Carl Orff

Carl Orff (July 10, 1895(1895-07-10) – March 29, 1982) was a 20th-century German composer, most famous for Carmina Burana (1937). He was also successful and influential in the field of music education. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... is the 191st day of the year (192nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1895 (MDCCCXCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... is the 88th day of the year (89th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... This article is about Carl Orffs musical composition based on the medieval collection of poems. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. ...

Life

Orff was born in Munich, Germany and came from a Bavarian family that was very active in the German military. His father's regimental band supposedly had often played the compositions of young Orff. Munich: Frauenkirche and Town Hall steeple Munich (German: München pronunciation) is the state capital of the German Bundesland of Bavaria. ...

Moser's Musik Lexicon states that Orff studied at the Munich Academy of Music until 1914. He then served in the military during World War I. Afterwards, he held various positions at opera houses in Mannheim and Darmstadt, later to return to Munich to pursue further his music studies. “The Great War ” redirects here. ... Mannheim is a city in Germany. ... For other uses, see Darmstadt (disambiguation). ...

As of 1925, and for the rest of his life, Orff was the head of a department and co-founder of the Guenther School for gymnastics, music, and dance in Munich, where he worked with musical beginners. Having constant contact with children, this is where he developed his theories in music education.

Carl Orff burial location in Andechs

Orff's association with the Nazi party has been alleged, but never conclusively established. His Carmina Burana was hugely popular in Nazi Germany after its premiere in Frankfurt in 1937, receiving numerous performances. 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 music for A Midsummer Night's Dream after the music of Felix Mendelssohn had been banned — others refused to cooperate in this. But Orff had already composed music for this play as early as 1917 and 1927, long before this was a favour for the Nazi government. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 541 pixelsFull resolution (2430 × 1643 pixel, file size: 687 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Karl Orff burial plate in Kloster Andechs I want to use the image. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 541 pixelsFull resolution (2430 × 1643 pixel, file size: 687 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Karl Orff burial plate in Kloster Andechs I want to use the image. ... For other uses, see Frankfurt (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see A Midsummer Nights Dream (disambiguation). ... Portrait of Mendelssohn by the English miniaturist James Warren Childe (1778-1862), 1839 Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, born and generally known as Felix Mendelssohn (February 3, 1809 – November 4, 1847) is a German composer, pianist and conductor of the early Romantic period. ...

Orff was a personal 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. After World War II, Orff claimed that he was a member of the group, and was himself involved in the resistance, but 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 ^[1], but in his most recent publication "Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits" (2000) Kater has taken back his earlier accusations to some extent. Orff's assertion that he had been anti-Nazi during the war was accepted by the American de-nazification authorities, who changed his previous category of "gray unacceptable" to "gray acceptable", enabling him to continue to compose for public presentation. Kurt Huber (October 24, 1893–July 13, 1943) was a member of the White Rose group, which carried out resistance against Nazi Germany. ... This article is about the German resistance movement. ... The Volksgerichtshof (German for Peoples Court) was a court established by Hitler after the Reichstag fire to handle those accused of political criminal offences, such as treason. ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Denazification (German: Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary and politics of any remnants of the Nazi regime. ...

Orff died at the age of 86 and is buried in the Baroque church of the beer-brewing Benedictine priory of Andechs, south of Munich. For other uses, see Baroque (disambiguation). ... For the college, see Benedictine College. ... Andechs Abbey The Benedictine abbey of Andechs is a former place of pilgrimage on a hill east of the Ammersee in the Landkreis of Starnberg (Oberbayern) in Germany, in the municipality Andechs. ... For other uses, see Munich (disambiguation). ...

Musical work

O Fortuna Image File history File links Carl_Orff-Carmina_Burana-O_Fortuna. ...

From Carmina Burana by Carl Orff

Problems listening to the file? See media help. Carmina Burana (IPA: ; note that the stress is on the first syllable of Carmina, not the second) also known as the Burana Codex is a manuscript collection, now in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, of more than 1000 poems and songs written in the early 13th century. ...

Orff is most known for Carmina Burana (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 a Bavarian monastery in 1803 and written by the Goliards; 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 an early form of German and Latin, are often racy, but without descending into smut. This article is about Carl Orffs musical composition based on the medieval collection of poems. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A cantata (Italian, sung) is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment and generally containing more than one movement. ... A trilogy is a set of three works of art, usually literature or film, that are connected and can be seen as a single work, as well as three individual ones. ... Catulli Carmina is a cantata by Carl Orff to the texts of Catullus, the Roman poet of the 1st century BC. 1 - cui dono lepidum nouum libellum 2 - passer. ... Trionfo di Afrodite is a musical piece written by the German composer Carl Orff. ... This article is about Carl Orffs musical composition based on the medieval collection of poems. ... German literature begins in the Carolingian period, first in Latin and then in Old High German. ... Trionfi is the trilogy of cantatas by German composer Carl Orff: Carmina Burana Catulli Carmina Trionfo di Afrodite Carmina Burana is by far the most famous of the three cantatas, and includes O Fortuna. ... The Goliards were a group of clergy who wrote bibulous, satirical Latin poetry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. ... Carmina Burana (IPA: ; note that the stress is on the first syllable of Carmina, not the second) also known as the Burana Codex is a manuscript collection, now in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, of more than 1000 poems and songs written in the early 13th century. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Rhythm (Greek = flow, or in Modern Greek, style) is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events. ... Tonality is a system of writing music according to certain hierarchical pitch relationships around a key center or tonic. ... For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ...

With the success of Carmina Burana, Orff orphaned all of his previous works except for Catulli Carmina and the Entrata, which were rewritten until acceptable by Orff. 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 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. Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... For other uses, see Frankfurt (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see A Midsummer Nights Dream (disambiguation). ... Portrait of Mendelssohn by the English miniaturist James Warren Childe (1778-1862), 1839 Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, born and generally known as Felix Mendelssohn (February 3, 1809 – November 4, 1847) is a German composer, pianist and conductor of the early Romantic period. ... Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator). ...

