Carl Orff (10th July 1895–29th March 1982) was a German composer, most famo… Read Full Bio ↴Carl Orff (10th July 1895–29th March 1982) was a German composer, most famous for his Carmina Burana (1937), and an important and influential music educator.

Orff was born in Munich and came from a Bavarian family that was very active in the German military. His father's regimental band supposedly often played the compositions of the young Orff. He studied at the Munich Academy of Music until 1914, then served in the military during World War I. Afterwards he held various positions at opera houses in Mannheim and Darmstadt, later to return to Munich to further pursue his musical studies.

From 1925 Orff was the head of a department and co-founder of the Guenther School for gymnastics, music, and dance in Munich, where he worked with musical beginners. Having constant contact with children, this is where he developed his theories in music education.
While Orff's association, or lack thereof, with the Nazi party has never been conclusively established, his Carmina Burana was hugely popular in Nazi Germany after its premiere in Frankfurt in 1937, receiving numerous performances (although one Nazi critic reviewed it savagely as "degenerate", implying a connection with the contemporaneous, and infamous, exhibit of Entartete Kunst). He was one of the few German composers under the Nazi regime who responded to the official call to write new music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, after the music of Felix Mendelssohn had been banned, which in itself suggests where his sympathies lay; others refused to cooperate in this.

Orff was a personal friend of Kurt Huber, one of the founders of the resistance movement Die Weiße Rose (the White Rose), and who was condemned to death by the Volksgerichtshof and executed by the Nazis in 1943. After World War II, Orff claimed that he was a member of the group, and was himself involved in the resistance, but there was no evidence for this other than his own word, and other sources dispute his claim).

Orff is buried in the Baroque church of the beer-brewing Benedictine priory of Andechs, south of Munich.

Orff is best known for Carmina Burana (1937), a "scenic cantata". It is the first of a trilogy, Trionfi, which also includes Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite. These compositions reflected his interest in medieval German poetry. Together the trilogy is called Trionfi, meaning "triumphs". The work was based on a thirteenth-century erotic verse written by the Goliards, found in a manuscript dubbed the Codex latinus monacensis, which had been discovered in a Bavarian monastery in 1803. The term "Goliards" was often used to describe students who wrote secular verse in the Middle Ages. While "modern" in some of his compositional techniques, Orff was able to capture the spirit of the medieval period in this trilogy, with infectious rhythms and easy tonalities. The mediaeval poems were written in an early form of German and Latin.

With the success of Carmina Burana, Orff orphaned all of his previous works except for Catulli Carmina and the En trata, which were rewritten until acceptable by Orff. He was reluctant to call any of his works simply operas. For example, he called Der Mond ("The Moon") (1939) a "Märchenoper" or Fairytale Opera, and placed Die Kluge ("The Wise Woman") (1943) in the same category. About his Antigone (1949), Orff said specifically that it was not an opera, rather a Vertonung, a "musical setting" of the ancient tragedy. The text is a German translation, by Friedrich Hölderlin, of the Sophocles play of the same name. The orchestration relies heavily on the percussion section, and is otherwise fairly simple.

Orff's last work, De Temporum Fine Comoedia ("A Play of the End of Time"), had its premiere at the Salzburg music festival on 20th August 1973, performed by Herbert von Karajan and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. In this highly personal work, Orff presented a mystery play, in which he summarised his view on the end of time, sung in Greek, German, and Latin.

Carmina Burana: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: O Fortuna
Carl Orff Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

O Fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis
semper crescis
aut decrescis
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat

ludo mentis aciem,
egestatem,
potestatem
dissolvit ut glaciem.

Sors immanis
et inanis,
rota tu volubilis
status malus
vana salus
semper dissolubilis

Obumbrata
et velata
michi quoque niteris
nunc per ludum
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris.

Sors salutis
et virtutis
michi nunc contraria,
est affectus
et defectus
semper in angaria.
Hac in hora
sine mora
corde pulsum tangite
quod per sortem

sternit fortem
mecum omnes plangite

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Carl Orff's song, Carmina Burana: Fortuna Imperatix Mundi: O Fortuna, are written in Latin and revolve around the theme of fate, which is often symbolized by Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck and fate. The song begins with the lines "O Fortuna, velut luna, statu variabilis" which translates to "O Fortune, like the moon, you are changeable." These lines suggest that fate is an unpredictable force that influences and affects everyone's lives.

The second stanza of the song describes the effects of fate on human life, which at times feels unbearable and callous. The lyrics "nunc obdurat et tunc curat" translate to "now you are hard, and now you suddenly soften." The verse also suggests that fate has the power to influence the mind and create a sense of illusion or uncertainty. The line "ludo mentis aciem, egestatem, potentatem dissolvit ut glaciem" means fate can dissolve the mind's power, poverty, and authority like ice.

The final stanza calls for attention and action in the face of fate's power. The line "hac in hora sine mora corde pulsum tangite" translates to "strike the chords firmly in this hour, for fate strikes down the strong with everyone." This phrase urges listeners to take charge of their own lives and to recognize the fragility of their existence in the face of the powers of fortune and fate.

Line by Line Meaning

O Fortuna
Oh, Fortune

velut luna
like the moon

statu variabilis
you are changeable

semper crescis
always increasing

aut decrescis
or decreasing

vita detestabilis
hateful life

nunc obdurat
now hardens

et tunc curat
and then cares

ludo mentis aciem
playing with the sharpness of the mind

egestatem
poverty

potestatem
power