Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[Pulcinella]

Only fools deride and/or ridicule Carmina Burana, which will long stand as one of the key choral works of the 20th c. Orff is a classic example of a great composer on whom some totally unwarranted mud has stuck. We needn't like his work, but we do need to respect it for doing something uniquely communicative in a very different manner from his contemporaries. His later operas, such as Die Bernauerin and Antigone, are astonishingly powerful: but Carmina Burana simply reaches parts of the soul which other pieces don't!

The In trutina section is an absolute gem!

[Richard Tarleton]

The In trutina section is an absolute gem!

and for many years the signature tune for the BBC's "Timewatch" series.

[peterthekeys]

Only fools deride and/or ridicule Carmina Burana, which will long stand as one of the key choral works of the 20th c. Orff is a classic example of a great composer on whom some totally unwarranted mud has stuck. We needn't like his work, but we do need to respect it for doing something uniquely communicative in a very different manner from his contemporaries. His later operas, such as Die Bernauerin and Antigone, are astonishingly powerful: but Carmina Burana simply reaches parts of the soul which other pieces don't!

Totally agree. He re-thought his style - I was going to say "simplified" but that wouldn't be right: OK, some aspects are simplified, but - for example - what he did with time-signatures and metre was nothing short of revolutionary. As with other composers at the time, he did it as a reaction to the way music headed after Wagner (into what appeared at the time to be endlessly-increasing complexity, obscurity and intellectualism.) Other composers went down the neoclassical/neobaroque route - in Orff's case, he seemed to be drawn to something earlier (plainchant and organum - neo-mediaeval?) When he came across the songs of the goliards from the Benediktbeuern manuscripts, he found a massive resonance (maybe it was the background of one decadent society against that of another.)

I first heard Carmina Burana in my early teens (part of it was played as the background music at the start of the school assembly one day, and it electrified a large proportion of us - and not just the ones who were specialising in music.) I still retain a great fondness for it (a long time ago, I played one of the piano parts in a performance of a version for soloists, chorus and two pianos only: that was an experience I won't forget.)

I don't know the two operas you mention - I'll look them up. I'm also fond of "Trionfo di Afrodite" (although it seems a bit rambly at times, there are some brilliantly exciting sections.)

One should also pay tribute to the Orff Schulwerk, which is still widely admired and used in music education and other contexts.

[Pulcinella]

...
I don't know the two operas you mention - I'll look them up. I'm also fond of "Trionfo di Afrodite" (although it seems a bit rambly at times, there are some brilliantly exciting sections.)
...

I have that coupled with Catulli carmina in an HMV Classics release (Munich Radio SO/Welser-Möst); must dig it out and (re)listen as I have no memory of it whatsoever.

[peterthekeys]

Humm - I've always assocated the work with a reductionist masculinist "Rite of Spring" primitivism, appealing to the Nazis. Do you suppose then that they must have passed it for reasons of stupidity?

I guess that politicians will always use music to further their causes, and will pick the music which seems best to reflect those causes. But that's a very long way from paying or otherwise coercing a composer to turn out suitable music as required - and that was the thing which SK (or whoever had written her script) appeared to be implying (and which I found intensely objectionable.)

[peterthekeys]

I have that coupled with Catulli carmina in an HMV Classics release (Munich Radio SO/Welser-Möst); must dig it out and (re)listen as I have no memory of it whatsoever.

I've heard that that is the best recording available at the moment (there are some surprisingly poor ones about.) I originally heard it in a (fabulous) live performance on R3 - must have been in the early '70s (ah, those were the days ... That was the Ponsonby era - never thought I'd look back on that with nostalgia.) Think I've still got a cassette of it somewhere. The text is Greek and Latin - most of the Latin parts are taken from Catullus, and I believe that most of the Greek is from the fragments of poems left by Sappho.

