Carl Orff (July 10, 1895 - March 29, 1982) was a German Composer , most famous for Carmina Burana (1937). A major composer of the 20th century, he was also sucessful and infuential in the field of the music education.
Life: 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 had often played the compositions of a young Orff.
Moser's Musik Lexicon states that Orff studied at the Munich Academy of Music until 1914. he then served in the military during World War I. Afterwards, he held various positions at opera houses in Mannheim and Darmsadt, later to return to Munich to pursue further his music studies.
As of 1925, and for the rest of his life, Orff was the head of the 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 assocition, 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, recieving numerous performances (although one Nazi critic reviewed it savagely as "degenerate" - entartent - implying a connection with the contemporaneous, and infamous, exhibit of Entartete Kunst). It should be noted that he was one of the few German composers under the Nazi regime who responded to the offical call to write new music for A Midsummer Night's Dream after the music of Felix Mendelssohn had been banned - other refused to cooperate in this. But then again, Orff had already composed music for this play as early as 1917 and 1927, long before this was a favour for the Nazi government.
Orff was a personal friend of Kurt Huber, one of the founders of the resistance movement Die Weiße Rose (the White Rose), 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.
Musical Work: Carl Orff (1895-1982) built the first of his instruments with his friend, instrument maker Karl Maendler (1872-1958). Orff based his design on handmade xylophones from other countries. He had seen a rectangular box from Cameroon with bars across the open side, and also instruments from an Indonesian Gamelan Orchestra.
Today, three basic groups of barred instruments are part of the Orff instrument family, or Instrumentarium. These are the Glockenspiel, Metallophone, and Xylophone. Below is a short list of the instruments in each group.
Glockenspiels:
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Soprano Glockenspiel
Alto Glockenspiel
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Metallophones:
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Soprano Metallophone
Alto Metallophone
Bass Metallophone
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Xylophones:
Soprano Metallophone
Alto Metallophone
Bass Metallophone
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Orff wanted to make instruments that let players share music together. On Orff's instruments, the bars can be arranged to play easy patterns. one person plays sparkling, bright patterns on Glockenspiels. Another plays long, ringing tones on the Metallophone. A third plays crisp, quick rhythms on the Xylophone. When all three patterns are played, the players grow together through music.
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