Carmina Burana Notes Prepared by John Ferguson
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VCE Music – Solo Performance Carmina Burana Notes prepared by John Ferguson – February 2009 Please note that these notes are my personal jottings that I will use with my own students. They are not to be considered as representative of the VCAA. I have written these notes with the students in mind, rather than the teachers (who would effortlessly work it all out themselves!). I should also add that music often presents more than one ʻanswerʼ, and students should be guided by their teacher, who might well present contrary views to mine, views that are at least as equally valid! So, think of these notes as a basis for discussion (rather than the ʻanswerʼ sheet) and enjoy some vigorous debate! 1 Carl Orff and Carmina Burana Carl Orff was born in Munich (Germany) 1895 and died in 1982. His life is well documented in the usual encyclopaedias (especially Grove), and on the net. I have assembled the following notes from the New Grove, and from published articles by Paul Serotsky and Steve Schwartz. Most of the facts are agreed upon by the various sources, except for his possible involvement with the Nazis – this will be mentioned again later. He lived most of his life in Munich, Bavaria. Many of his major original works are steeped in Bavarian folklore. After World War I, during which he was wounded, Orff turned to the study of music from the late Renaissance and early Baroque, especially that of Claudio Monteverdi. This would influence his later operas. He gained a solid reputation for his realization of several Monteverdi scores (sometimes very liberally), starting with Orpheus in 1924. It is fair to say that Orff first gained prominence not as a composer, but as an educationalist, publishing (in the early Thirties) theories about encouraging musicianship in people through movement and musical improvisation. In 1924 he joined Dorothee Günther in founding a school in Munich ʻfor the co-ordinated teaching of music, gymnastics and dance.ʼ It was essentially a teacher training college. He introduced a great variety of percussion instruments, borrowing from the orchestra, from jazz and from Indonesian gamelan. All this led ultimately to the Orff-Schulwerk. Orff's first public success came in 1937, with the premiere of Carmina burana, his setting of a collection of medieval poetry. As Paul Serotsky writes: Both title and texts were taken from a Thirteenth Century manuscript discovered in the monastery of Benediktbeuern (southern Bavaria) by Schmeller, who published it in 1847. A mixture of ancient German and crude “dog” Latin, it in no way corresponds to what you would expect monks to be writing! The texts, every bit as much as the musical settings Orff provided, have made the cantata controversial from day one. People either love it or hate it - Carmina Burana is one of those very few pieces admitting no middle ground. Some detest it because of the texts, often crude, rude, lewd, and blasphemous, qualities which shine through even the sanitised translations given in concert programmes or record sleeve notes. Having said that, the texts have a primitive graphic power, capable of punching right through the veil of translation: like them or not, phrases such as “We drink the health of wanton girls” carry considerable “poetic” impact. The same is true of the sheer sound of certain other phrases. Who can fail to react, in any way whatsoever, to the words “animo vernali lasciviens”? Just roll them round your tongue - you'll get my drift! The texts are given voice by three soloists, a large mixed chorus, and a choir of boys (or children) which heightens the feeling of naivety (I hesitate to say “innocence”!). The authors of these texts called themselves 'goliards' (defrocked monks and minstrels). Traditionally they have been identified as 'vagantes' (vagrant students, vagabond monks and minor clerics), said to have been 'better known for their rioting, gambling and intemperance than for their scholarship'. Yet whatever their social status, their artistic and technical skill seem to place them among the clerical and academic elite of the age. Carmina Burana was first conceived as a stage work, performed as such in Frankfurt in 1937 (thereʼs a really cool picture of it on p.708 in New Grove). He later directed that it should be performed with two other works: Catulli Carmina (1943) and Trionfo di Afrodite (1953). Grove's dictionary states: Orff's musical and dramatic style arose directly from Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex and in particular, "The Wedding" (Les Noces). Like "The Wedding", Carmina Burana (and other Orff works) give an important place to the chorus. The orchestra, often rich in percussion, is normally used in block harmony to underline the highly accented choral rhythms. Polyphony, extended melodic writing and