1895 - 1963


German composer who brought a neoclassical element to contemporary music because he used many techniques of composition of the 1700's.

Hindemith made an early reputation through his chamber music and expressionist operas. But then he turned to neo-classicism in his Kammermusik no.1, the first of seven such works imitating the Baroque concerto while using an expanded tonal harmony and distinctively modern elements, notably jazz.

Much of his chamber music was written in 1917-24, including four of his six quartets and numerous sonatas. He also found time to compose in other genres; including lieder, music for schoolchildren and amateurs, and opera (Cardillac, a fantasy melodrama in neo-classical forms).

In the 1930s he moved from chamber ensembles to the more public domain of the symphony orchestra. In the opera "Mathis der Maler" he dramatized the dilemma of the artist in society. His music fell under official disapproval, and in 1938 he left for Switzerland, where Mathis had its first performance. He moved on to the USA and taught at Yale (1940-53), but spent his last decade back in Switzerland.

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Orff, Carl

1895 - 1982


German composer of operas, cantatas and musical plays. 'Carmina Burana' - his best known oratorio is based on a medieval poem found in a Bavarian monastery.

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 to return to Munich to further pursue music studies.

While Orff's association, or lack thereof, with the Nazi party has never been conclusively established, his Carmina Burana was hugely popular in Nazi Germany after its premiere in Frankfurt in 1937, receiving numerous performances (although one Nazi critic reviewed it savagely as "degenerate" implying a connection with the exhibit of Entartete Kunst).

Orff was a personal friend of one of the founders of the resistance movement the "White Rose", who was condemned to death by the Volksgerichtshof and executed by the Nazis in 1943. After World War II, Orff claimed that he was a member of the group, and was himself involved in the resistance, but there was no evidence for this other than his own word.

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