AboutCarl Orff
Carl Orff (*10.7.1895, Munich; † 29.3.1982, ibid.) was one of the most important tonal composers and educators of the 20th century. As a child, he received piano, organ, and cello lessons, sang in school and church choirs, and, influenced by Richard Wagner's operas, began studying in Munich with Anton Beer-Walbrunn and Hermann Zilcher. Even then, Orff harbored an interest in music pedagogy but initially found work as a Kapellmeister at the Munich Kammerspiele (1915–17), worked briefly in Mannheim and Darmstadt, and from 1920 onwards, again in his hometown. After further studies with Heinrich Kaminski, he founded a school for gymnastics, dance, and music in 1924 with educator Dorothee Günther, which promoted a modern connection between music and movement.
From a holistic awareness of sound, Orff worked on a comprehensive form of education, known as the "Schulwerk" (1930–35), which remains a foundation of music education to this day. This also included the development of the percussive Orff instrumentarium, which he advanced together with instrument maker Karl Maendler. Other important milestones included his position as conductor of the Munich Bachverein (1930–33), the directorship of the master class for composition at the Munich Conservatory (1950–60), and finally, from 1961, the leadership of the newly founded "Orff-Institut" at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, which has been instrumental in the further development of the Schulwerk.
As a composer, Carl Orff achieved his breakthrough in 1934/37 with "Carmina Burana," the setting of medieval vagrant poetry he had found in a codex from the library of Benediktbeuern Abbey. Influenced primarily by Wagner, but also by Claude Debussy, Arnold Schönberg, and Igor Stravinsky, his aim, both in setting literary texts by authors such as William Shakespeare, Friedrich Hölderlin, or Sophocles, and in his own poetry like "Der Mond – Ein kleines Welttheater" (1939), "Die Kluge" (1943), "Die Bernauerin" (1953), or the "Osterspiel" (1953) and "Weihnachtsspiel" (1960), was to evoke the impression of historical, mythical, legendary, or religious sentiments using modern artistic means. Behind almost all his stage works, laments, and also his instrumental works, lay the idea of the unity of music, movement, and language, which he extended to forms of improvisation.