# What was Carl Orff up to?



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

In his last large-scale work, De temporum fine comodia, Orff creates a mysterious atmosphere, with voices intoning, almost like chanting, and voices declaiming loudly, repeating phrases over and over. Upon a recent listen, it struck me that this was more than simply an 'oratorio.' 
The subject matter, dealing with abstract religious subjects such as 'the end of time', and which features Lucifer himself at the end, asking and being forgiven, losing the horns and returning to arcangel form...this is not the stuff of normal operas and narratives. 
I suspected then, as now, that Orff is using his music as a vehicle to access psychic states; he is "invoking" states of being, using chanting, repetition, and 'magic' uses of singing and speech, to invoke ideas.
Orff was an active composer during the WWII era, and some had accused him of being a Nazi sympathizer, but WIK clears this up, as he was not. The fear which the Third Reich evoked in Americans was probably the spark for this, and the trepidation some felt when Carmina Burana came out of Germany in 1936. Carmina Burana is probably the most famous piece of music composed and premiered in Nazi Germany. 
I think that Orff was using music for its incantatory power. After all, that is what music is supposed to do: create moods and create new states of being within us. Orff was using music as a psychological/religious/spiritual "technology," a sort of 'psychic propaganda' to get across ideas, give them life, and animate them into psychic 'archetypes.'
De temporum fine comodia has been criticized as trying to "absolve" Germany for its holocaust sins. The work did not receive a premier until 1973, under none other than...who else? Herbert von Karajan.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Carmina Burana is the only Orff work I own or know. I've played it a few times and still enjoy it. Guess it's high time to start exploring some other Orff. Maybe I'll start here.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I've recently acquired the above recording of _De temporum fine comodia_ but although the synopsis is adequate I can't immerse myself fully without the text, which is in three different languages. Orff's propensity for the primitive and the ritualistic is as present as ever in the music, but if there was a hidden agenda with the subject matter and the manner in which it is declaimed then I'm none the wiser.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

Posted in error.......


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

mbhaub said:


> Carmina Burana is the only Orff work I own or know. I've played it a few times and still enjoy it. Guess it's high time to start exploring some other Orff. Maybe I'll start here.


You might like 'Der Mond':


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Opera Die Kluge - _Der Mond:_


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Well, making a lot of money, for one.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)




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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

elgars ghost said:


> I've recently acquired the above recording of _De temporum fine comodia_ but although the synopsis is adequate I can't immerse myself fully without the text, which is in three different languages. Orff's propensity for the primitive and the ritualistic is as present as ever in the music, but if there was a hidden agenda with the subject matter and the manner in which it is declaimed then I'm none the wiser.


I was mainly pointing out that Orff, in my opinion, saw music as having "magic" or the power to activate archetypes in the human psyche, be that individual or collective. It was full of "psychically charged" symbolism, just as Wagner's was.

My theory is that his "hidden agenda," if it can be called that, was to try to gain forgiveness for Germany for its past crimes, as a redemption, only in _cosmic _terms, since in Human terms, the victims of the Holocaust will never forgive. Karajan probably saw this as well, and agreed to conduct it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The Moon is passive; its only light is what it reflects from the sun. 

In literary-artistic-symbolism-archetypal/psychological terms, the Sun is the self, now, essential being, center of all being, and the Moon is the ego, attachment to the mind, illusory, full of dark potential.

The "ego" (Moon) is attachment to things of the mind; these can be religions, ideologies, and can be quite destructive. Look how many people died over ideologies. Communism, China, Russia, National Socialism, Germany, etc.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> I was mainly pointing out that Orff, in my opinion, saw music as having "magic" or the power to activate archetypes in the human psyche, be that individual or collective. It was full of "psychically charged" symbolism, just as Wagner's was.


I wouldn't disagree with what you are suggesting - I'm still relatively unfamiliar with the work itself but the subject matter was presumably something Orff thought strongly about, eschatologically speaking. When it came to his stage output (well, the ones I've heard) he was certainly highly individual.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

With all my respect for the poster, the fellow members and for the composer, this one has nothing to do with music. As a German I throw into the waste basket such horror creations which are offending our great musical tradition. Because the composer lost his mind we will not suffer with him and his paranoia. I'm writing this because I know very well what happened with him the last 15 years of his life. This thing was so horrible that he reject it, after he has written it again, and so on... Ok... Karajan and DG made him the favor to record this monstrosity because of CB, which was widely accepted and successful. Generally speaking, after his Prometheus (late 60s) the man is no longer a composer but a creator of pure musical chaos. It is the time he became sick...

