Carl Orff
Encyclopedia
Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata
Carmina Burana
(1937). In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education
for children.
on July 10, 1895. His family was Bavarian
and active in the German military
.
Orff started studying the piano at age five and also took organ and cello lessons. However, he was more interested in composing original music than in studying to be a performer. Orff wrote and staged puppet shows for his family, composing music for piano, violin, zither
, and glockenspiel
to accompany them. He had a short story published in a children's magazine in 1905 and started to write a book about nature. In his spare time he enjoyed collecting insects.
By the time he was a teenager, Orff was writing songs, although he had not studied harmony or composition; his mother helped him set down his first works in musical notation. Orff wrote his own texts and he learned the art of composing, without a teacher, by studying classical
masterworks on his own.
In 1911, at age 16, some of Orff's music was published. Many of his youthful works were songs, often settings of German poetry
. They fell into the style of Richard Strauss
and other German composers of the day, but with hints of what would become Orff's distinctive musical language.
In 1911/1912, Orff wrote Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra), Op. 14, a large work for baritone
voice, three choruses and orchestra, based on a passage from Friedrich Nietzsche
's philosophical novel of the same title
. The following year, he composed an opera, Gisei, das Opfer (Gisei, the Sacrifice). Influenced by the French Impressionist
composer Claude Debussy
, he began to use colorful, unusual combinations of instruments in his orchestration
.
Musik-Lexikon states that Orff studied at the Munich Academy of Music
until 1914. He then served in the military in World War I, during which he was severely injured and nearly killed in a trench cave-in. Afterwards, he held various positions at opera houses in Mannheim
and Darmstadt
, later returning to Munich to pursue his music studies.
. But while others followed the cool, balanced "neoclassic" works of Stravinsky, it was works like the composer's Les noces
(The Wedding), a pounding, quasi-folkloric evocation of prehistoric wedding rites, that appealed to Orff. He also began adapting musical works of earlier eras for contemporary theatrical presentation, including Claudio Monteverdi
's opera L'Orfeo (1607). Orff's German version, Orpheus, was staged in 1925 in Mannheim, Germany, under Orff's direction, using some of the instruments that had been used in the original 1607 performance. The passionately declaimed opera of Monteverdi's era was almost unknown in the 1920s, however, and Orff's production met with reactions ranging from incomprehension to ridicule.
In 1924 Dorothee Günther and Orff founded the Günther School for gymnastics, music, and dance in Munich, where he was from 1925 until the end of his life the head of a department and where he worked with musical beginners. This is where he developed his theories in music education, having constant contact with children. In 1930, Orff published a manual titled Schulwerk, where he shares his method of conducting. Before writing Carmina Burana
, Orff edited 17th century operas. Nevertheless, these various activities brought Orff very little money.
in 1937. Given Orff's previous lack of commercial success, the monetary factor of Carmina Buranas acclaim was significant to him. But the composition, with its unfamiliar rhythms, was also denounced with racist taunts. He was one of the few German composers under the Nazi regime who responded to the official call to write new incidental music
for A Midsummer Night's Dream after the music of Felix Mendelssohn
had been banned – others refused to cooperate in this. Defenders of Orff note that he had already composed music for this play as early as 1917 and 1927, long before this was a favour for the Nazi government.
Orff was a friend of Kurt Huber
, one of the founders of the resistance movement Die Weiße Rose (the White Rose
), who was condemned to death by the Volksgerichtshof and executed by the Nazis in 1943. Orff by happenstance called at Huber's house on the day after his arrest. Huber's distraught wife begged Orff to use his influence to help her husband, but Orff denied her request. If his friendship with Huber came out, he told her, he would be "ruined". Huber's wife never saw Orff again. Wracked by guilt, Orff would later write a letter to his late friend Huber, imploring him for forgiveness.
