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Carmina Burana
Carl Orff
Born in Munich, July 10, 1895; died in Munich, March 29, 1982
Carl Orff attracted international attention in two ways: one as a composer, with the spectacular success of his Carmina Burana (written in 1935?36, premiered in 1937), and the other as a musical educator of schoolchildren. The two worlds were not as disparate as they might seem: in both he aimed for simplicity, ease of understanding, and direct physical excitement or response. Soon after Carmina Burana, Orff withdrew most of his earlier compositions and continued in the vein of "total theater" works, which, though stemming from a variety of sources, all employ text, similar musical techniques, spectacle, and "audience accessibility."
The origins for Orff's wildly popular Carmina Burana go back to a nineteenth-century publication and beyond. Bavarian dialect scholar Johann Andreas Schmeller gave the title Carmina burana (Songs of Beuern) to his 1847 publication of a collection of some 200 medieval Latin and Middle High German poems and song texts. These had been preserved in a thirteenth-century manuscript in the Benediktbeuern monastery in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Orff came across the publication in 1935 and was immediately attracted to the texts, many of which celebrate sensual pleasures or take a satirical view of church and state. Orff selected and arranged twenty-four of the texts with the assistance of Michel Hofmann (whose verse translations were later replaced by Wolfgang Schadewelt's free paraphrases).
Orff had also been struck by the collection?s frontispiece?a reproduction of an illumination of the Wheel of Fortune. This he took as his framework, beginning and ending the work with the powerful "O Fortuna" chorus, and dividing the other texts into three main sections: 1. "Primo vere" (Spring), with the sudivision "Uf dem Anger" (On the village green) for the last five movements, 2. "In taberna" (In the tavern), and 3. "Cour d?amour" (Court of love).
Carmina Burana's subtitle, "Canciones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus instrumentatis atque imaginibus magicis" (Secular songs for soloists and chorus, accompanied by instruments and magic tableaux), reflects Orff's conception for stage presentation, with dancers miming the action. Its first performance was staged at the Stadtische Buhnen in Frankfurt-am-Main on June 8, 1937?an unparalleled triumph. Though it was staged many times, it is most frequently given in concert performances, which work extremely well despite assertions that much of its symbolism is lost without staging.
Orff's dependence on Stravinsky, in particular Oedipus rex, Les noces, and Rite of Spring, is everywhere apparent in Carmina Burana. But the criticism that he vulgarized his models is somewhat harsh; rather, he simplified, popularized, and succeeded in touching a responsive core in thousands of listeners of all nationalities. His musical language emphasizes rhythmic drive over melodic and harmonic phrases; his percussive delineation provides much of the excitement. The short, often tuneful phrases, based on Bavarian folk songs, plainchant, Italian opera, and Lutheran chorales, are often repeated almost like incantations over accompanimental ostinatos (repeated patterns). These repetitions frequently come in threes, perhaps a reflection of the sources? Counterpoint, complex harmonies, and thematic development were the "learned" elements that Orff eschewed. The colorful scoring, constructed primarily in blocks of sound, contributes to the work?s worldwide appeal.
-©Jane Vial Jaffe
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