BaL 12.06.21 - Orff: Carmina Burana

[Bert]

Ah but I do hear that in the music - no doubt my fault but it sounds like Nazi music to my ears whether that is rational or not .

As for Clemens Krauss yes he was an opportunist but he also provided cover for English friends who were spiriting Jews out of the country.

Well, you have quite an imagination! I wouldn't even know what 'Nazi Music' even sounds like! Is there even such a thing?

As for Krauss, we mustn't make excuses for his despicable collaboration with the Nazis on the expulsion of Jewish music directors and musicians from German orchestras. I'm afraid his guilty conscience and later mitigations, do not excuse his actions. I adore his music making, nonetheless - all quite difficult to know what to think .....

[Bert]

I had a conversation with someone many years ago who, convinced that Karl Bohm was a Nazi collaborator and sympathiser, could not get his head around 'someone like him' conducting Beethoven's Pastoral symphony, and doing it so well. He couldn't reconcile his view of Bohm and the beautiful music of the Pastoral. Did he not realise that Bohm also gave his children birthday cards and presents, I wondered?

I think that's a very good example of how we can all get very confused about this subject.

[LMcD]

What key is it in?

In September 1941 it ended up in Kiev.

[ardcarp]

One flat key Siegnature.

[Richard Barrett]

could not get his head around 'someone like him' conducting Beethoven's Pastoral symphony, and doing it so well.

How would he expect a Nazi sympathiser to conduct Beethoven? Would such a person for example not be expected to care about tempo, phrasing, dynamics, expression?

[gurnemanz]

Well, you have quite an imagination! I wouldn't even know what 'Nazi Music' even sounds like! Is there even such a thing?

Quite ...Horst Wessel Lied maybe.
We've been here before. Our much missed fellow contributor and master pianist, Peter Katin, was of Jewish heritage and was prepared to admit enjoying it on its own terms (third to last post). The young André Previn was still living with his Jewish family in Berlin before fleeing Nazi persecution when CB was first performed. Hard to believe he would go on to become one the work's main advocates if he thought it was Nazi.
It was performed in Communist East Germany and is frequently performed in Israel.

[LMcD]

One flat key Siegnature.

The call from the Wolf's Lair to the manager of the Central Wehrmacht Band was actually a request to play something in the key of F, but the line was so bad that they ended up invading Russia.

[gradus]

I dislike Orff's reputation from what I read on here but I still enjoy Carmina. I avoid listening to any of Furtwangler's or indeed any other performers German war time recordings they just seem tainted to me but I appreciate that others take a different view. Furtwangler's post-war recordings don't worry me in the same way at all.

[ardcarp]

It was mentioned in Michael Portillo's 'train journey' programme that in the 1930s, when Hitler's National Socialist Party was in power, that British and especially American tourism in Germany was on a huge scale. This was mainly for reasons of enjoying Germany's scenery (eg the Rhineland) and partly for seeing historic cities and their architecture; and I am sure the awfulness of Hitler and Nazism wasn't fully anticipated. Kurt Hahn, for instance, formed his educational ideas and founded a school in Germany during that time, and it wasn't until it was discovered he had Jewish ancestry that he had to get out. I can believe that Orff and at least part of the German population were fooled by what they first thought of as a culture of regeneration and enterprise. It could so easily happen here......

[Barbirollians]

Well, you have quite an imagination! I wouldn't even know what 'Nazi Music' even sounds like! Is there even such a thing?

As for Krauss, we mustn't make excuses for his despicable collaboration with the Nazis on the expulsion of Jewish music directors and musicians from German orchestras. I'm afraid his guilty conscience and later mitigations, do not excuse his actions. I adore his music making, nonetheless - all quite difficult to know what to think .....

I don't know abut despicable collaboration. He was certainly happy to take other people's jobs .

He did ,however, provide cover for Ida Cook and her sister's smuggling Jewish refugees belongings out of Germany by inviting them to attend performances in Germany and even arranging performances in places were they needed to go which if discovered would surely have ended his career at least.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-38732779

[NatBalance]

Sorry so long replying. My laptop being so slow doesn't help.

Does Orff achieve this kind of effect? Or is it just, as you say, a matter of the covers of a book?

Well, does he have to create that effect? I listened to the Beethoven you mentioned and just the beginning and end of the Prokofiev. Yes its nice to hear a development of the beginning section at the end. That was appropriate for that piece but it is not always appropriate to develop rather than repeat exactly. What about Chopin's Waltz Opus 64 No.2?

Actually my analogy of the book covers is not really correct. Very rarely, if ever, would the two covers of a book be exactly the same. I just don't see what's musically wrong with having the two exactly the same. It may be wrong in theory but lets face it, music theory is not an exact science. Theory and too much 'change' can sometimes be the ruination of music. I always like to use as example a piece actually by one of my favourite composers, Holst, and this is one of my favourite symphonies, his First Choral Symphony (what a shame we've only got the scherzo of his second). There's a part in the last movement which starts off really quiet and gradually gets louder and more active and when it really gets properly going into beautifull Bach-like see-sawing counter melodies it stops, presumably either because of the words or some blasted structure rules.

Here it is (incredibly quiet recording so the quite part at the beginning you might actually find inaudible):- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IliGLfkXL-4 It starts at about 44:05 and just when it gets really going at about 46:00 it stops. It's like getting on a horse, starting off slowly, getting to a canter and then when it really starts galloping it stops. Such beautifull music with such potential to provide greater longer lasting pleasure, but not made the most of …. why? Always annoys me that bit. I don't care what the words dictate, musically that it is very bad. I don't think Bach would have stopped there.

The way I see it that introduction to Carmina Burana is a perfect piece of writing, doesn't need altering, but of course if you didn't like it well, that's another matter.

I said 'apparently' he lied because the Americans believed him but I know virtually nothing on that subject.

Rich

[Richard Barrett]

I said 'apparently' he lied because the Americans believed him but I know virtually nothing on that subject.

You could of course easily inform yourself if you felt like doing so.

I didn't invoke "music theory" in connection with the first movement being repeated at the end. I don't know what you think music theory is, but what it isn't is a set of rules composers have to obey. I have a very clear idea of why Orff makes the repeat. I was just saying that if you don't like it the first time around, the second probably isn't going to change your mind.

[NatBalance]

I've just realised another piece that ends exactly the same as it starts (if you ignore the prelude) and that's Holst's Hymn of Jesus.

[Serial_Apologist]

Blimey - 147 postings on Orff's Carmina Burana!! We are doomed, I tell y'all - DOOMED!!!

[LMcD]

Blimey - 147 postings on Orff's Carmina Burana!! We are doomed, I tell y'all - DOOMED!!!

Don't worry - we may be snookered, but 147 is the maximum.