Nonetheless, he had a long friendship with German-Jewish musicologist, composer and refugee Erich Katz
, who fled Nazi Germany in 1939.
process in Bad Homburg, Orff claimed to an American officer, Newell Jenkins (subsequently an orchestral conductor), that he had helped establish, and had been a member of, the White Rose resistance movement. There was no evidence for this other than his own word, and other sources dispute his claim. Canadian historian Michael H. Kater
made in earlier writings a particularly strong case that Orff collaborated with Nazi authorities, but in Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits (2000) Kater rescinded his earlier accusations to some extent. Orff's assertion that he had been anti-Nazi during the war was accepted by the American denazification authorities, who changed his previous category of "grey unacceptable" to "grey acceptable", enabling him to continue to compose for public presentation, and to enjoy the royalties that the popularity of Carmina Burana had brought him.
Most of Orff's later works – Antigonae (1949), Oedipus der Tyrann (Oedipus the Tyrant, 1958), Prometheus (1968), and De temporum fine comoedia (Play on the End of Times, 1971) – were based on texts or topics from antiquity. They extend the language of Carmina Burana in interesting ways, but they are expensive to stage and (on Orff's own admission) are not operas in the conventional sense. Live performances of them have been few, even in Germany.
(m. 1954, div. 1959) and Liselotte Schmitz (m. 1960). His only child Godela, from his first marriage, was born in 1921. She was later rejected by the composer. "He had his life and that was that," she tells Tony Palmer
in the documentary O Fortuna.
in the course of his life: the German Empire
, the Weimar Republic
, Nazi Germany
and the post World War II West German
Bundesrepublik. Orff was buried in the Baroque
church of the beer-brewing Benedictine
priory of Andechs, south of Munich. His tombstone bears his name, his dates of birth and death, and the Latin inscription "Summus Finis" (the ultimate goal).
(1937), a "scenic cantata
". It is the first of a trilogy that also includes Catulli Carmina
and Trionfo di Afrodite
. Carmina Burana reflected his interest in medieval German poetry
. Together the trilogy is called Trionfi
, or "Triumphs". The composer described it as the celebration of the triumph of the human spirit through sexual and holistic balance. The work was based on thirteenth-century poetry found in a manuscript dubbed the Codex latinus monacensis found in the Benedictine
monastery
of Benediktbeuern
in 1803 and written by the Goliard
s; this collection is also known as Carmina Burana
. While "modern" in some of his compositional techniques, Orff was able to capture the spirit of the medieval period
in this trilogy, with infectious rhythms and easy tonalities
. The medieval poems, written in Latin
and an early form of German, are often racy, but without descending into smut. "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi", commonly known as "O Fortuna
", from Carmina Burana is often used to denote primal forces, for example in the Oliver Stone
movie The Doors
.. The work's association with fascism also led Pier Paolo Pasolini
to use the movement "Veris Leta Facies" to accompany the concluding scenes of torture and murder in his final film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom.
With the success of Carmina Burana, Orff disowned all of his previous works except for Catulli Carmina and the Entrata (an orchestration of "The Bells" by William Byrd
(1539–1623)), which were rewritten until acceptable by Orff. Later on, however, many of these earlier works were released (some even with Orff's approval). As an historical aside, Carmina Burana is probably the most famous piece of music composed and premiered in Nazi Germany
. Carmina Burana was in fact so popular that Orff received a commission in Frankfurt to compose incidental music
for A Midsummer Night's Dream
, which was supposed to replace the banned music by Mendelssohn
. After the war, he claimed not to be satisfied with the music and reworked it into the final version that was first performed in 1964.
Orff was reluctant to term any of his works simply operas in the traditional sense. His works Der Mond
(The Moon, 1939) and Die Kluge
(The Wise Woman, 1943), for example, he referred to as "Märchenoper" ("fairytale operas"). Both compositions feature the same "timeless" sound in that they do not employ any of the musical techniques of the period in which they were composed, with the intent that they be difficult to define as belonging to a particular era. Their melodies, rhythms and, with them, text appear in a union of words and music.
