Dithyrambi

Carl Orff increasingly turned to classical plots and forms during the progress of his compositional career. In the mid-1950s between the composition of his stage works Trionfo di Afrodite and Oedipus der Tyrann, he also composed a series of choral works focused on themes of antiquity. This includes the hymn Der Sänger der Vorwelt the austere, unnostalgic lamentation Nänie and the orgiastic poem Dithyrambe which Orff combined to form a single work at the beginning of the 1980s.

In his Dithyrambi, Orff goes far beyond the classicism of Friedrich Schiller: while the poet focuses on the sublime and its effect on an inner world, the composer reanimates an archaic moment in time in his compositional style which is evocative of rites and ecstatic chthonic intoxication and simultaneously succeeds in recreating the classical unity of music, song, dance, language and drama. Just as in ancient Dionysian festivals, the vocal ensemble plays a prominent role; the instruments fulfil primarily rhythmic functions above which the choir articulates the text on an independent level, ascending to hymnal spheres.