Carl Orff is not a household name in this country, but is well known around the world for two signal accomplishments: the Orff Schulwerk and his unique and popular cantata, Carmina Burana. The Schulwerk is a well-established philosophy of elementary music education that substantial numbers of American teachers and music therapists employ in their work. Carmina Burana has enjoyed an immense success almost everywhere since its première in Germany in 1937. While Orff went on after the fall of the Third Reich actively to compose many more theatrical works, his reputation nevertheless firmly rests on the two endeavors.
He was born into a military family—his father was an army officer, and both grandfathers were major generals. But, it was a cultured, musical, intellectual family, and he began his music studies, including composition, early on. He rebelled against his family desires for a liberal education, insisting instead on attending a conservatory. Living in Munich gave him the advantage of hearing the music of Wagner, Mahler, and Richard Strauss first hand, but those models soon gave way to a much more personal musical style. Some aspects of the works of Debussy and Stravinsky were influential.
He was wounded severely in the First World War, and that trauma shaped much of his life’s view of fate and existence. After the war, in Munich, he became interested in the theatrical music of the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly that of Monteverdi. The latter, of course, is known for having composed the first great opera, L’Orfeo. Orff produced some of the earliest modern performances of Monteverdi’s works for the stage, setting out the path for a lifelong focus on words, music, and drama. And at this time, in conjunction with a colleague, Dorothee Günther, he began his work in elementary music education that led to the innovative and important Orff Schulwerk. Seemingly disparate interests, the focus on the composition of unique works for the stage, and basic music education for children (with its emphasis on percussion instruments) are united by his innate interest and commitment to rhythm, movement, percussive color, language and gesture. All of a cohesive musical philosophy.
The elephant in the room in any consideration of Orff and his work is that of his relationship to the Nazi Party and the Third Reich. While legions of musicians fled Germany with the advent of Adolph Hitler, Orff, like many others, including the luminary, Richard Strauss, opted to stay and take their chances. To this day, that aspect of Orff, Strauss, and others remains one of music history’s great controversies. To be sure, Orff was a member of the official Reichsmusikkammer (Strauss was the head), but all musicians who wished to work had to be so. Accusations and counter-accusations have circulated for years about both musicians and others. In point of fact, Orff and Strauss were not members of the Nazi Party, nor openly supported it. But the truth will forever remain somewhat ambiguous. Perhaps the best one can say is what the postwar official inquiry wrote: “compromised by their actions during the Nazi period but not subscribers to Nazi doctrine.” In any case, of all the compositions written during the Third Reich, Carmina Burana was one of the most popular and frequently performed in Germany.
During the 1930s, along with his interest in Baroque oratorios, Orff developed a keen interest in classical languages, especially the poems of the 1st century BC Roman, Catullus. He experimented with using classical texts in various compositions, and simultaneously developed a deep interest in percussion instruments, central for children’s use in his Schulwerk. These interests and his encounter with the 13th century collection of mediæval Latin poems found in the library of the Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuren in Bavaria set the stage for the composition of Carmina Burana [Songs from Beuren]. The texts were written by the Goliards, wandering young clergy who protested the excesses of the church, and who wrote cynical, satirical poetry declaiming it. The poetry of this dissolute bunch focused on their lusty way of life, drinking songs, gluttony, and physical love. A contemporary writer decried their dressing in drag and eating pudding and shooting dice at the altar during Mass. There’s more, including dressing up an ass at the chancel rail, but you get the idea. Of the more than 300 poems, most are in Latin, but a few are in Old French, Provençal, and Middle German.
Orff organized the work into five major sections of twenty-five relatively short movements. The opening movement, whose text serves as kind of overarching theme for the whole work, is repeated at the end. There is one purely instrumental movement, a dance. The themes of the five major sections are as follows: 1) Introduction: Fortune, Empress of the World, 2a) In Spring, 2b) In the Meadow, 3) In the Tavern, 4a) Court of Love, 4b) Blanchefleur and Helen, 5) Reprise: Fortune, Empress of the World. Orff calls for a large orchestra, including two pianos and a celesta, two choirs (large and small), a boys’ choir, and soprano, tenor, and baritone soloists.
