Carl Orff (1895 – 1982): German composer known particularly for his operas and dramatic works and for his innovations in music education. He began playing piano at the age of five, and later studied cello and organ. He composed a few songs and music for puppet plays and had two vignettes published in July 1905 in Das gute Kind, the children’s supplement to Die katholische Familie. He began attending concerts at an early age and heard his first opera (Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman) in 1909. The formative concerts he attended included the world premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in 1911 and Richard Strauss conducting his opera Elektra in 1914. Orff studied at the Munich Academy of Music. Orff’s teacher at the Akademie was the composer Anton Beer-Walbrunn, of whom he later wrote with respect but said that he found the academy overall to be “conservative and old-fashioned”. At this time, he studied the works of Arnold Schoenberg, and one of his most important influences at this time was the French composer Claude Debussy. He also studied with the German composer Heinrich Kaminski and later conducted in Munich, Mannheim, and Darmstadt. His Schulwerk, a manual describing his method of conducting, was first published in 1930.
Carmina Burana (Latin: “Songs of B[enediktb]euern”) Orff’s cantata for orchestra, chorus, and vocal soloists premiered in 1937 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Orff drew his text from a 13th-century manuscript containing songs and plays written in Latin and medieval German, which was discovered in 1803 at the Bavarian monastery of Benediktbeuern. Dubbed the Carmina Burana (“Songs of Beuern”) by the German philologist Johann Andreas Schmeller, the texts present a varied view of medieval life, including religious verses, social satires, and bawdy drinking songs. Although some of the verses were accompanied by archaic musical notation, confirming that they were indeed meant to be sung, that notation remained largely undeciphered, leaving Orff free to imagine his own musical settings. Orff selected 24 songs, which he arranged into a prologue, an epilogue, and three parts of roughly equal length. The first part, “Primo Vere” (“In Early Spring”), presents youthful, energetic dances; the second part, “In Taberna” (“In the Tavern”), evokes drunken feasting and debauchery; and courtship and romantic love are the subject of the third part, “Cour d’Amours” (“Court of Love”). Throughout, simple orchestration, melodies, and harmonies combine with heavy rhythmic percussion to give the music a primeval, visceral character.
The best-known song from Carmina Burana is “O Fortuna” (“Oh Fortune”), which serves as both prologue and epilogue. It frames the revelry of the three main movements with a stark warning about the power of luck and fate, offering the ancient image of a wheel of fortune that deals out triumph and disaster at random. The forceful first measures are among the grandest statements in all choral literature.
Conducted by Richard Cock.