About his Antigonae (1949), Orff said specifically that it was not an opera, rather a Vertonung, a "musical setting", of the ancient tragedy
. The text is an excellent German translation, by Friedrich Hölderlin
, of the Sophocles
play of the same name
. The orchestration
relies heavily on the percussion section, and is otherwise fairly simple. It has been labelled by some as minimalistic
, which is most adequate in terms of the melodic line. The story of Antigone has a haunting similarity to the history of Sophie Scholl
, heroine of the White Rose
, and Orff may have been memorializing her in his opera.
Orff's last work, De Temporum Fine Comoedia
(Play on the End of Times), had its premiere at the Salzburg Festival
on August 20, 1973, performed by Herbert von Karajan
and the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne
and Chorus. In this highly personal work, Orff presented a mystery play
, in which he summarized his view on the end of time, sung in Greek, German, and Latin.
Gassenhauer
, which Orff composed with Gunild Keetman
, was used as the theme music for Terrence Malick
's film Badlands
(1973). Hans Zimmer
later reworked this music for his True Romance
(1993) score.
circles he is probably best remembered for his Schulwerk
(School Work). Originally a set of pieces composed and published for the Güntherschule (students ranging from 12 to 22), this title was also used for his books based on radio broadcasts in Bavaria in 1949. These pieces are collectively called Musik für Kinder [Music for Children], and also use the term "Schulwerk". The Music for Children volumes were not designed to be performance pieces for the average child. Many of the parts are challenging for teachers to play. They were designed as examples of pieces that show the use of ostinati, bordun, and appropriate texts for children. Teachers using the volumes are encouraged to simplify the pieces, write original texts for the pieces and modify the instrumentation to adapt to the teacher's classroom situation.
Orff's ideas were developed, together with Gunild Keetman
, into a very innovative approach to music education for children, known as the Orff Schulwerk. The music is elemental and combines movement, singing, playing, and improvisation.
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana (Orff)
Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936. It is based on 24 of the poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana...
(1937). In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education
Music education
Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. It touches on all domains of learning, including the psychomotor domain , the cognitive domain , and, in particular and significant ways,the affective domain, including music appreciation and sensitivity...
for children.
Early life
Orff was born in MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
on July 10, 1895. His family was Bavarian
Kingdom of Bavaria
The Kingdom of Bavaria was a German state that existed from 1806 to 1918. The Bavarian Elector Maximilian IV Joseph of the House of Wittelsbach became the first King of Bavaria in 1806 as Maximilian I Joseph. The monarchy would remain held by the Wittelsbachs until the kingdom's dissolution in 1918...
and active in the German military
German Army (German Empire)
The German Army was the name given the combined land forces of the German Empire, also known as the National Army , Imperial Army or Imperial German Army. The term "Deutsches Heer" is also used for the modern German Army, the land component of the German Bundeswehr...
.
Orff started studying the piano at age five and also took organ and cello lessons. However, he was more interested in composing original music than in studying to be a performer. Orff wrote and staged puppet shows for his family, composing music for piano, violin, zither
Zither
The zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary citera, northwestern Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe and East Asian cultures, including China...
, and glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
to accompany them. He had a short story published in a children's magazine in 1905 and started to write a book about nature. In his spare time he enjoyed collecting insects.
By the time he was a teenager, Orff was writing songs, although he had not studied harmony or composition; his mother helped him set down his first works in musical notation. Orff wrote his own texts and he learned the art of composing, without a teacher, by studying classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
masterworks on his own.
In 1911, at age 16, some of Orff's music was published. Many of his youthful works were songs, often settings of German poetry
German literature
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...
. They fell into the style of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
and other German composers of the day, but with hints of what would become Orff's distinctive musical language.
In 1911/1912, Orff wrote Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra), Op. 14, a large work for baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
voice, three choruses and orchestra, based on a passage from Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
's philosophical novel of the same title
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None is a philosophical novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885...
. The following year, he composed an opera, Gisei, das Opfer (Gisei, the Sacrifice). Influenced by the French Impressionist
Impressionist music
Impressionism in music was a tendency in European classical music, mainly in France, which appeared in the late nineteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. Similarly to its precursor in the visual arts, musical impressionism focuses on a suggestion and an atmosphere...
composer Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, he began to use colorful, unusual combinations of instruments in his orchestration
Orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
.
