Carmina Burana - why hate it??

[LeMartinPecheur]

The great discomfort regarding CB lies in its crypto-Nazi undercurrent.

Roehre - once again I ask: are you saying that the work has objective crypto-Nazi features which may corrupt listeners, or is it guilt by association, that we shouldn't perform works written by or strongly associated with the Nazis?
Or is what you are simply saying "My great discomfort regarding CB lies in its crypto-Nazi undercurrent"? I'm really not clear whether you are just stating your own personal standpoint very forcibly, or putting it forward as how you think the rest of us should react to CB.

[aeolium]

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!

Fair enough, Ff. The point about loss of life was something of a red herring anyway - it was more the question of works of art/monuments built in honour of absolute rulers and tyrants.

Incidentally, another possibly controversial work on R3 this afternoon - Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky. I think it's excellent, both in the Cantata form and as music to accompany the film.

[LeMartinPecheur]

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)

A hopefully interesting thought-experiment (pure fiction you understand). I for whatever reason have 78s of "Heil dem Fuhrer" and the Horst Wessel song tucked away in my record cabinet. One day I find my 9-yr old daughter singer these tunes loudly. Unknown to me, she's played the discs and fallen in love with the tunes. She doesn't know or sing the words, and has no knowledge of their meaning or history. What do I do??

Tell her that the tunes are evil and she must never sing them again? Must learn not to like them and do her best to scour them from her memory?

I don't think I'd go down this route at all. A history lesson is clearly called for, and an explanation why it may be very unwise to sing these songs in public (though I do wonder just how many people in Cornwall would now react to them). But I don't think I'd do any more.

(For this to happen for real in my household, I'd better set about learning these gems so I would actually recognize them. Otherwise I guess it might be me who all unknowing gives deep offence by whistling them in public)

What would others do about my (their) 9-year old, inc. if possible Roehre?

[Cellini]

I was never aware until now of all the Nazi connections.

I was just a jobbing musician playing in orchestras for money.

It simply that I found the music awful. Just simply bad music, in my opinion.

That's the simple reason why I hate the piece.

[Roehre]

A hopefully interesting thought-experiment (pure fiction you understand). I for whatever reason have 78s of "Heil dem Fuhrer" and the Horst Wessel song tucked away in my record cabinet. One day I find my 9-yr old daughter singer these tunes loudly. Unknown to me, she's played the discs and fallen in love with the tunes. She doesn't know or sing the words, and has no knowledge of their meaning or history. What do I do??

Tell her that the tunes are evil and she must never sing them again? Must learn not to like them and do her best to scour them from her memory?

I don't think I'd go down this route at all. A history lesson is clearly called for, and an explanation why it may be very unwise to sing these songs in public (though I do wonder just how many people in Cornwall would now react to them). But I don't think I'd do any more.

(For this to happen for real in my household, I'd better set about learning these gems so I would actually recognize them. Otherwise I guess it might be me who all unknowing gives deep offence by whistling them in public)

What would others do about my (their) 9-year old, inc. if possible Roehre?

I think I'd take that avenue as well.

The main problem is, that one should know when there are "evil connections" with a piece of art, be it Orff, Arno Breker (the Nazi-favoured sculptor), Leni Riefenstahl, Albert Speer (as Hitler-preferred architect) or even one aquarellist with the name Adolf Hitler.

And I am the last to deny that all the persons mentioned here left works of art of some distinction.

Especially the works by Hitler pose a delicate question: he produced them before he himself became a Nazi following the catastrophe of the 1st WW and its immediate aftermath. These works and the monstruosity of his later thinking and its unspeakable consequences haven't got anything to do with each other, other than their creator is one and the same person.
Nevertheless no-one with any cultural or historical common sense would put any AH-painting on the wall, I hope.

But as soon as it is not generally known anymore which are the connections between those watercolours and concentration camps, these paintings would find a nice place somewhere, and would be appreciated, certainly by the general public, and even possibly positively by the "critics" as well.

Though I am far from suggesting that Orff was something of a severe war criminal, I think the background of the CB (fully independent from the work's musical/artistic qualities) should be known before appreciating them.
Then the free choice could be made whether to accept the music as such, whatever the evil connections, or to reject it.
The state of Israel effectively banned Orff's and more especially Wagner's music. I strongly disagree with that policy, as a state must never interact in this way in whatever expression in arts. But I do understand the reasons, and I think that a warning about the contents and the backgrounds of CB should be more widely made public.

Your and mine nine-year old should (nay, IMO: must) be made aware of the associations of those nice melodies she discovered on those long-forgotten 78s.

It is not always gold that shines.

[Mr Pee]

a state must never interact in this way in whatever expression in arts. But I do understand the reasons, and I think that a warning about the contents and the backgrounds of CB should be more widely made public.
Your and mine nine-year old should (nay, IMO: must) be made aware of the associations of those nice melodies she discovered on those long-forgotten 78s.

It is not always gold that shines.

I cannot ignore the contradiction in the above statement.

a state must never interact in this way in whatever expression in arts.

Agree.

I think that a warning about the contents and the backgrounds of CB should be more widely made public.



Your and mine nine-year old should (nay, IMO: must) be made aware of the associations of those nice melodies she discovered on those long-forgotten 78s.

Disagree.

How do you tally those two statements together? You seem to be contradicting yourself.

And what exactly are the "contents and background" that you wish to publicise? The medieval texts? Or that Carl Orff-along with many other artists of the time- was tarred as a Nazi? Where then would Karajan and Furtwangler be?

