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.
Swaz Hie Gat Umbe
Carl Orff Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Swaz hie gat umbe, Those who go round and round
daz sint alles megede, are all maidens
die wellent an man they want to do without a man
allen disen sumer gan! Ah! Sla! all summer long. Ah! Sla!
The Carl Orff song Swaz Hie Gat Umbe translates to "Those Who Go Round and Round" in English. The opening line "Swaz hie gat umbe" refers to "maidens" who walk around in circles, possibly in dance or celebration, as they do not need men. This line reflects a sense of female empowerment and independence, reflecting the medieval times when women were often oppressed and restricted in terms of their societal roles. The following line "daz sint alles megede" reaffirms that these are all women who are choosing to live their lives without men.
The final line, "Ah! Sla! allen disen sumer gan!" can be translated to "Ah! Sla! all summer long." The song ends with a call for the maidens to continue their celebration through the summer, emphasising the joy and freedom that comes with living life on their own terms.
Overall, Swaz Hie Gat Umbe celebrates the idea of female autonomy and showcases the power of women to make their own choices and have agency over their own lives.
Line by Line Meaning
Swaz hie gat umbe,
Those who go round and round,
daz sint alles megede,
they are all maidens,
die wellent an man
who want to do without a man,
they want to do without a man
who want to do without a man
allen disen sumer gan! Ah! Sla!
All summer long they go! Ah! Sla!
Contributed by Alyssa D. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@utewitt172
Very good! I 've shared it on my Facebook site and I am astonished how well you pronounce the ancient German. Thank you so much, a real fine piece of art!
@Dunaiii
It's not "ancient," it's medieval. :>