Carl Orff

Carl Orff (1895-1982)
Carl Orff (born Munich, 10 July 1895; died there, 29 March 1982). German composer known particularly for his operas and dramatic works and for his innovations in music education. Orff studied at the Munich Academy ofMusic and with the German composer Heinrich Kaminski and later conductedin Munich, Mannheim, and Darmstadt. His Schulwerk, a manual describing hismethod of conducting, was first published in 1930. Orff edited some 17th-century operas and in 1937 produced his secular oratorio Carmina Burana . Intended to be staged with dance, it was based on a manuscript of medieval poems. Thiswork led to others inspired by Greek theatre and by medievalmystery plays, notably Catulli carmina (1943; Songs of Ca tullus) and Trionfo di Afrodite (1953; The Triumph of Aphrodite), which form a trilogy with Carmina Burana. His other works include an Easter cantata, Comoedia de Christi Re surrectione (1956); a nativity play, Ludus de nato infante mirificus (1960); and a trilogy of “music dramas”—Antigonae (1949), Oedipus der Tyrann (1959), and Prometheus (1966). Orff's system of music education for children, largely based on developing a sense of rhythm through group exercise and performance with percussion instruments, has been widely adopted. In 1924 in Munich he founded, with the German gymnast Dorothee Günther, the Günther School for gymnastics, dance, and music.
Carmina Burana German Lieder Aus Beuern 13th-century manuscript that containssongs (the Carmina Burana proper) and six religious plays. The contents of the manuscript are attributed to the goliards (q.v.), wandering scholars and students in western Europe during the 10th to the 13th century who were known for their songs and poems in praise of revelry. The collection is also called the Benediktbeuern manuscript, because it was found (in 1803) at the Benedictine monasteryin Benediktbeuern (from which burana is derived), Bavaria. The two parts of the manuscript, though written at the same time, have been separated. The songs, rhymed lyrics mainly in Latin with a few in German, vary in subject and style: the reare drinking songs, serious and licentious love songs, religious poems, pastoral lyrics, and satires of church and government. Some of the poems were set to music by Carl Orff in his cantata Carmina Burana (1937). The plays, in Latin, include the only known two surviving complete texts of medieval Passion dramas. These are the Ludus breviter de Passione (“Play in Brief of the Passion”), a prologue to a Resurrection play, and a longer text, probably amplified from a play on St. Mary Magdalene's life and the raising of Lazarus. The other plays are an Easter play; an unusually comprehensive Christmas play; an enlarged Peregrinus, which treats Christ's first two appearances to the disciples; and Ludus de rege Aegypti (“Play of the King of Egypt”), formerly regarded as part of the Christmas play.
Carl Orff	Orff   Carl Orff (1895-1982) Carmina Burana 1   O Fortuna 2   Fortune plango vulnera (I bemoan the wounds of Fortune)- Primo vere (in springtime) 3   Veris leta facies (The merry face of spring) 4   Omnia sol temperat (The sun warms everything) 5   Ecce gratum (Behold, the pleasant spring) Uf dem anger (on the lawn) 6   Tanz 7   Floret silva nobilis (The woods are burgeoning) 8   Chramer, gip die varwe mir (Shopkeeper, give me colour) 9   Reie (Round dance) 10 Were diu werlt alle min (Were all the world mine) In Taberna (in the tabern) 11 Estuans interius (Burning Inside) 12 Cignus ustus cantat (The Roast Swan) 13 Ego sum abbas (I am the abbot) 14 In taberna quando sumus (When we are in the tavern) Cour d'amours (court of love) 15 Amor volat undique (Cupid flies everywhere) 16 Dies, nox et omnia (Day, night and everything) 17 Stetit puella (A girl stood) 18 Circa mea pectora (In my heart) 19 Si puer cum puellula (If a boy with a girl) 20 Veni, veni, venias (Come, come, O come) 21 In trutina (In the balance) 22 Tempus est iocundum (This is the joyful time) 23 Dulcissime (Sweetest one) Blanziflor et Helena 24 Ave formosissima (Hail, most beautiful one) Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi 25 O Fortuna (reprise)