Carl Heinrich Maria Orff was a German composer and music educator associated with late Romanticism and Expressionism. He was born in Munich on 10 July 1895 and died there on 29 March 1982. He is best known for works for musical theater, especially the scenic cantata Carmina Burana.
Orff’s mother, an amateur pianist, recognized his musical talent early and taught him. By the age of nine, he was writing music for his own puppet theater. He studied at the Munich Academy of Music from 1912 to 1914 and continued his studies with Hermann Zilcher. He worked as music director at the Munich Chamber Theater in 1916, at the Mannheim National Theater in 1918, and later at the Court Theater in Darmstadt.
In 1924, Orff and Dorothee Günther founded the Günther School of gymnastics, music, and dance in Munich. He led its music department from 1925 until the end of his life and developed ideas about music education through his work with children. In collaboration with Gunild Keetman, he developed an innovative approach to teaching music to children, known as Orff-Schulwerk.
Carmina Burana, whose title means “Songs of Beuern,” became his best-known work. It is the first part of a trilogy that also includes Catulli Carmina. Its success overshadowed much of Orff’s earlier work, although Catulli Carmina and Entrata also remained notable. He revised his music for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, presenting its final version in 1964. A melody from his teaching collection Musica poetica was later used as the main musical theme of Terrence Malick’s film Badlands (1973).
Orff was buried at Andechs Abbey, southwest of Munich.