Following up on a mention by mih of Carl Orff’s crowd-pleasing “Carmina Burana”, the opening poem is the one that’s familiar to most everybody.
Orff was a German who remained in Germany throughout the war. I was thinking I touched upon this difficult subject not very long ago, but it was longer ago than it takes to get a Bachelor’s degree. Slow down, space/time! Slow down!
Herbert Von Karajan’s career didn’t suffer after the war. Perhaps it isn’t surprising I was unable to find a Karajan recording of Orff’s composition.
After a 1941 performance of the popular Carmina Burana, the composer himself said admiringly, ‘the orchestra under Karajan sounds fantastic’.
https://holocaustmusic.ort.org/politics-and-propaganda/third-reich/karajan-herbert-von/
https://holocaustmusic.ort.org/politics-and-propaganda/third-reich/orff-carl/
Separating artists from their art isn’t always easy. Sometimes it isn’t possible, but their work must at least be put into context of time and place. Whether for a musical figure, or a cartoonist like the Belgian Georges Remi, aka Hergé, who was accused of Nazi collaboration.
For decades, Robert Crumb’s uninhibited portrayals of women and Blacks were both celebrated and controversial. Today, Crumb’s name is political poison and, rightly or not, he is seen by many as a toxic misogynist and racist. Space/time continues, freeing some in the process while trapping some others.
