Well this is gradually moving towards something I would like to see
discussed out of Orff's music but let's wait.
Very hard to find info. I forget where (it may have been an side bar
in one of History's channels series entitled Hitler's Henchmen).
At any rate the university where he became 'head chair' was (just
prior) held by a Jew -- Orff took the job but he didn't instigate that
person's removal. In short, he hung around and did well and not too
shabby after. Genius or love?
Orff is a quandary. He was being performed while other "more
modernist" composers were not (to say the least). Yet, I admire Off
(more than others) because of how he arouses ones feelings --
instantaneously and simply. He had power in his music. Sometimes, I
must admit, with a bit to much bludgeon. They are mass feelings (like
rock and roll) -- I speculate.
Jerry
On 16-Nov-05, at 11:59 AM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
On Nov 15, 2005, at 1:29 PM, Javier Ruiz wrote:
And the author of the charming "Catulli Carmina"...
It is a pity that the poor Orff chose the wrong side during the WWII.
As far as I can tell (and it is surprisingly difficult to find any
information about this), Orff's only "crime" was failing to emigrate
before the walls closed in. Unlike other composers who did emigrate,
Orff before _Carmina Burana_ (1937) was a young unknown without
resources or contacts outside of Germany. There is not the slightest
trace of Nazi philosophy or antisemitism in anything he wrote--which
is more than can be said of some composers who emerged from that
period with their reputations intact.
The largely arbitrary loathing that his music has inspired (_New
Grove_ bizarrely characterized it as "barbarism") does not extend to
his educational work because the latter was done mostly under the
auspices of the postwar government as part of an overarching public
reeducation program via radio. But the educational music and the
"adult" compositions were created by the same mind, following the same
musical philosophy. You don't get one without the other.
There is no question in my mind that his music--all of it--ought to
be better known than it is internationally. _Der Mond_ for example
is an absolutely wonderful opera, but if there's ever been a
production in this country, I don't know about it.
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Gerald Berg
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