But, the most salient aspect of the sound of his orchestra is his employment of a large percussion section. Throughout, it plays a central rôle in creating the dazzling array of colors and sustaining the driving motoric rhythms that dominate the work. Just as characteristic of his style are his block harmonies, diatonic and modal melodies, and lack of traditional development. His music is boldly assertive and repetitive. Driving figural ostinatos carry the intriguing, appealing textures along. And if there are some rather exaggerated musical gestures, well then, Orff simply is reflecting the eccentricities in these unusual texts. An additional element that is part and parcel of Orff’s art was his commitment to the unity of music, word, dance, and theatrical staging, and he conceived Carmina Burana to incorporate the latter. Owing to practical matters, it is generally eliminated today, and the work is performed as a concert cantata.
The opening movement, O Fortuna, is the most famous of the twenty-five, and has practically become a musical cliché for any film or video maker who wishes to invoke 20th-century horrors. Unfortunately, it has become strongly associated with the Third Reich, but, of course, that is false. Rather, it asserts the timeless futility of humankind hoping and trying to forestall the uncontrollable vicissitudes of chance (fortuna) in our lives. It is remarkably difficult to admit the lack of control of our fates, and this terrifying music aptly depicts the eternal horror. The short movement that follows amplifies the plaint, alluding to the terrible fate of Queen Hecuba, wife of Priam, King of Troy.
The second section (Primo vere) is comprised of three movements about the season of spring, beginning with flutes and percussion coloring the somber choir chanting like priests. The next movement features the baritone soloist musing on the detachment of the world’s natural elements, following by a more upbeat, cheerful evocation of greeting the efflorescence of the new season (Ecce gratum). The reference to Paris is to the son of Queen Hecuba.
The third major section, Uf dem anger (In the Meadow), begins with a purely instrumental dance, with ingratiating mixed meters and syncopations generating a lively sparkle. There follow four movements (7, 8, 9, and 10), all happy affairs celebrating dancing, companions, licentious seduction and general conviviality. The texts in this section feature the German language of the Middle Ages. A gentle round dance begins No. 9, followed by two more contrasting dance songs, all reflecting the themes of desire. No. 10 includes the whimsy of the Queen of England (the controversial Eleanor of Aquitaine) lying in the poet’s arms!
The fourth section, In Taberna (In the Tavern), features four songs for various combinations of male chorus and male soloists—tavern songs on unrelated subjects. Nos. 11, 13, and 14 all treat the general themes of personal failure, gambling, and excessive drinking. No. 12 has always enjoyed a special kind of notoriety for its grotesque imagery of a swan improbably lamenting his fate while roasting on a spit. The opening bassoon solo seems to mimic the bird’s squawking. Orff enhances the awful scene by scoring the solo tenor in the highest part of his tessitura, straining in pain to describe his disgusting experience (the baritone’s anger in Nos. 11 and 13 is similarly treated). In the latter, the baritone soloist sings a bit of parody of plainchant. No. 14 concludes the tavern debauchery with a frenzied paean to drunkenness in which almost every kind of inebriate is toasted.
But a happier and gentler time awaits us in section five: nine songs in the first half, all about the delectable and painful blandishments of the now-familiar themes of love and desire, both spiritual and physical. Orff sets the two most intimate ones for soprano solo (also exploring the higher regions of the voice). Likewise in No. 16, Dies, nox et omnia (Day and Night Everywhere) for baritone soloist, Orff dramatically alternates pushing the baritone into the stratospheric melismas of his falsetto with the deep normal color of a baritone. The various songs in this section seem cleverly to alternate between contemplative, ardent longing and a headlong, lustful passion.
This section concludes with a brief, but remarkable virtuoso outpouring of passion by the soprano soloist that soars into the highest register with a flourish (Dulcissime). In a vocal cadenza of remarkable intensity and rare beauty she pours out her total surrender to the object of her passion.
Finally, in a kind of tag to it all, the chorus concludes with an over-the-top expression of the poet’s love. It smacks of blasphemy, as it starts out with a kind of allusion to the typical “Adoration of the Blessed Virgin,” but quickly goes on to compare his love with Blanchefleur and Helen, two legendary women. Blanchefleur was the heroine of a famous mediæval romance, and Helen of Troy we all know. And then the text soars to passionate heights, even to invoke the goddess, Venus. A reprise of the intense opening chorus ends it all, as fortune’s wheel relentlessly grinds on.
Orff was a prolific composer, especially after WWII, and yet, like so many talented composers, his oeuvre has not completely stood the test of time. Even in his native Germany, his other works do not garner many performances today. Nevertheless, the remarkable attractiveness, in multiple dimensions, of Carmina Burana ensures his reputation. His first success was his lasting one.
–Wm. E. Runyan
© 2025 William E. Runyan