World War I
Moser'sHans Joachim Moser
Translated from German WikipediaHans Joachim Moser was a German musicologist, composer and singer....
Musik-Lexikon states that Orff studied at the Munich Academy of Music
Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
The Hochschule für Musik und Theater München is one of the most respected traditional vocational universities in Germany specialising in music and the performing arts. The seat of the Hochschule is the former Führerbau of the NSDAP, located at Arcisstraße 12, on the eastern side of the Königsplatz...
until 1914. He then served in the military in World War I, during which he was severely injured and nearly killed in a trench cave-in. Afterwards, he held various positions at opera houses in Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
and Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
, later returning to Munich to pursue his music studies.
The 1920s
In the mid-1920s Orff began to formulate a concept he called "elementare Musik", or elemental music, which was based on the unity of the arts symbolized by the ancient Greek Muses (who gave music its English name) and involved tone, dance, poetry, image, design, and theatrical gesture. Like many other composers of the time he was influenced by the Russian-French émigré Igor StravinskyIgor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
. But while others followed the cool, balanced "neoclassic" works of Stravinsky, it was works like the composer's Les noces
Les Noces
Les noces by Igor Stravinsky, is a dance cantata, or ballet with vocalists.-History:The ballet was premiered on June 13, 1923 at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, by the Ballets Russes with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska...
(The Wedding), a pounding, quasi-folkloric evocation of prehistoric wedding rites, that appealed to Orff. He also began adapting musical works of earlier eras for contemporary theatrical presentation, including Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
's opera L'Orfeo (1607). Orff's German version, Orpheus, was staged in 1925 in Mannheim, Germany, under Orff's direction, using some of the instruments that had been used in the original 1607 performance. The passionately declaimed opera of Monteverdi's era was almost unknown in the 1920s, however, and Orff's production met with reactions ranging from incomprehension to ridicule.
In 1924 Dorothee Günther and Orff founded the Günther School for gymnastics, music, and dance in Munich, where he was from 1925 until the end of his life the head of a department and where he worked with musical beginners. This is where he developed his theories in music education, having constant contact with children. In 1930, Orff published a manual titled Schulwerk, where he shares his method of conducting. Before writing Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana (Orff)
Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936. It is based on 24 of the poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana...
, Orff edited 17th century operas. Nevertheless, these various activities brought Orff very little money.
The Nazi era
Orff's relationship with German fascism and the Nazi Party has been a matter of considerable debate and analysis. His Carmina Burana was hugely popular in Nazi Germany after its premiere in FrankfurtFrankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
in 1937. Given Orff's previous lack of commercial success, the monetary factor of Carmina Buranas acclaim was significant to him. But the composition, with its unfamiliar rhythms, was also denounced with racist taunts. He was one of the few German composers under the Nazi regime who responded to the official call to write new incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for A Midsummer Night's Dream after the music of Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
had been banned – others refused to cooperate in this. Defenders of Orff note that he had already composed music for this play as early as 1917 and 1927, long before this was a favour for the Nazi government.
Orff was a friend of Kurt Huber
Kurt Huber
Kurt Huber was a member of the White Rose group, which carried out resistance against Nazi Germany.-Early life:...
, one of the founders of the resistance movement Die Weiße Rose (the White Rose
White Rose
The White Rose was a non-violent/intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor...
), who was condemned to death by the Volksgerichtshof and executed by the Nazis in 1943. Orff by happenstance called at Huber's house on the day after his arrest. Huber's distraught wife begged Orff to use his influence to help her husband, but Orff denied her request. If his friendship with Huber came out, he told her, he would be "ruined". Huber's wife never saw Orff again. Wracked by guilt, Orff would later write a letter to his late friend Huber, imploring him for forgiveness.
