Carl Orff's Orphanage

Started by SurprisedByBeauty, September 17, 2018, 11:36:53 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.


TheGSMoeller

Thanks for the thread, Jens. I found Gisei on Apple Music and listening to it now.


Here are a few Orff discs featuring non-Carmina music that I really enjoy...


Roasted Swan

Quote from: SurprisedByBeauty on September 17, 2018, 11:36:53 AM
Roasted Swan Special!

Year ago - around 1980 - I saw a staging at Stuttgart opera of Die Kluge and the Monteverdi/Orff Ariadne's Lament.  It made for an excellent double bill.  Die Kluge is an oddly fascinating work with lots of Orffian fingerprints (by that I mean things that if you know Carmina Burana you will recognise) but the more you dig into his music the more you realise that Weimar Cabaret/The Comedian Harmonists etc inform his musical world.  Its a fascinating fusion - possibly limited by quite unique.

ritter

#3
I always thought that Der Mond was Orff's greatest success outside of Carmina Burana. I used to listen to the piece often in my teens (the Sawallisch recording).

I've just discovered this on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/hBI_GyzkgtY

This ca. 1965 performance from Munich under Kurt Eichhorn has the quaint charm of the authentic, and one cannot but smile at e.g. the first scene, and the delightful Bavarian-sounding ending. But one cannot get Stravinsky's bon mot about Orff ("neo-Neanderthal") out of one's thoughts either.  ;)

Also, much of Schulwerk is most enjoyable. Orff's simple setting of Matthias Claudius's beautiful poem Abendlied  (for reciter, percussion and...wine glas!) remains a favourite of mine.

But then we get to De temporum fine comoedia.. ??? :o This must be one of the ugliest compositions I have ever encountered. I had the lavish LP edition (under Karajan, from Salzburg) on DG, but found the music intolerable. Here's one if the "highlights":

https://youtu.be/0ANREFIX4y8

SurprisedByBeauty

Gisei is sending me back to some of the above-mentioned recordings (TheGSMoeller: How do you like Welser-Moest in the two works from Trionfi? Do you know the Jochum recordings?

vandermolen

"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

TheGSMoeller

Quote from: SurprisedByBeauty on September 18, 2018, 12:51:14 AM
Gisei is sending me back to some of the above-mentioned recordings (TheGSMoeller: How do you like Welser-Moest in the two works from Trionfi? Do you know the Jochum recordings?

I really like the Welser-Most disc, haven't heard the Jochum, however I do also own this one from Cologne Radio Choir
Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra/Ferdinand Leitner that is listed as "Orff's Original Authorized Recording". It's good but mostly for nostalgic purposes.



ritter

Cross-posted from the opera thread:

Quote from: ritter on October 01, 2021, 12:15:11 PM
A trip down memory lane... :)

Some days  in the (breathtaking) Obersalzberg region in Southeast Bavaria made me want to revisit the Bavarian operas of Carl Orff, particularly Der Mond:



It's not often that I listen to Orff, but Der Mond is a work I really enjoyed in my teens —the Sawallisch recording in EMI/Ángel— , and I really enjoyed it this time around (after a hiatus of several decades, I knew much of the text by heart). The folksy / naïf idiom, but with moments of great sweetness (that very Bavarian music at the end!), is quite beguiling. Herbert Kegel (as usual) leads a very effective performance of this charming piece.

The recording is included in the set depicted below (in an "original covers" format), which also includes Kegel's recording of Die Kluge (a work I remember being less keen on in my youth), and his complete Trionfi (which I didn't really need —already having Jochum conducting them— but the price of the box at Ludwig Beck in Munich was very attractive):



I also bought another Orff work, Die Bernauerin (in what I understand is its only recording), that'll be completely new to me:



Roasted Swan

Quote from: ritter on October 02, 2021, 04:08:36 AM
Cross-posted from the opera thread:

As a music college student we did a kind of cultural exchange thing to Southern Germany around 1980.  One of the things we did was go to the Stuttgart Opera and saw Der Mond as well as Orff's realisation of Ariadne's Lament.  I loved everything about Der Mond - the stylised production, the "Comedian Harmonists"-style writing even I didn't understand a word.  I probably tilt towards Eichhorn rather than Sawallisch but mainly because of Lucia Popp whose voice and twinkling personality comes across so perfectly.

André

Dug a January 2021 entry I made in the WAYL2 thread:

Quote
Quote from: André on January 05, 2021, 04:34:38 PM


2 discs, 150 minutes of Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream), acted/spoken in German, with occasional musical bits. Sounds like time you'll never gain back? Well, I for one thoroughly enjoyed it - past the first 15 minutes of intense doubts  :D. The rythm of the play soon establishes itself, the familiar story is very well acted (even if the words are mostly unintelligible, I never lost the plot's thread) and there is plenty of musical interest, some of it pure delight. Excellent production values. For those unfamiliar with MND, a good synopsis will come in handy. An unexpected pleasure.

ritter

Most interesting, André. Thanks.

I had actually ordered the set today, before reading your post  ;). Orff's MND  appears to be a work that spans most of his creative life, as it was first conceived in 1917, and he kept returning to it until the 1960s. There's also some historical controversy around it... I look forward to listening to it.

André

I look forward to reading your impressions, Rafael ! :)