Carmina Burana - why hate it??

[amateur51]

I used to quite often to the Royal Albert Hall with an older friend (she's now 90) to a concert containing either Carmina Burana or Rite of Spring.

She turned to me after one performance of Carmina Burana (with Rite of Spring to follow), clapping wildly, and said: "I do like a bit of Crash! Bang!! Wallop!!! dear"

[Ferretfancy]

I first heard Carmina Burana in about 1956 in a mono recording by Sawallisch. I knew nothing about the composer, but enjoyed the brightly coloured picture it painted. When stereo arrived I was fascinated in turn by Die Kluge and Der Mond, again conducted by Sawallisch and sounding pretty spectacular at the time. On returning to them I now find the repetition laboured and the hectoring tone unappealing. Is this because I now know rather more about Orff, and the political background? Well, possibly, it cannot be completely ignored, but although I don't rush to hear Carmina nowadays, I can still respond to it. The massive opening can still thrill, and in trutina still has a haunting quality.

Perhaps it's best to look at picture postcards without necessarily looking at the pictures on the back.

[umslopogaas]

Its worth remembering that Carmina Burana is the first of three works in a trilogy called Trionfi, though according to my LP sleeve notes they were written independently and are not conceived as an integral cycle. The other two are Catulli Carmina and Trionfi Di Aphrodite. Catulli Carmina has some memorable moments, but I cant recall a note of Trionfi Di Aphrodite. Has anyone any thoughts on these two pieces? They are much less well known than Carmina Burana.

I also have recordings of a couple of other works involving chorus and orchestra: De Temporum Fine Comoedia, and Die Bernauerin. Apart from these old DG LPs, I have never heard any mention of them, let alone a performance. In a sense, its a pity Carmina Burana exists, because its popularity seems to overshadow a lot of other works.

[Nick Armstrong]

Its worth remembering that Carmina Burana is the first of three works in a trilogy called Trionfi, though according to my LP sleeve notes they were written independently and are not conceived as an integral cycle. The other two are Catulli Carmina and Trionfi Di Aphrodite. Catulli Carmina has some memorable moments, but I cant recall a note of Trionfi Di Aphrodite. Has anyone any thoughts on these two pieces? They are much less well known than Carmina Burana.

I went through a phase (I was about 20) of loving Carmina Burana and was excited to find that there were companion pieces. I found (borrowed from the library I think) a recording of Carmina Catulli. I found it so underwhelming that I looked no further and can remember nothing about it other than that it was uninteresting.

I think it was the Jochum version - Trionfi exists as a box now, even on mp3, and extracts can be heard here if you want a few tastes: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Orff-Carmina...9678507&sr=8-1

A propos this thread, I have never had a problem with Carmina Burana. I like the lurid, violent, sensual evocation of medieval times, and it fits into that fine as far as I am concerned. A good visceral performance and top soloists can shiver my timbers; and I've managed to avoid by and large the contexts in which it is over-exposed (e.g. I gather O Fortuna gets murdered every week on X Factor )

[Nick Armstrong]

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.

PS I adopt everything said by Mandryka here (save that I didn't know it had been used in an aftershave advert )

[Roehre]

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

So, let's resurrect therefore the very beautifully and movingly set hymn "Heil dem Führer!" or the ditto variations on the Horst Wessel Lied (Die Fahnen hoch ... SA-marschiert) then (and I don't mean the sarcastic/ironic version in Marek's unfinished symphony - being sent to a concentration camp)

[Nick Armstrong]

So, let's resurrect therefore the very beautifully and movingly set hymn "Heil dem Führer!" or the ditto variations on the Horst Wessel Lied (Die Fahnen hoch ... SA-marschiert) then (and I don't mean the sarcastic/ironic version in Marek's unfinished symphony - being sent to a concentration camp)

I like a Devil's Advocate. But surely the charming items you mention were composed for or specifically allude to or were used by an obnoxious régime? Rather different from the situation Mandryka is referring to, nein?

[Mandryka]

So, let's resurrect therefore the very beautifully and movingly set hymn "Heil dem Führer!" or the ditto variations on the Horst Wessel Lied (Die Fahnen hoch ... SA-marschiert) then (and I don't mean the sarcastic/ironic version in Marek's unfinished symphony - being sent to a concentration camp)

And an additional (if very hackneyed) point: I don't think anyone who has NEVER lived under any kind of totalitarian regime (which, I'd imagine, includes most if not all of us on here) are in any position to critcise the actions of those who DID live under such a regime. Orff may have played an unheroic role in Nazi Germany (thouhgh the full story is not known and may never be), but we cask ourselves: would we have done differently, with our lives at risk? Fortunately for us, these questions remain academic.