Nonetheless, he had a long friendship with German-Jewish musicologist, composer and refugee Erich Katz
Erich Katz
Erich Katz was a German-born musicologist, composer, music critic, musician and professor. He fled the Nazis in 1939, arriving first in England, emigrating to the United States in 1943, where he became a citizen. He was a driving force behind the early music and recorder movements in the United...
, who fled Nazi Germany in 1939.
Post war
Following World War II, during his denazificationDenazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
process in Bad Homburg, Orff claimed to an American officer, Newell Jenkins (subsequently an orchestral conductor), that he had helped establish, and had been a member of, the White Rose resistance movement. There was no evidence for this other than his own word, and other sources dispute his claim. Canadian historian Michael H. Kater
Michael H. Kater
Michael Hans Kater is a Canadian-based historian, academic and author of several books on Nazi Germany.He moved to Canada as a teenager where he first studied at St. Michael's college before eventually going onto the University of Toronto where he earned his BA degree in 1959 and then his MA in...
made in earlier writings a particularly strong case that Orff collaborated with Nazi authorities, but in Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits (2000) Kater rescinded his earlier accusations to some extent. Orff's assertion that he had been anti-Nazi during the war was accepted by the American denazification authorities, who changed his previous category of "grey unacceptable" to "grey acceptable", enabling him to continue to compose for public presentation, and to enjoy the royalties that the popularity of Carmina Burana had brought him.
Most of Orff's later works – Antigonae (1949), Oedipus der Tyrann (Oedipus the Tyrant, 1958), Prometheus (1968), and De temporum fine comoedia (Play on the End of Times, 1971) – were based on texts or topics from antiquity. They extend the language of Carmina Burana in interesting ways, but they are expensive to stage and (on Orff's own admission) are not operas in the conventional sense. Live performances of them have been few, even in Germany.
Personal life
Orff was married four times: Alice Solscher (m. 1920, div. 1925), Alice Willert (m. 1939, div. 1953), Luise RinserLuise Rinser
Luise Rinser was a German writer.-Early life and education:...
(m. 1954, div. 1959) and Liselotte Schmitz (m. 1960). His only child Godela, from his first marriage, was born in 1921. She was later rejected by the composer. "He had his life and that was that," she tells Tony Palmer
Tony Palmer
Tony Palmer is an American football guard in the National Football League who is currently a free agent. The former University of Missouri guard who was selected by the St. Louis Rams. He was signed by the Green Bay Packers after being cut in the 2006 preseason by St. Louis...
in the documentary O Fortuna.
Death
When Carl Orff died in Munich in 1982 at the age of 86, he had lived through four epochsEpoch (reference date)
In the fields of chronology and periodization, an epoch is an instance in time chosen as the origin of a particular era. The "epoch" then serves as a reference point from which time is measured...
in the course of his life: the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
, the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and the post World War II West German
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
Bundesrepublik. Orff was buried in the Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
church of the beer-brewing Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
priory of Andechs, south of Munich. His tombstone bears his name, his dates of birth and death, and the Latin inscription "Summus Finis" (the ultimate goal).
Musical work
Orff is most known for Carmina BuranaCarmina Burana (Orff)
Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936. It is based on 24 of the poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana...
(1937), a "scenic cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
". It is the first of a trilogy that also includes Catulli Carmina
Catulli Carmina
Catulli Carmina is a cantata by Carl Orff dating from 1940-1943. The work sets the texts of Catullus to music. Orff himself provided the text, in Latin, of the opening. Catulli Carmina is part of Trionfi, the musical triptych that also includes the Carmina Burana and Trionfo di Afrodite...
and Trionfo di Afrodite
Trionfo di Afrodite
Trionfo di Afrodite is a cantata called "concerto scenico" written in 1951 by the German composer Carl Orff. It is part of Trionfi, the musical triptych that also includes Carmina Burana and Catulli Carmina...
. Carmina Burana reflected his interest in medieval German poetry
Medieval German literature
Medieval German literature refers to literature written in Germany, stretching from the Carolingian dynasty; various dates have been given for the end of the German literary Middle Ages, the Reformation being the last possible cut-off point....
