celestial harmonies
O
rff-Schulwerk
Volume One
MUSICA POETICA
13104-2
Volume Two
MUSIK FÜR KINDER
13105-2
Volume Three
PIANO MUSIC
13106-2
Volume One MUSICA POETICA 13104-2
(Street Song) includes the famous
GASSENHAUER which was used from
Audi TV commercials to Terrence
Malick's movie BADLANDS. The piece
is based on a 16th century composition
for lute by German composer Hans
Neusi(e)dler
the artists
Artistic director and co-producer of the recording,
Wilfried Hiller worked with Carl Orff during his
lifetime, and is the named artistic executor of Orff's
estate. In Volume 2 of the Orff-Schulwerk series,
Hiller continues to produce the Schulwerk in a
manner faithful to Orff's intentions. The CD is
co–produced by Ulrich Kraus.
Godela Orff, the only child of Carl Orff, interprets
three of the spoken pieces on this recording. Better
aquainted with her father's diction than anyone,
Godela Orff performed the spoken roles in the
television series Musik für Kinder. The Madrigalchor
der Hochschule für Musik in München, conducted by
Max Frey, performs choral parts. Other performers on
this recording include violinists Carolin Widmann and
Sonja Korkeala. Markus Zahnhausen plays recorder;
Karl Peinkofer, Wilfried Hiller, Andreas Schumacher
and Martin Ruhland perform parts written for
percussion.
The works on Volume Three, Piano Music, are
performed by Nikolaus Lahusen and Wilfried Hiller.
the music
Pieces included in Orff-Schulwerk Volume 2: Musik
für Kinder are taken from the entire range of
Schulwerk publications. This recording presents a
lifetime project of unending diversity, summarized
in hymn–like choral pieces, masterly magical
spoken works, and instrumental pieces both
playful and melancholy.
Musik für Kinder was released as people around
the world celebrated the centenary of Carl Orff's
birth, observed July 10, 1995. What is it that
makes this composer's music so enduring? More
remarkably, what is it that fills the Schulwerk with
freshness and vitality more than fifty years after
its first publication?
Carl Orff believed in the great power that lies in
reduction to the fundamental. His effort was to
provide music which works together with, rather
than in opposition to, the human spirit. In this way
inherent musical ability can be drawn out of each
and every individual.
Orff himself said, "It was only given to me to
present these old, imperishable ideas in today's
terms, to make them come alive for us. I do not
feel like the creator of something new, but
more...like a relay runner who lights his torch at
the fires of the past and brings it into the present."
These Schulwerk recordings, produced one
hundred years after the composer's birth, may
well be considered the torch which brings Carl
Orff's music into our present.
p.o. box 30122 tucson, arizona 85751
+1 520 326 4400 fax +1 520 326 3333
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