ORFF, Carl
b Munich, 10 July 1895
d Germany, 29 March 1982, aged eighty-seven

He came from a musical family, and as a boy studied piano, organ and cello. His first works, all vocal, were published when he was sixteen, before he had any proper academic training. From 1913 to 1915 he was repétiteur and conductor at the Munich Kammerspiele. A turning point in his life came when he founded in 1924, with Dorothee Gunther, the Gunther Schule of Gymnastic Dancing; he became interested in musical education, and obsessed with primitive and evocative rhythms, and with renaissance music. His appointment as conductor of the Bach Society of Munich led to imaginative staging of Schütz and Bach, and these influences led to Carmina Burana.

1925 (30)

Prelude for orchestra

1927 (32)

Concertino for wind

1928 (33)

Entrata (revised 1940)

1930 (35)

Catulli Carmina, choral setting of poems of Catullus (revised 1943)

1934 (39)

Bayerische Musik

1935-6 (40-1)

Carmina Burana, scenic cantata on Latin texts

1936 (41)

Olympischer Reigen, for chorus and orchestra

1937-8 (42-3)

Der Mond, opera

1941-2 (46-7)

Die Kluge, opera

1944 (49)

Die Bernauerin, opera (1944-5)

1945-6 (50-1)

Astutuli, opera

1947-8 (52-3)

Antigone, opera

1950-1 (55-6)

Trionfo di Afrodite, opera

1955 (60)

Der Sanger der Vorwelt, opera

Comoedia de Christi resurrectione, for chorus and orchestra

1956 (61)

Nanie und Dithyrambe, choral work

1958 (63)

Oedipus, der Tyrann, opera

1960 (65)

Ludus de nato Infante mirificus, opera

1962 (67)

Ein Sommernachtstraum, opera

1969-71 (74-6)

De Temporum fine comoedia, dramatic cantata

1973 (78)

Rota, for chorus and instruments