From: amadeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Question about "Carmina Burana"
Date: 25 Jul 92 03:46:07 GMT
Organization: University of Texas at Austin

John Thayer Jensen writes:
>Kuo-Yeang Tsai writes:
>
>>Why does it (Carmina Burana) sound demoniac? 
>
>>Even without reading the somewhat offensive lyrics, friend asked
>>"Is this Satan-worshipping music?" upon hearing the first few 
>>passages.
>
>Because it was written by Carl Orff at the time when Germany was
>turning Nazi (from the already screwed-up cultural background of the
>Weimar Republic).  Also because the lyricists who wrote the original
>poetry were themselves often deeply involved in what eventually became
>the Renaissance which had lots of gnosticism and return to classical
>(=pagan) roots.
>
>IMHO, and mostly just a guess from the dates involved.  So would
>someone who knows the REAL history like to set me straight?  Or
>confirm my guess? 

Oh dear.  Lots of misconceptions here.  Let's see if we can straighten
them out...

(Pulling out my handy Grout so as not to misspeak myself)

First the specific ones.  _Carmina Burana_ gets its name from the
Bavarian monastery in which the original texts were found, and it
contains some of the oldest preserved specimens of what's called
Goliard songs, or secular music from the 11th, 12th and 13th
centuries.  (The term comes from a patron Bishop Golias, who is
probably apocryphal.)  Goliards were students or travelling clerics
who travelled from one school to another in the days before there were
resident universities.  The texts come from what most young men were
interested in: wine, women and satire.  Some of the lyrics are more,
shall we say, indelicate than others.  Although not a lot of the
musical notation exists, enough is there for people to conjecture, and
there are recorded versions of these.

Orff wrote his _Carmina_ in 1937.  It can either be performed in a
concert setting or as a "scenic cantata" with costumes and scenery.
To get the sound he got, he basically combined the sounds of folk
music with the chanting aspects of early church music, and threw in
the sonorities and rhythmic ideas popular in many works of the era
(Stravinsky ring any bells?).  What all of this has to do with the
Nazi party, I have no idea.

I think the reason people may associate this piece (let's face it;
we're not talking about the whole thing at all, just that very first
movement) with "devil worship" or "demonism" or whatever crap you want
to call it is that it's been used in cheesy witchcraft movies.  They
used it for the trailer to _Warlock_.  They used it in the ridiculous
"witchcraft" scene in _The Doors_ (and believe me, that was not
witchcraft, just crap crap crap).  I don't know if they used it for
the _Omen_ movies or if they just got music that sounded a lot like it
(it's been a long time).  Okay, so they used it for the trailers to
_Hamlet_ and _Excalibur_ as well, but even _Excalibur_ has evil
witches in it.  

Why do they use it for these things?  I think it's the chanting
effect.  Very powerful.  I've always enjoyed it.  That's why the
soundtracks to these two-bit horror movies incorporate every rip-off
to choral pieces like this that they can.

But please.  This is not "devil-worshipping" music.  It is secular.
Meaning not sacred.  And it is not really pagan, for that matter.  (I
hope I don't have to tell anyone that pagan does not mean satanic or
devil-worshipping or demonic or whatever.)  You want demonic, listen
to the original finale to _Don Giovanni_.  But if you don't want to
taint your ears with this evil pagan stuff, then I advise you to stay
far away from _The Rite of Spring_.

Devil-worshipping music.  Sheesh.

-- 
-----Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik-------------------------------*<:-)-------------
"Queens never make bargains."  -- The Red Queen, _Through the Looking Glass_
-----amadeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu--------------The University of Texas @Austin---