Orff, Karl

Grandfather Orfa (on his father's side) was a baptized Jew ^[5] , the rest of the ancestors were Bavarians. Karl Orff's father, an officer, played music on the piano and several stringed instruments. The mother, who was an amateur pianist, early discovered her son's talent for music and began to study him. At the age of nine, Orff was already writing music for his own puppet theater.

In 1912-1914, Orff studied at the Munich Academy of Music . In 1914 he continued his studies with Herman Zilcher. In 1916 he worked as a bandmaster at the Munich Chamber Theater. In 1917, during the First World War, Orff went to volunteer in the army in the First Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment. In 1918 he was invited to the position of bandmaster at the National Theater of Mannheim under the direction of Wilhelm Furtwengler , and then he began working at the Palace Theater of the Grand Duchy of Darmstadt .

In 1920, Orff married Alice Solscher ( German: Alice Solscher ), a year later his only child was born, Godel's daughter, in 1925 he divorced Alice.

In 1923 he met Dorothea Gunther ( German: Dorothee Günther ) and in 1924, together with her, created the Günterschule ( German Günther-Schule ) school of gymnastics, music in Munich . From 1925 until the end of his life, Orff was the head of the department at this school, where he worked with aspiring musicians. Having constant contact with children, he developed his theory of music education.

The cantata " Carmina Burana " ( lat. Carmina Burana ) was very popular in the Third Reich (the premiere took place in Frankfurt in 1937). Some Nazi critics called it “degenerative” ( German entartet , see “ Degenerative art ” ^[6] ), while others (Goebbels) considered it “an example of German music” ^[6] .

During the years of Nazism, Orff was the only composer who responded to the official call to write new music for Shakespeare’s play “ A Midsummer Night's Dream ” after the music of Felix Mendelssohn was banned ^[7] . For writing Orff used his previous workpieces ^[8] .

Orff was a close friend of Gauleiter Vienna and one of the leaders of the Hitler Youth Baldur von Schirach ^[6] .

Orff was also a close friend of Kurt Huber , one of the founders of the White Rose resistance movement, sentenced to death by the People’s Judicial Chamber and executed by the Nazis in 1943 . After World War II, Orff stated that he was a member of the movement and was involved in the resistance himself, but there is no evidence other than his own words, so some sources dispute this statement ^[9] . Orff's statement was accepted by the American denazification authorities, which allowed him to continue to do his favorite thing - composing music. It is known that Orff did not dare to use his authority and friendship with von Schirach to protect Huber, motivating this with fears for his own life. However, he did not make any public statements in support of the regime ^[8] .

Orff is buried in the baroque church of Andex Abbey southwest of Munich.

Orff is best known as the author of the stage cantata " Carmina Burana ", which means "Boyner's Songs". ( 1937 ). This is the first part of the trilogy , which also includes “Songs of Catullus” ( Latin Catulli Carmina ) and “Triumph of Aphrodite” ( Italian: Trionfo di Afrodite ). " Carmina Burana " reflects his interest in medieval German poetry. All parts of the trilogy are collectively called “Trionfi” (Italian: “Triumphs”). The composer described this work as a celebration of the victory of the human spirit through the balance of the carnal and the universal. The music is based on poems written by goliards from a 13th-century manuscript found in 1803 in the Bavarian Benedictine monastery of Boyern ( Beuern , lat. Buranum ); this collection is known as " Carmina Burana " (see) and is named after the monastery. Despite the elements of Art Nouveau in some compositional techniques, in this trilogy Orff expressed the spirit of the medieval period with an infectious rhythm and simple tones . Medieval poems, written in German in its early form and in Latin , are often not quite decent, but do not go down to vulgarity.

The success of Carmina Burana overshadowed all of Orff's previous work, with the exception of Catulli Carmina and Entrata, which were rewritten in acceptable quality from Orff's point of view. From a historical perspective, Carmina Burana is probably the most famous example of music composed and first performed in Nazi Germany . In fact, “Carmina Burana” was so popular that Orff received an order in Frankfurt to compose music for the play “ A Midsummer Night's Dream ”, which was supposed to replace Felix Mendelssohn’s music forbidden in Germany. After the war, Orff said he was not satisfied with the composition, and reworked it into the final version, which was first presented in 1964 .

Orff resisted that any of his works was simply called opera in the traditional sense of the word. His works “Moon” ( German: Der Mond , 1939 ) and “Clever” ( German: Die Kluge , 1943 ), for example, he referred to “Märchenoper” (“fairy-tale operas”). The peculiarity of both works is that the same rhythmless sounds are repeated in them. , no musical techniques of the period when they were created are used, that is, it is impossible to judge them as relating to any particular time. Melodies, rhythms and with them the text of these works are manifested only in the union of words and music.

On his opera Antigone ( 1949 ), Orff said that it was not an opera, but Vertonung, the “transcription to music” of an ancient tragedy . The text of the opera is an excellent translation of Friedrich Hölderlin into German of the Sophocles tragedy of the same name. Orchestration is largely based on percussion . It is believed that Orff captured the story of Antigone in his opera, as it has a noticeable resemblance to the life story of Sophie Scholl , the heroine of the White Rose .

Orff's latest work is “Comedy at the End of Time” ( lat. De temporum fine comoedia ). His premiere took place at the Salzburg Music Festival on August 20, 1973, performed by the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and a choir led by Karayan . In this essay, Orff used “mystical” texts in Greek, German and Latin.

Orff's didactic ideas, developed in a creative partnership with G. Ketman, were embodied in an innovative approach to musical education for children, known as Orff-Schulwerk. The term "Schulwerk" is a German word meaning "school work." Music is the foundation and brings together movement, singing, playing and improvisation.

The melody from Orff's didactic manual Musica poetica (Gassenhauer aus 4 Stücke für Xylophon) was used as the main musical theme for Terrence Malik's film Devastated Lands ( 1973 ). Later, Hans Zimmer reworked this music for the film True Love ( 1993 ).

In the village of Varna there is a school named after Karl Orff, in which children are taught music according to his programs.

• Leont'ev O. Karl Orff. - M.: Music, 1964. —160 p., Music. silt
• Alberto Fassone “Carl Orff” // Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (accessed November 27, 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.
• Andreas Liess , Carl Orff, Idee und Werk , Atlantis Musikbuch-Verlag, Zürich 1955. Zweite überarbeitete Auflage, Atlantis Musikbuch-Verlag, Zürich 1977, ISBN 3-7611-0236-4 . Taschenbuchausgabe Wilhelm Goldmann-Verlag, München 1980, ISBN 3-442-33038-6
• Andreas Liess, Zwei Essays zu Carl Orff: De Temporum Fine Comoedia , Böhlau Verlag, Wien-Köln-Graz 1981

• The official website of Karl Orff
• Site of the Pedagogical Society of Karl Orff in Russia
• Munich Orff-Zentrum Research Institute
• Zakharova O. A., Zakharov N. V. Orff Karl // Electronic Encyclopedia “The World of Shakespeare”.