[aeolium]

The other point is that many works of art (or what are now regarded as works of art whether they were not intended as such) were created under appalling regimes and in quite a few cases to glorify or commemorate tyrants. Sometimes the creation of these monuments involved heavy loss of life, e.g. with the Pyramids. Do we reject those works because of the circumstances in which they were created?

[Roehre]

I like a Devil's Advocate. But surely the charming items you mention were composed for or specifically allude to or were used by an obnoxious régime? Rather different from the situation Mandryka is referring to, nein?

Neither of these lovely charming items was a commission. IIRC CB was, with an indication of what was expected.

[Roehre]

The other point is that many works of art (or what are now regarded as works of art whether they were not intended as such) were created under appalling regimes and in quite a few cases to glorify or commemorate tyrants. Sometimes the creation of these monuments involved heavy loss of life, e.g. with the Pyramids. Do we reject those works because of the circumstances in which they were created?

A very sensible question, which IMO deserves its own thread.

[Roehre]

And an additional (if very hackneyed) point: I don't think anyone who has NEVER lived under any kind of totalitarian regime (which, I'd imagine, includes most if not all of us on here) are in any position to critcise the actions of those who DID live under such a regime. Orff may have played an unheroic role in Nazi Germany (thouhgh the full story is not known and may never be), but we cask ourselves: would we have done differently, with our lives at risk? Fortunately for us, these questions remain academic.

I don't think we have to discuss Orff's not very glorious (to say the least) political and private utterances here. But accepting without discussion and without pointing to the background of exactly this work of his, means IMO that we might
play and enjoy the lovely items I referred to as well.
The great discomfort regarding CB lies in its crypto-Nazi undercurrent.

[3rd Viennese School]

Old Spice.


The mark of a man.


(Someone had to say it)

[Ferretfancy]

aeolium,

I completely accept your argument, but I think that the building of the Pyramids is an unfortunate example. There is now a great deal of evidence that the Pyramids were worked on during the period of the year when the Nile was in flood before planting of crops could begin, and this work provided relief. Once the inundation season finished, the workers returned to their homes. The quarters for the workmen have been discovered, together with records of the various construction teams, and lots more besides, and their is no evidence that the builders were slaves. No doubt there was loss of life, as there still is on similar enterprises today, but not through cruelty of forced labour.
I blame it on Cecil B de Mille!

[Uncle Monty]

I'm firmly in the Pecheur/Mandryka camp on this one! (Though my dislike of Tchaikovsky is not ipso fatso because he's popular )

I too got the Fruhbeck de Burgos recording in the early 1970s, and was so taken with it that I was very soon able to sing the whole thing from memory. (Soon after that, to reinforce my interest, there was the dramatic broadcast and subsequent record of the Previn Prom performance with the collapsing Tom Allen.) My Latin A-level certainly helped me to understand what was going on.

Given the way I came to know the piece (as a complete, not to say extra, virgin) I am and would always have been at a loss to see how words like "banal", "formulaic" and "crude" could possibly be applied to it.

As for "loud", puh-leeze. Two or three years before I first heard CB, I'd been earning a precarious living as a guitarist in a blues band, where my amplifier stack was so huge that I had to stand on a chair to adjust the volume (up to 11, naturally). That was loud. [By the way, have you noticed how the volume control on the iplayer also goes up to 11?!] The start of the Sea Symphony, every time I've been at a performance, has been far louder than anything in CB, which just sounds like a big choir should.

I'm hard put to it to think of anything less "crude" than, for instance, the soprano arias in CB, at least in the exquisite performance by Lucia Popp on the Fruhbeck recording.

I may be naive, but I have always regarded the thing as rollicking good fun, and tremendously life-affirming. I really can't help it if the Nazi regime was neither of those things. And the Nazism in it was so "crypto" as to be, for me, non-existent. I can't put it in now, and don't want to. If I refused to listen to any music whose composer had views I loathed, I'd probably be scratching round for something to play. And I'd certainly never listen to any Jimmy Macmillan. (Oh, no, wait, I don't anyway ) Seriously, I do (we had a thread on this) have a bit of trouble with composers I don't happen to warm to personally, but I truly believe that's my loss. Generally speaking, I try to evaluate music on its own perceived merits and on its own terms. And bearing in mind Vladimir Ashkenazy's warning against judging anyone living in a totalitarian regime too blithely, I really can't worry at this remove about how a piece like CB came into being (and I say that as one who, like many of you no doubt, lost family in the war). We'll be getting back on to Wagner soon.