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. For other uses, see Opera (disambiguation). ... Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

About his Antigone (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. Antigone (Antigonae in German), written by Carl Orff, was first presented in 1949 in Salzburg, Austria. ... Year 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Tragedy (disambiguation). ... Friedrich Hölderlin Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin [] (March 20, 1770 – June 6, 1843) was a major German lyric poet. ... This article is about the Greek tragedian. ... Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble) or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium. ... Percussion redirects here. ... This article is about a musical style. ... Hans Scholl, Sophie Magdalena Scholl, and Christoph Probst, who were executed for participating in the White Rose resistance movement against the Nazi regime in Germany. ... This article is about the German resistance movement. ...

Orff's last work, De Temporum Fine Comoedia ("A Play of the End of Time"), had its premiere at the Salzburg music festival on August 20, 1973, performed by Herbert von Karajan and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra 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. De Temporum Fine Comoedia, literally A Play of the End of Time, is an opera or musical play by 20th Century German composer Carl Orff. ... The Salzburg Festival is a prominent music festival in the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The festival was founded in 1877 but was discontinued in 1910. ... is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... Herbert von Karajan (April 5, 1908 – July 16, 1989) was an Austrian conductor. ... Mystery plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. ...

Musica Poetica, which Orff composed with Gunild Keetman, was used as the theme music for Terrence Malick's 1973 film Badlands. Hans Zimmer later reworked this music for his 1993 True Romance score. Gunild Keetman (1904-1990) was the primary originator, along with Carl Orff, of the method of teaching music known as Orff Schulwerk. ... Terrence Terry Malick (born November 30, 1943 in Waco, Texas) is an Assyrian American film director. ... For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... Badlands is a 1973 film directed by Terrence Malick from his own script. ... Hans Florian Zimmer (born September 12, 1957) is an Academy Award, Grammy, and Golden Globe award-winning film score composer from Germany. ... Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ... True Romance is an American motion picture released in 1993, directed by Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary. ...

Inventory

• Operas
  • Der Mond (1939)
  • Die Kluge (1943)
  • Ein Sommernachtstraum (1952, reworked 1962)

• Bairisches Welttheater (Bavarian World Theatre)
  • Die Bernauerin (1947)
  • Astutuli, eine bairische Komödie (1953)

• Easter Play
  • Comoedia de Christi Resurrectione (1956)

• Passion Play
  • Ludus de nato Infante mirificus (1961)

• De temporum fine comoedia, Vigilia (1973, reworked 1977)

• Trionfi (Triumphs)
  • Carmina Burana (1937)
  • Catulli Carmina (1943)
  • Trionfo di Afrodite (1953)

• Treatments
  • Claudio Monteverdis Klage der Ariadne, Orpheus (1925, reworked 1940)
  • Entrata für Orchester, nach „The Bells“ von W. Byrd (1928, reworked 1941)

• Classics
  • Antigone (1949)
  • Oedipus der Tyrann (1959)
  • Prometheus (1968)

• Orff-Schulwerk
  • Musik für Kinder (with Gunild Keetmann) (1930–35, reworked 1950–54)

• Notable use in film scores
  • Badlands (1973)
  • Excalibur (1981) – This movie did much to popularize Orff's work abroad.
  • True Romance (1993)
  • Finding Forrester (2000)

Easter Drama is a religious and theatrical phenomenon in Roman Catholic tradition, largely limited to the Middle Ages. ... A Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the suffering and death of Jesus. ... The Orff Schulwerk or Orffschulwerk, also called as Orff-method is an approach for music education for children. ... A film score is a set of musical compositions written to accompany a film. ... Badlands is a 1973 film directed by Terrence Malick from his own script. ... Excalibur is a 1981 film which retells the legend of King Arthur. ... True Romance is an American motion picture released in 1993, directed by Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary. ... Finding Forrester is a 2000 movie, written by Mike Rich and directed by Gus Van Sant, about a teenager, Jamal Wallace, played by Rob Brown, who is accepted into a prestigious private high school. ...

Pedagogical work

In pedagogical circles he is probably best remembered for his Schulwerk (1930-35), translated into English as Music for Children. Its simple musical instrumentation allowed even untutored child musicians to perform the piece with relative ease. Much of his life Orff worked with children, using music as an educational tool — both melody and rhythm are often determined by the words. Pedagogy (IPA: ) , the art or science of being a teacher, generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction[1]. The word comes from the Ancient Greek (paidagōgeō; from (child) and (lead)): literally, to lead the child”. In Ancient Greece, was (usually) a slave who supervised the... The Orff Schulwerk or Orffschulwerk, also called as Orff-method is an approach for music education for children. ... Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar). ... Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Rhythm (Greek = flow, or in Modern Greek, style) is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events. ...

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 term Schulwerk is German for "school work". The music is elemental and combines movement, singing, playing and improvisation. Gunild Keetman (1904-1990) was the primary originator, along with Carl Orff, of the method of teaching music known as Orff Schulwerk. ... The Orff Schulwerk or Orffschulwerk, also called as Orff-method is an approach for music education for children. ...

References

1. ^ cf. http://www.h-net.org/~german/articles/dennis1.html for a review of an article by Kater

Further reading

• Alberto Fassone: "Carl Orff", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 27 November 2004), (subscription access)
• 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.

is the 331st day of the year (332nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Carl Orff

• Carl Orff home page
• Carl Orff at Discogs
• Orff at NNDB
• Orff at Classical Music Pages
• Music Education: Classical Composor Carl Orff
• IMDb profile