[peterthekeys]

I guess that politicians will always use music to further their causes, and will pick the music which seems best to reflect those causes. But that's a very long way from paying or otherwise coercing a composer to turn out suitable music as required

Sorry - bad form to follow up one's own post. But having written that, I started thinking about Shostakovich and the other composers working under the Soviet regime. In the case of Shostakovich, I find that even in his most apparently "socialist realism" works (e.g. the Festive Overture and symphony 12), the music is still fine enough to appeal outside of the political context. (And Shostakovich the court jester so often appears to be in the background - the fast sections of the Festive Overture are pure silent film music.)

Over the last few years, I've been listening to Symphony 4 a lot, and it's now up there with my favourites (that devastating ending, like the pronouncement and enactment of a death sentence!) I still wonder about how Shostakovich must have felt when he realised that he was going to have to bury that work, probably permanently.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Festive(?) Overture

In the case of Shostakovich, I find that even in his most apparently "socialist realism" works (e.g. the Festive Overture and symphony 12), the music is still fine enough to appeal outside of the political context. (And Shostakovich the court jester so often appears to be in the background - the fast sections of the Festive Overture are pure silent film music.)

Must say I have a bit of an obsession with this 'wonderful' work, now apparently getting to be an easy substitute for a quick dash through the Russlan and Ludmilla ov.

For some reason I didn't get to hear it till some 15 years ago, on car radio - don't think it got out much in the west! My first reaction was 'This just has to be a total piss-take!" I'm rather confirmed in this view by seeing the background to its composition. Being famed for his speed of composition DSCH was asked by officialdom at the very last minute for a suitably rousing work (written apparently in three days flat!) for a Bolshoi concert celebrating the 1954 anniversary of the October Revolution, another composer having failed to deliver on time. What better excuse and opportunity to write a totally OTT and empty piece debunking the whole genre of communist celebratory 'classical' music?

Note that the composer had a long history of failing to provide such works, thereby incurring very serious displeasure from the very top (Stalin) - promised but never delivered Lenin choral symphonies, the 8th and 9th symphonies which failed signally to 'properly' celebrate Russia's victory over Germany, etc. To my mind there's also some confirmation of this reading in the abjectly crawling apology the composer wrote to the top dogs lamenting the total inadequacy of his response to the commission, and mentioning the mad rush (can't track it down to quote exactly). I suspect this was a double pleasure to write: completely fake sorrow in the best party language, yet a good insurance policy if anyone suggested that what he'd written was indeed a complete piss-take!

Also, so close after the death of Stalin it must have seemed a tiny bit safer to play such games, and perhaps the riotous celebration in the work really has much more to do with this 'sad' event than with 1917??

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The end-of-Breakfast trailer indicated that the programme was to feature the brass band tradition in the north of England - something of great to me, even though I’m not a brass player. Then SK’s patronising voice came over the airwaves as a punishment. Do I try to listen? A very fraught choice.

[oddoneout]

The end-of-Breakfast trailer indicated that the programme was to feature the brass band tradition in the north of England - something of great to me, even though I’m not a brass player. Then SK’s patronising voice came over the airwaves as a punishment. Do I try to listen? A very fraught choice.

Sounds like a case for cherry picking on catch-up? Little point in listening live when you don't know when or what - it could just be the conversation with today's young musician.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Sounds like a case for cherry picking on catch-up? Little point in listening live when you don't know when or what - it could just be the conversation with today's young musician.

Thank you. A sensible and practical solution.

[oddoneout]

EA, looking at the schedule quickly just now I can't see any indication of brass band music.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

EA, looking at the schedule quickly just now I can't see any indication of brass band music.

There was some reference to it in the chit-chat, but the trailer was misleading.

[oddoneout]

There was some reference to it in the chit-chat, but the trailer was misleading.

Not a very clever thing to do really, but can't say I'm surprised. Just as well you didn't listen live - enduring a disliked presenter only to be denied what you were looking forward to does not improve wellbeing!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Not a very clever thing to do really, but can't say I'm surprised. Just as well you didn't listen live - enduring a disliked presenter only to be denied what you were looking forward to does not improve wellbeing!