thematic development are rarely found, and instead, the most basic means are pressed into service to generate effects John Ferguson Page 2 20/05/09 of wild abandon. This technique produces music of powerful pagan sensuality and direct physical excitement. Steve Schwartz writes: At its most characteristic, Orff's music relies on the repetition of short phrases, electrifying rhythm, a more-than-usual reliance on percussion, often in a surprisingly lyrical way, and transparent orchestral colors. Though so different in idiom, his work pays an unapologetic debt to the early Baroque. Never all that prolific, Orff wrote less and less as he got older. From 1971 until his death in 1982, he devoted much of his energy to his eight volumes of Carl Orff und sein Werk: Dokumentation. Various Modernist factions tried to blackball him the club, but his idiosyncratic music refuses to die and has even had descendents, notably some of the minimalists. 2 Context – Historical and Musical Some musical events in 1937: June 2 - The incomplete version of Alban Berg's opera Lulu is premiered in Zürich (it is later completed in a version premiered in 1979) June 8 - Première of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana in Frankfurt, Germany. Perry Como begins singing with the Ted Weems orchestra. Frankie Laine fills Como's vacated position with the Freddie Carlone band. Hank Williams' musical career begins. In Pop: Count Basie - One O'Clock Jump Benny Goodman - Sing, Sing, Sing Bing Crosby - Sweet Leilani Fred Astaire - They Can't Take That Away From Me More ominously, the war clouds were gathering over Europe, the Weimar republic in Germany had given way to the Third Reich – or the rise of the Nazi regime. Germany had become the most technologically advanced nation in the world, and its weaponry and armaments second to none. The Weimar republic needs some explanation: Notes taken from Wikipedia: John Ferguson Page 3 20/05/09 Weimar Republic refers to the years (1919-1933) in the German history. Politically and economically, the nation struggled with the terms and reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles (1918) that ended World War I, and endured punishing levels of inflation. 1920s Berlin was at the hectic center of the Weimar culture. The fourteen years of the Weimar era were also marked by explosive intellectual productivity. German artists made significant cultural contributions in the fields of literature, art, architecture, music, dance, drama, and the new medium of the motion picture. Weimar culture encompassed the political caricature of Otto Dix and John Heartfield and George Grosz, the futuristic skyscraper dystopia of Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis and other products of the UFA studio, the beginnings of a new architectural style at the Bauhaus and the mass housing projects of Ernst May and Bruno Taut, and the decadent cabaret culture of Berlin documented by Christopher Isherwood. Writers such as Alfred Döblin, Erich Maria Remarque and the brothers Heinrich and Thomas Mann presented a bleak look at the world and the failure of politics and society through literature. The theatres of Berlin and Frankfurt am Main were graced with drama by Bertolt Brecht, cabaret, and stage direction by Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator. Concert halls and conservatories exhibited the atonal and modern music of Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Kurt Weill. During the era of the Weimar Republic, Germany became a center of intellectual thought at its medieval universities, and most notably social and political theory (especially Marxism) was combined with Freudian psychoanalysis to form the highly influential discipline of Critical Theory— with its development at the Institute for Social Research (also known as the Frankfurt School) founded at the University of Frankfurt am Main. With the rise of Nazism and the ascension of Adolf Hitler to power in 1933, many German intellectuals and cultural figures fled Germany for Turkey, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other parts of the world. Those who remained behind were often arrested, or detained in concentration camps. The intellectuals associated with the Institute for Social Research (also known as the Frankfurt School) fled to the United States and reestablished the Institute at the New School for Social Research in New York City. In the words of Marcus Bullock, professor of English at UW-Milwaukee, "Remarkable for the way it emerged from a catastrophe, more remarkable for the way it vanished into a still greater catastrophe, the world of Weimar represents modernism in its most vivid manifestation." John Ferguson Page 4 20/05/09 Orff and Nazism The issues surrounding Orff and his association with the Nazi regime are still, to some extent, surrounded in mystery. Some commentators have maintained the view that Orff