Antigonae, called a "quasi-opera" by some, is one of those Carl Orff works frequently criticized for not being Carmina Burana; by the time he got around to composing it in 1949, Orff's language had become extremely spare. Orff set large sections of his opera, based on Friedrich Hölderlin's 1804 German version of Sophocles' ancient Greek play, nearly without music, relying on long stretches of unaccompanied, single-note declamation to carry the drama. Orff's instrumentation, deliberately hidden from the audience, was unusual ...
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Antigonae, called a "quasi-opera" by some, is one of those Carl Orff works frequently criticized for not being Carmina Burana; by the time he got around to composing it in 1949, Orff's language had become extremely spare. Orff set large sections of his opera, based on Friedrich Hölderlin's 1804 German version of Sophocles' ancient Greek play, nearly without music, relying on long stretches of unaccompanied, single-note declamation to carry the drama. Orff's instrumentation, deliberately hidden from the audience, was unusual in the extreme: no strings save a rank of 9 double basses, 6 flutes, 6 oboes, 6 muted trumpets, 4 harps, 6 pianos with 12 players, and a large battery of percussion requiring 10-15 members. Not all of these instruments play at the same time, and indeed, the winds have very little to do until the latter parts of Orff's opera. In Antigonae, Orff sought to evoke the heritage of Greek classical drama -- the original inspiration for opera, at least as it was understood in the late 16th...
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