. Together the trilogy is called Trionfi
Trionfi (Carl Orff)
Trionfi is a trilogy of cantatas by German composer Carl Orff:* Carmina Burana* Catulli Carmina* Trionfo di AfroditeCarmina Burana is by far the most famous of the three....
, or "Triumphs". The composer described it as the celebration of the triumph of the human spirit through sexual and holistic balance. The work was based on thirteenth-century poetry found in a manuscript dubbed the Codex latinus monacensis found in the Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monastery
Benediktbeuern Abbey
Benediktbeuern Abbey is a monastery of the Salesians of Don Bosco, originally a monastery of the Benedictine Order, in Benediktbeuern in Bavaria, near the Kochelsee, 64 km south-south-west of Munich...
of Benediktbeuern
Benediktbeuern
Benediktbeuern is a municipality in the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen in Bavaria, Germany. The distance between Bichl and Benediktbeuern is only 2 kilometers, or 1.25 miles. The village has about 3,500 residents as of 2004....
in 1803 and written by the Goliard
Goliard
The Goliards were a group of clergy who wrote bibulous, satirical Latin poetry in the 12th and 13th centuries. They were mainly clerical students at the universities of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England who protested the growing contradictions within the Church, such as the failure of the...
s; this collection is also known as Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana , Latin for "Songs from Beuern" , is the name given to a manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces were written principally in Medieval Latin; a few in Middle High German, and some with traces...
. While "modern" in some of his compositional techniques, Orff was able to capture the spirit of the medieval period
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
in this trilogy, with infectious rhythms and easy tonalities
Tonality
Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
. The medieval poems, written in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and an early form of German, are often racy, but without descending into smut. "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi", commonly known as "O Fortuna
O Fortuna
"O Fortuna" is a medieval Latin Goliardic poem written early in the thirteenth century, part of the collection known as the Carmina Burana. It is a complaint about fate, and Fortuna, a goddess in Roman mythology and personification of luck....
", from Carmina Burana is often used to denote primal forces, for example in the Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...
movie The Doors
The Doors (film)
The Doors is a 1991 biopic about the 1960s-1970s rock band of the same name which emphasizes the life of its lead singer, Jim Morrison. It was directed by Oliver Stone, and stars Val Kilmer as Morrison, Meg Ryan as Pamela Courson , Kyle MacLachlan as Ray Manzarek, Frank Whaley as Robby Krieger,...
.. The work's association with fascism also led Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian film director, poet, writer, and intellectual. Pasolini distinguished himself as a poet, journalist, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, newspaper and magazine columnist, actor, painter and political figure...
to use the movement "Veris Leta Facies" to accompany the concluding scenes of torture and murder in his final film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom.
With the success of Carmina Burana, Orff disowned all of his previous works except for Catulli Carmina and the Entrata (an orchestration of "The Bells" by William Byrd
William Byrd
William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard and consort music.-Provenance:Knowledge of Byrd's biography expanded in the late 20th century, thanks largely...
(1539–1623)), which were rewritten until acceptable by Orff. Later on, however, many of these earlier works were released (some even with Orff's approval). As an historical aside, Carmina Burana is probably the most famous piece of music composed and premiered in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. Carmina Burana was in fact so popular that Orff received a commission in Frankfurt to compose incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
, which was supposed to replace the banned music by Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
. After the war, he claimed not to be satisfied with the music and reworked it into the final version that was first performed in 1964.
Orff was reluctant to term any of his works simply operas in the traditional sense. His works Der Mond
Der Mond
Der Mond is an opera in one act by Carl Orff based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale with a libretto by the composer. It was first performed on 5 February 1939 by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich under the direction of Clemens Krauss...
(The Moon, 1939) and Die Kluge
Die Kluge
Die Kluge. Die Geschichte von dem König und der klugen Frau is an opera in 12 scenes written by Carl Orff. It premiered in Frankfurt, Germany, on 20 February 1943. Orff referred to this opera as a Märchenoper...