Do you ban her from listening to anything by Wagner?

What a tragedy that would be.

Perhaps you should just let her make up her own mind.

[Mandryka]

I can't agree that anything is gained by an 'awareness' of the fact that the composer of Carmina Burana had an ambiguous relationship with the Nazis. The same applies to other works of art with 'dodgy' creators.

As I say, I've not listend to CB for a few years, but I'm pretty sure last time I looked at the booklet, none of the songs were encouraging me incinerate Jews, smash pawn-brokers windows or stomp about the streets in jackboots.

The work is innocent, even if the creator may not have been - though, as I think we must all agree, Orff's actions and motivations during that period are open to varying interpretations.

I have to wonder sometimes at the agenda of people who forever want to keep reminding us that creators have feet of clay - surely we don't need to be reminded of that?

[Barbirollians]

I knew nothing of the Nazi associations when I first heard the work - and hated it .

Now I do it just makes me hate it even more . I am entirely with Roehre on this one.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Having started the thread in an attempt to understand the purely musical case against CB, but also having fuelled the "Nazi work - ban it" argument, I finally did a Google to discover the full Nazi-connections case against Orff/ CB. This link http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009...carmina-burana caught my eye.

If this is correct, Orff's, and CB's, direct connection with the Nazi party seems largely accidental. OK there is a lot about Orff's later private conduct that it's easy to feel sick about, but as other posters have said, how many of us can be perfectly sure that we would hold the moral high ground in such conditions? And there also seem to be hints that Orff was somehow a less than fully-fledged human being to start with. Ummm, very deep ethical waters here!

[Barbirollians]

My response to it has always been visceral rather than intellectual . I did give it a go with the Jochum recording but I simply cannot abide the piece.

[Uncle Monty]

I can't help suspecting that there is quite a lot of self-deception going on when we confront works that we feel are somehow "tainted", whether because they were produced by horrible people, or under a nasty regime, or according to questionable aesthetic principles.

I don't have any quarrel with people who don't like Carmina Burana because they simply feel it's lousy music. That's their right, and there's nothing more to be said.

But if new extra-musical knowledge about a piece of music (let's stick to music for present purposes) has me thinking "This piece isn't as good as I thought it was" or, even worse, "This piece isn't as good as it sounds", something is wrong, isn't it? After all, the music itself hasn't changed one bit.

I'm sure I must have done this myself, and it seems a serious sort of dishonesty, really. Do we do it to make ourselves feel less uncomfortable?

[LeMartinPecheur]

My response to it has always been visceral rather than intellectual . I did give it a go with the Jochum recording but I simply cannot abide the piece.

Barbirollians: a logically impregnable position! De gustibus non est disputandum etc etc. Except that we (humans in general) do disputare about our gustes at great length, and somehow occasionally Gustes nostri mutantur. [Please excuse any Form 1A Latin howlers: I don't have my Shorter Latin Primer right to hand]

And that I guess is a big slice of why we enjoy enjoy, or at any rate keep coming back to, these boards

[LeMartinPecheur]

Uncle Monty:

[Roehre]

I cannot ignore the contradiction in the above statement.
How do you tally those two statements together? You seem to be contradicting yourself.

Which contradiction? A citizen should take his own (moral and other) responsibility. That's not a state responsibility.
Do I say otherwise?

And what exactly are the "contents and background" that you wish to publicise? The medieval texts? Or that Carl Orff-along with many other artists of the time- was tarred as a Nazi? Where then would Karajan and Furtwangler be?

Does it matter where Karajan and Furtwängler are? If IYO so, why? Because they lived and worked in Nazi-Germany too?
Here comes Ahskenazy's very correct remark around the corner.

Specifically in the case of the CB IMO it should be advised that this work is a Nazi-commission, and Nazi-approved because the composer followed the Nazi-textbook for this type of compositions: "massive, strongly rhythmical, uplifting" (literally mentioned as such in the offical writings of Goebbels' propaganda department) , Blut und Boden and perfectly fitting (though AFAIK never used as such) within the massive Nazi-gatherings and -rallies. (To Orff's defence: he WAS quite severely criticised for the use of latin, and not German, as the CB's language. But Orff duly obeyed by using German in Der Mond and in the Catulli Carmini)

Goebbels knew exactly how to play the people, and 65 years after the fall of the Third Reich this still applies.
QED.

Do you ban her from listening to anything by Wagner?

Why should I? What has Wagner to do what a bunch of idiots did with his music more than 50 years after his death?

Perhaps you should just let her make up her own mind.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. But to enable her to do so, she needs balanced information, doesn't she?

[Uncle Monty]

But where exactly is the Blubo in Carmina Burana, Roehre? I just don't hear it. I would have thought it was far too lyrical and subtle for community singing at the Nuremburg rallies. Strongly rhythmical, eh? Stravinsky? Nazi, clearly. Massive? Mahler, another obvious Nazi. Uplifting? I shall listen to Vaughan Williams in a more critical political light. I'm sorry to labour the point, but aren't you arguing backwards? You dismiss mention of Wagner, but since his was the music the Nazis most cherished, surely to be consistent you should be applying a health warning to him as well, because whatever it was they approved of, he clearly had it?

It may not seem very likely, but to listen to CB one might think Orff worked a bit of a flanker on the Nazi authorities. It's the norm for composers to accept commissions and then write what they want to write anyway. When Shostakovich does it, we all say "What a supreme ironist", and how clever to have outwitted the philistines.