Orff

After the premiere of Carmina Burana in 1937 he wrote to his publisher that everything he had written before could be destroyed. That turned out to be roughly true — today he is known for almost nothing else.

The texts come from a thirteenth-century manuscript found in a Bavarian monastery, medieval student poetry mostly about drink, spring and the body. His method is minimal: repeated rhythmic cells, blocks of harmony, almost no development. That is both the force of the piece and its limit. His other lasting contribution is the Orff approach to teaching children, built on percussion and improvisation, and still in use.