Carmina Burana - why hate it??

[LeMartinPecheur]

Quite a few MBers have been taking every opportunity lately to pile coals on Orff's Carmina Burana, as if no true music lover could ever say anything different. Why is this?

Reasoned critiques of the work's musical features, without reference to TV adverts, please!!!

I'm prompted to ask having just sung it. In some ways it's very simple but in others it's distinctly challenging. ('Felix coniunctio' in 3 exposed tenor parts anyone? - I'm glad I'm a 3rd bass myself) A hundred or so of us found it a very decent challenge to learn it in one day at a drop-in-and-sing event, but it was a 'damned good sing' (IMO) once we'd got the notes, and our audience seemed to like it.

Does the rudery it attracts on these boards simply stem simply from its popularity? - I do of course realise that anything truly popular (like Tchaikovsky) is ipso facto bad art without the need for further argument!

[Mahlerei]

I'm not one of those nay-sayers. One of my formative musical experiences was a performance of the work at the RFH conducted by the late Eduardo Mata (about 1976, I think). I'm also very fond of Der Mond, although I haven't listen edto either work fro ages. Perhaps now's teh time to change that :)

I can only imagine those ubiquitous ostinati signal 'shallow' and 'banal' to some. Not to me. No doubt I'll burn in hell for that.

[Serial_Apologist]

One takes it that it is the Karl Orff work to which you refer. One reason for hating it, regardless of musical merits or demerits, is an inability to divorce the work from the circumstances in which it was composed and promoted.

S-A

[LeMartinPecheur]

One takes it that it is the Karl Orff work to which you refer. One reason for hating it, regardless of musical merits or demerits, is an inability to divorce the work from the circumstances in which it was composed and promoted.

S-A

OK, I guess either you can or you can't. I hope we won't get into 'should or shouldn't'. Re your first sentence, I thought "pile coals on Orff's Carmina Burana" might have given one a clue Just before posting I added the composer's name just in case anyone thought that a hundred of us had learned the complete Benediktbeuren medieval songs and performed them in a day:cool2:

[Martin]

It's a work of dramatic music and interesting vocal writing, whilst being approachable to many people. I can't particularly see a problem with that.

Anyone have a favoured recording of CB?

[Roehre]

One takes it that it is the Karl Orff work to which you refer. One reason for hating it, regardless of musical merits or demerits, is an inability to divorce the work from the circumstances in which it was composed and promoted.

S-A

This is the type of music we would be playing and singing now had Hitler won the war.
That's why Orff is the only composer of some "name" of which I haven't got any recording in my collection, though I know quite a couple of his pieces quite well.
It demonstrates perfectly well how dangerously effective "art" as promoted and defended by the Nazis is: it speaks to the masses. That is how tempting their "art" and implicitly their philosophies are.

[mercia]

it speaks to the masses

I'm sure I have misunderstood you here (dimwit that I am). Are you saying that any "art" that "speaks to the masses" is inherently dangerous?

What might be included in that: Land of Hope & Glory? Land of my Fathers? Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers'?

yes, I'm sure I've misunderstood you

[Cellini]

Quite a few MBers have been taking every opportunity lately to pile coals on Orff's Carmina Burana, as if no true music lover could ever say anything different. Why is this?

Reasoned critiques of the work's musical features, without reference to TV adverts, please!!!

I'm prompted to ask having just sung it. In some ways it's very simple but in others it's distinctly challenging. ('Felix coniunctio' in 3 exposed tenor parts anyone? - I'm glad I'm a 3rd bass myself) A hundred or so of us found it a very decent challenge to learn it in one day at a drop-in-and-sing event, but it was a 'damned good sing' (IMO) once we'd got the notes, and our audience seemed to like it.

Does the rudery it attracts on these boards simply stem simply from its popularity? - I do of course realise that anything truly popular (like Tchaikovsky) is ipso facto bad art without the need for further argument!

If you enjoy(ed) singing in it that is fine. Far be it for me to say anything, even if I do think it's total rubbish! I say that having played in it a couple or more times, when I would have prefered to stay at home and done a weeks worth of washing up.

I have to admit I hate the piece.

[LeMartinPecheur]

This is the type of music we would be playing and singing now had Hitler won the war.

No space on the music stands for Wagner then?? Or would he be exempt from the criticism because he was dead before Nazism began? Though even that doesn't run if you believe Nazism had its roots in Bayreuth before 1881 a la Kohler.

