the worms of time – and to use Catullus' nuptial poems as framework for it.Despite the large orchestra, the instrumentation is often sparse, especially in the Greek verses, and the music is strongly influenced by the rhythms and melodies of the spoken word,[2] though little importance is actually given to both tonic and prosodic accent.

The movement begins with the "Vesper adest" sung by the male coryphaeus, a short prelude that precedes the contest (verses 1–19), in which both groups of young men and maidens rehearse the song one last time.

At verse 20 (and rehearsal number 4), an antiphonal song begins where the male ("Hespere, quis caelo fertur crudelior ignis?")

Since the fragments are generally unrelated to one another, in the sense that they have been extracted from different places within the original text, the sequence of musical phrases do not represent a dialogue.

Marked "Allegro assai", it features a solo bass coryphaeus, with histrionics and exaggerated gestures, reciting the lines of the poem, with short interludes from the percussion and chorus.

Marked "Sempre molto rubato", it features various surviving quotations from Sappho's poems summarized, where the bride and groom are in the bridal chamber.

In fact, the bells are required to be stricken with iron rods, the pianos have to play tone clusters with both open hands pressing white and black keys, and the whole choir is expected to give a "grido altissimo" (very loud cry).