(The Wise Woman, 1943), for example, he referred to as "Märchenoper" ("fairytale operas"). Both compositions feature the same "timeless" sound in that they do not employ any of the musical techniques of the period in which they were composed, with the intent that they be difficult to define as belonging to a particular era. Their melodies, rhythms and, with them, text appear in a union of words and music.
About his Antigonae (1949), Orff said specifically that it was not an opera, rather a Vertonung, a "musical setting", of the ancient tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
. The text is an excellent German translation, by Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
, of the Sophocles
Sophocles
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
play of the same name
Antigone (Sophocles)
Antigone is a tragedy by Sophocles written in or before 442 BC. Chronologically, it is the third of the three Theban plays but was written first...
. The orchestration
Orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
relies heavily on the percussion section, and is otherwise fairly simple. It has been labelled by some as minimalistic
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
, which is most adequate in terms of the melodic line. The story of Antigone has a haunting similarity to the history of Sophie Scholl
Sophie Scholl
Sophia Magdalena Scholl was a German student, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans...
, heroine of the White Rose
White Rose
The White Rose was a non-violent/intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor...
, and Orff may have been memorializing her in his opera.
Orff's last work, De Temporum Fine Comoedia
De Temporum Fine Comoedia
De Temporum Fine Comoedia, literally Play of the End of Time, is an opera or musical play by 20th Century German composer Carl Orff. It was his last work and took ten years to compose . Its premiere was at the Salzburg Music Festival on August 20, 1973, by Herbert von Karajan and the Cologne Radio...
(Play on the End of Times), had its premiere at the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
on August 20, 1973, performed by Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
and the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne
WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne
The WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne is a German orchestra based in Cologne. The orchestra was founded in 1947 by Allied occupation authorities after World War II, as the orchestra of Nordwestdeutschen Rundfunk . The orchestra later acquired the names of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and...
and Chorus. In this highly personal work, Orff presented a mystery play
Mystery play
Mystery plays and miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song...
, in which he summarized his view on the end of time, sung in Greek, German, and Latin.
Gassenhauer
Gassenhauer
Gassenhauer is a short piece from Carl Orff's Schulwerk. As the full title indicates, it is either an arrangement of, or inspired by, a much older work by the lutenist Hans Neusiedler from 1536...
, which Orff composed with Gunild Keetman
Gunild Keetman
The German educator Gunild Keetman was the primary originator, along with Carl Orff, of the approach to teaching music known as Orff Schulwerk...
, was used as the theme music for Terrence Malick
Terrence Malick
Terrence Frederick Malick is a U.S. film director, screenwriter, and producer. In a career spanning almost four decades, Malick has directed five feature films....
's film Badlands
Badlands (film)
Badlands is a 1973 American crime drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri are also featured. Malick has a small speaking part although he does not receive an acting credit...
(1973). Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer
Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including critically acclaimed film scores for The Lion King , Crimson Tide , The Thin Red Line , Gladiator , The Dark Knight and Inception .Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the...
later reworked this music for his True Romance
True Romance
True Romance is a 1993 American romance crime film written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. The film stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette with an ensemble cast consisting of Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin...
(1993) score.
Pedagogic work
In pedagogicalPedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
circles he is probably best remembered for his Schulwerk
Orff Schulwerk
The Orff Schulwerk, or simply the Orff Approach, is one of several developmental approaches including the Kodaly Method, Simply Music and Suzuki Method used to teach music education to students. It combines music, movement, drama, and speech into lessons that are similar to child's world of play...
(School Work). Originally a set of pieces composed and published for the Güntherschule (students ranging from 12 to 22), this title was also used for his books based on radio broadcasts in Bavaria in 1949. These pieces are collectively called Musik für Kinder [Music for Children], and also use the term "Schulwerk". The Music for Children volumes were not designed to be performance pieces for the average child. Many of the parts are challenging for teachers to play. They were designed as examples of pieces that show the use of ostinati, bordun, and appropriate texts for children. Teachers using the volumes are encouraged to simplify the pieces, write original texts for the pieces and modify the instrumentation to adapt to the teacher's classroom situation.
