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Carl Orff (July 10, 1895(1895-07-10) – March 29, 1982) was a 20th-century German composer, most famous for Carmina Burana (1937). He has also become very influential in the field of music education for his pedagogic methods, which survive through Orff Schulwerk.
Orff was born in Munich on 10 July, 1895, and came from a Bavarian family that was very active in the German military. His father's regimental band had supposedly played the compositions of young Orff. Moser's Musik-Lexikon states that Orff studied at the Munich Academy of Music until 1914. He then served in the military during World War I. Afterwards, he held various positions at opera houses in Mannheim and Darmstadt, later returning to Munich to pursue his music studies.
As of 1925, and for the rest of his life, Orff was the head of a department and co-founder of the Guenther School for gymnastics, music, and dance in Munich, where he worked with musical beginners. Having constant contact with children, this is where he developed his theories in music education.
Carl Orff burial location in Andechs Orff's association with the Nazi party has been alleged, but never conclusively established. His Carmina Burana was hugely popular in Nazi Germany after its premiere in Frankfurt in 1937, receiving numerous performances. But the composition with its unfamiliar rhythms was also denounced with racist taunts. He was one of the few German composers under the Nazi regime who responded to the official call to write new music for A Midsummer Night's Dream after the music of Felix Mendelssohn had been banned — others refused to cooperate in this. But Orff had already composed music for this play as early as 1917 and 1927, long before this was a favour for the Nazi government.
Orff was a personal friend of Kurt Huber, one of the founders of the resistance movement Die Weiße Rose (the White Rose), who was condemned to death by the Volksgerichtshof and executed by the Nazis in 1943. Orff by happenstance called at Huber’s house on the day after his arrest. Huber’s distraught wife begged Orff to use his influence to help her husband, but Orff denied her request. If his friendship with Huber came out, he told her, he would be “ruined”. Huber’s wife never saw Orff again. Wracked by guilt, Orff would later write a fictitious letter to his late friend Huber, imploring him for forgiveness.
After World War II, Orff, faced with the possible loss of royalties from Carmina Burina, claimed to a de-nazification officer that he was a member of the White Rose, and was himself involved in the resistance. There was no evidence for this other than his own word, and other sources dispute his claim. Canadian historian Michael H. Kater made in earlier writings a particularly strong case that Orff collaborated with Nazi authorities, but in his most recent publication "Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits" (2000) Kater has taken back his earlier accusations to some extent. Orff's assertion that he had been anti-Nazi during the war was accepted by the American de-nazification authorities, who changed his previous category of "gray unacceptable" to "gray acceptable", enabling him to continue to compose for public presentation.
Orff died at the age of 86 and is buried in the Baroque church of the beer-brewing Benedictine priory of Andechs, south of Munich. His tombstone bears his name, his dates of birth and death, and the Latin inscription "Summus Finis" ("The ultimate goal").

Carl Orff - Carmina Burana

1. Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: O Fortuna
2. Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: Fortune plango vulnera
3. Primo vere: Veris leta facies
4. Primo vere: Omnia sol temperat
5. Primo vere: Ecce gratum
6. Uf dem anger: Tanz
7. Uf dem anger: Floret Silva
8. Uf dem anger: Chramer, gip die varwe mir
9. Uf dem anger: Reie
10. Uf dem anger: Were diu werlt alle min
11. In taberna: Estuans interius
12. In taberna: Olim lacus colueram
13. In taberna: Ego sum abbas
14. In taberna: In taberna quando sumus
15. Cour d'amours: Amor volat undique
16. Cour d'amours: Dies, nox et omnia
17. Cour d'amours: Stetit puella
18. Cour d'amours: Circa mea pectora
19. Cour d'amours: Si puer cum puellula
20. Cour d'amours: Veni, veni, venias
21. Cour d'amours: In trutina
22. Cour d'amours: Tempus est iocundum
23. Cour d'amours: Dulcissime
24. Blanziflor et Helena: Ave formosissima
25. Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: O Fortuna

Credits
Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus, Orquesta Sinfónica de Chicago, James Levine, 1985