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: Tanz
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 Latin lyrics of "Ego sum abbas" in Carl Orff's Carmina Burana can be translated to "I am the abbot." The song itself is a commentary on the powerful position of the abbot in the medieval Catholic Church. The lyrics describe the abbot's ability to control the lives of those around him, both in terms of physical poverty and political power. The song alternates between different perspectives: the abbot's own ego and self-importance, the oppression and suffering of those under his power, and the general human experience of fate and fortune.

The opening lines, "O Fortuna, velut luna, statu variabilis" set the tone for the rest of the song. They describe the fickle nature of fate, which is compared to the phases of the moon. The lyrics go on to describe how life can be both unbearable and fleeting, with moments of both strength and weakness. The phrase "ludo mentis aciem" suggests that the abbot is playing a game with the minds of those under his control, dissolving their poverty and power like ice.

The second stanza, "Sors immanis et inanis, rota tu volubilis," describes the endless wheel of fate, where even good fortune is ultimately meaningless and temporary. The abbot is portrayed as having a false sense of security and salvation, which will inevitably crumble away. The final stanza shifts to a first-person perspective, where the singer is also subjected to the whims of fate and the oppressive power of those above them. The hour is called to "touch the heart's pulse," reiterating how deeply the experiences in the song resonate with the human experience.

Carmina Burana: TanzCarl Orff Lyrics

Ernesto mendez

Turbo the Cat

Anna Z

B PAGE

LilSMiningCo

Kareem Hussein

ben 54

Ivan IJA

Cryptameria•

Milan Dankovic

DumbWaiters

Milan Dankovic

jeremy51240

Franz Ziółkowski

DumbWaiters

Denis Rocher

Drop D

oliveavelo

Josef Lindholm

Il Nana

Chelsea Watson

sarasnake99

thélio guillou

Елена

Bruce Ferrell

Scoop Nemeth

Carmina Burana: Tanz
Carl Orff Lyrics