Orff's ideas were developed, together with Gunild Keetman
Gunild Keetman
The German educator Gunild Keetman was the primary originator, along with Carl Orff, of the approach to teaching music known as Orff Schulwerk...
, into a very innovative approach to music education for children, known as the Orff Schulwerk. The music is elemental and combines movement, singing, playing, and improvisation.
List of compositions
- Lamenti
- Orpheus (1924, reworked 1939)
- Klage der Ariadne (1925, reworked 1940)
- Tanz der Spröden (1925, reworked 1940)
- Entrata for orchestra, after "The Bells" by William ByrdWilliam ByrdWilliam Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard and consort music.-Provenance:Knowledge of Byrd's biography expanded in the late 20th century, thanks largely...
(1539–1623) (1928, reworked 1941)
- Orff SchulwerkOrff SchulwerkThe Orff Schulwerk, or simply the Orff Approach, is one of several developmental approaches including the Kodaly Method, Simply Music and Suzuki Method used to teach music education to students. It combines music, movement, drama, and speech into lessons that are similar to child's world of play...
- Musik für Kinder (with Gunild Keetmann) (1930–35, reworked 1950–54)
- Trionfi
- Carmina BuranaCarmina Burana (Orff)Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936. It is based on 24 of the poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana...
(1937) - Catulli CarminaCatulli CarminaCatulli Carmina is a cantata by Carl Orff dating from 1940-1943. The work sets the texts of Catullus to music. Orff himself provided the text, in Latin, of the opening. Catulli Carmina is part of Trionfi, the musical triptych that also includes the Carmina Burana and Trionfo di Afrodite...
(1943) - Trionfo di AfroditeTrionfo di AfroditeTrionfo di Afrodite is a cantata called "concerto scenico" written in 1951 by the German composer Carl Orff. It is part of Trionfi, the musical triptych that also includes Carmina Burana and Catulli Carmina...
(1953)
- Carmina Burana
- Märchenstücke (Fairy tales)
- Der MondDer MondDer Mond is an opera in one act by Carl Orff based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale with a libretto by the composer. It was first performed on 5 February 1939 by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich under the direction of Clemens Krauss...
(1939) - Die KlugeDie KlugeDie Kluge. Die Geschichte von dem König und der klugen Frau is an opera in 12 scenes written by Carl Orff. It premiered in Frankfurt, Germany, on 20 February 1943. Orff referred to this opera as a Märchenoper...
(1943) - Ein Sommernachtstraum (1952, reworked 1962)
- Der Mond
- Bairisches Welttheater (Bavarian world theatre)
- Die Bernauerin (1947)
- Astutuli (1953)
- Comoedia de Christi Resurrectione (1956) – Easter PlayEaster DramaAn Easter Drama is a liturgical drama or religious theatrical performance in the Roman Catholic tradition, largely limited to the Middle Ages. These performances evolved from celebrations of the liturgy to incorporate later dramatic and secular elements, and came to be performed in local languages...
- Ludus de Nato Infante Mirificus (1961) – Nativity playNativity playA Nativity play or Christmas pageant is a play which recounts the story of the Nativity of Jesus. It is usually performed at Christmas, the feast of the Nativity.-Liturgical:...
- Theatrum Mundi
- Antigonae (1949)
- Oedipus der Tyrann (1959)
- Prometheus (1968)
- De Temporum Fine ComoediaDe Temporum Fine ComoediaDe Temporum Fine Comoedia, literally Play of the End of Time, is an opera or musical play by 20th Century German composer Carl Orff. It was his last work and took ten years to compose . Its premiere was at the Salzburg Music Festival on August 20, 1973, by Herbert von Karajan and the Cologne Radio...
(1973, reworked 1977)
Further reading
- Michael H. Kater, "Carl Orff im Dritten Reich", Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 43, 1 (January 1995): 1–35.
- Michael H. Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.