1.Mozart, Wolf, etc. were also ill or sick when they composed at the last years of their lives. But they didn't FFF our ears with such a horrible way. Instead they created masterpieces. Please make a comparison, before answer me.

2. They crucified Kabasta as a NAZI... He was (although I'm not fully convinced) and they have done well! But he was also a HELL of a conductor. (nothing more here...)

3. *Excellent presentation from the maker of this thread*! He said a lot of the truth, but NOT the whole. Redemption and sh... Nothing! No redemption and no remorse, my friend. And this is worse than their monstrosities during the war.

(My apologies for the hard words. If I have offended someone I will ask personally for forgiveness, without asking him the reason.)


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

As an advocate for Greek tragedy and all its various manifestations, I find this particular Orff piece of interest: _Oedipus der Tyrann_.






Yamina Maamar, Arie der "Jokasta" aus "Oedipus der Tyrann" von Carl Orff

If you want more of that, here's another scene, featuring Creon and Oedipus as well as Jokasta:






Yamina Maamar (Jokasta), Szene aus "Oedipus der Tyrann" von Carl Orff

Interested in the tragic classics, Orff previously had composed an Antigone. I find it more compelling musically than I have the Oedipus. But then, I don't necessarily need musical settings to enjoy Greek tragedy.






Orff Antgonae Thomas Mehnert / Bote mit Oleksandr Prytolyk (Choragus) + Susanne Serfling (Eurydice)


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I had the DGG album of Oedipus, which I found evocative -- but since my copy was missing the libretto booklet, I lost a lot in the listening.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Dimace said:


> With all my respect for the poster, the fellow members and for the composer, this one has nothing to do with music. As a German I throw into the waste basket such horror creations which are offending our great musical tradition. Because the composer lost his mind we will not suffer with him and his paranoia. I'm writing this because I know very well what happened with him the last 15 years of his life. This thing was so horrible that he reject it, after he has written it again, and so on... Ok... Karajan and DG made him the favor to record this monstrosity because of CB, which was widely accepted and successful. Generally speaking, after his Prometheus (late 60s) the man is no longer a composer but a creator of pure musical chaos. It is the time he became sick...
> 
> 1.Mozart, Wolf, etc. were also ill or sick when they composed at the last years of their lives. But they didn't FFF our ears with such a horrible way. Instead they created masterpieces. Please make a comparison, before answer me.
> 
> ...


PLEASE, Dimace, clarify...I have never heard much opinion about this work, and would be interested in a fuller account of your opinion, seeing as you are from Berlin. By "sick", are you saying that Orff was mentally ill or deluded? We are "tough" here on this forum, we can take the heat.

Everything transient is only a parable;the inadequate, this is the event;the indescribable, here it is done;the eternal feminine draws us on high.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

LezLee said:


>


This is a 20th Century jewel.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> PLEASE, Dimace, clarify...I have never heard much opinion about this work, and would be interested in a fuller account of your opinion, seeing as you are from Berlin. By "sick", are you saying that Orff was mentally ill or deluded? We are "tough" here on this forum, we can take the heat.
> 
> Everything transient is only a parable;the inadequate, this is the event;the indescribable, here it is done;the eternal feminine draws us on high.


It isn't very appropriate to discuss the mental situation of somebody, especially if he is dead. We are gentlemen after all... I made a comparison with Wolf and not without a reason. Let us stay to his music (I personally have to write nothing more), dear friend.

*Goethe nicely translated.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Nicely put, Dimace. I find the "temporum" a unique and challenging work. Likewise, I find Man to be the same, especially Man's "dark" side.

"The problem with New Age music is that there's nothing evil in it." -Brian Eno


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## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

If anyone is interested, this music professor Andrew Kohler wrote his thesis on Carl Orff. There is a massive amount of information in it, and the third part of the document contains a translation of _De temporum fine comoedia_. I'm guessing it's the only translation ever made of it. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/111359


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Thank you, adriesba. That's a fascinating read!


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