And isn't the association of Carmina Burana with Nazism just a tad weakened by its text's strong message at beginning and end: wheel of fortune, "What goes up must come down" etc? Perhaps they should all have listened a bit more closely to the words?

While I can't translate the full text at sight (our vocal scores had no translation), I failed to spot anything distinctively pro-German/ Nordic/ fascist. Come to think about it, there's a very favourable endorsement for the Queen of England IIRC!

All I'm seeing at the moment is the guilt by association argument: "nasty man = bad music" or "music used by bad guys for nasty purposes = bad music". But as I've hinted, why doesn't Wagner go out the door on this basis?

Should we all throw away our Gesualdo too?

[LeMartinPecheur]

Anyone have a favoured recording of CB?

My favourite from LP days is the EMI Fruhbeck de Burgos with Lucia Popp. BUT (and it's a very big but, as you can see), I've yet to find a decent CD transfer All I've heard are very shallow and fizzy. Not just my opinion either - a friend of mine has just picked up a charity-shop copy and remarked on the lack of depth/ weight too. I've promised him a spin of the LP next time he's over(*)

The old DG Jochum is pretty fine on CD. I'll leave others to guide us on digital recordings, but I've heard good things of the Naxos Alsop if you don't want to spend the earth.

(*) Though when he comes over there'll be plenty of and so we might miss the finer nuances in the transfer quality!

[LeMartinPecheur]

If you enjoy(ed) singing in it that is fine. Far be it for me to say anything, even if I do think it's total rubbish! I say that having played in it a couple or more times, when I would have prefered to stay at home and done a weeks worth of washing up.

I have to admit I hate the piece.

: Cellini: as per my first post, can you spell out WHY you think it's rubbish? OK, if it's gut reaction then end of story, but from your other postings I'd have thought you'd be able to adumbrate some musicological reasons.

[Mandryka]

One takes it that it is the Karl Orff work to which you refer. One reason for hating it, regardless of musical merits or demerits, is an inability to divorce the work from the circumstances in which it was composed and promoted.

S-A

Words are inadequate to describe how strongly I disagree with this kind of attitude.

Any work of art flies free both from its creator and the circumstances of its creation. I don't give a tinker's cuss for whatever circumstances in which it was created, or for the (ambiguous) political affiliations of its author.

That said, I enjoy C.B. without being devoted to it - I own the Jochum recording but, like Mahlerei, haven't listend to it for years. I think the fact that it became so popular off the back of an aftershave advertisement made it beyond the pale in many peoples' estimation.

[verismissimo]

Because it's crude? formulaic? loud? banal? boring? IMO of course.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Because it's crude? formulaic? loud? banal? boring? IMO of course.

Thanks for addressing my original question verismissimo. Please develop on the following:

"Crude". Exactly how? Could this perhaps be deliberate on Orff's part, in seeking to create a stylised faux-medieval feel?

"Loud". Are you decibel-counting, in which case it's surely quieter than Mahler's 8th and it isn't by any means loud all the time, or is this a personal aesthetic judgment akin to "a loud suit"?

"Banal". Do you say it was banal when first heard, or does this come off a personal feeling that its style has been too much borrowed by later (film-music?) composers? Or even simple over-exposure to CB itself? I'd have thought that there was a lot that was stylistically original when it appeared.

I won't interrogate you further on "Boring" as that seems to be a personal value-judgment, though presumably you would allow that sales-figures suggest that you are in a minority on this call?

[Cellini]

: Cellini: as per my first post, can you spell out WHY you think it's rubbish? OK, if it's gut reaction then end of story, but from your other postings I'd have thought you'd be able to adumbrate some musicological reasons.

It's not possible for me to give any details of why I dislike it. All I know is that many years ago (30+) I knew nothing of the composer or the piece, but I performed it in orchestra a couple of times at least. I was not impressed as a piece of music the first time and this was further reinforced with following performance(s).

I suppose I should re-visit it on CD (to see if I feel the same way) - BUT - I'm afraid there is a lot of other music that I need to get to know or know better, and so CB would be at the end of a very long list. (It's a long piece too I would imagine). And as my specific tastes have hardened over the years it would probably be an unpleasant and futile experience.

Maybe it was stupid of me to respond to this thread in the first place.

But if people enjoy the work that's fine. In the end it comes down to my personal (good or bad) judgement about any piece of music, and that may often be opposite to many other people's views.