3. ‘Schulwerk’.

The birth of the Güntherschule must be viewed against the historical backdrop of the Neue Tanzbewegung of the first few decades of the 20th century. This anti-academic movement was personified in Germany by Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman, both exponents of the so-called ‘Ausdruckstanz’, or expressive dance. In Über das Geistige in der Kunst (1912), Wassily Kandinsky had already written that future dance forms would arise whose expression would rely on the internalization of movement. Indeed, the very notion of the elementare (elemental), as applied by Orff to music and to verbal and bodily expression, evokes the kind of dissection of the figurative universe into its primary elements that Kandinsky had already theorized. Orff and Dorothee Günther intended to obviate the absence of adequate elemental music in the dance schools of, among others, Dalcroze and Bode by searching for a music that ‘begins in movement’. Of decisive importance was the work of Maja Lex at the Güntherschule from 1925 onwards. She managed to devise an elemental dance style that was free from the influence of Wigman’s expressionism. Starting in 1930, Maja Lex guided the dance group of the Güntherschule to national and international success. Only after 1948, as the Schulwerk spread through broadcasts by Bavarian Radio, was full attention also paid to the relationship between sound and word, whereby rhythm remained the fundamental kinetic element behind the improvisation process. The first volume of Musik für Kinder (1950–54, 5 vols.) takes as its starting point the simplest possible poetic material, such as children’s rhymes and singing games, all rich in mimetic and gestural elements. The 20 editions of the Schulwerk, issued from the 1950s onwards, include editions in many different languages, including African languages and Japanese, each of which draws for inspiration on the musical and literary cultural heritage of the culture in question.

In creating a body of suitable instruments, especially percussion and recorders, a vital role was played by Gunild Keetman (1904–90), Orff’s alter ego where his experimentation with new teaching methods was concerned. The highly differentiated and novel use of percussion instruments – true of course for all of Orff’s work – must be considered within the historical perspective of their emancipation during the 20th century. Also noteworthy in this respect was the contribution made by two instrument makers: Karl Maendler before World War II, and after 1945, Klaus Becker, the founder of Studio 49. It was in 1949 that the Schulwerk arrived at the Mozarteum, where, in 1961, the Orff-Institut was inaugurated. From the 1950s onwards the approach began to spread around the world.

Improvisation techniques represent the essence of all experimentation; they were the pivotal idea of the Schulwerk during the very early years, and before the introduction of the now obselete ideological constructs with which theoreticians in the 1930s sought to underpin the activities of the Güntherschule. Alien to all rigid methodology, the Schulwerk aims to support creativity in the child. This is effected by the assimilation, always on the basis of elemental, easily grasped structures, of the traditional musical forms that have arisen throughout history. Theoretical debate over the last few decades has pointed up the difficulties of arriving at a satisfactory definition of the elemental, while simultaneously demonstrating the term’s precarious and ephemeral philosophical quality. The concept of the elemental preserves a certain utility if one recognizes the historical origin of the models and the cultural preconditions of ‘elementare Musik’, irrespective of the traditions to which it refers. It is necessary to identify in the elemental structures not an original essence, but rather the expression of a ‘second-order naturalness’, one filtered by historical experience. Indeed, as Orff and Keetman worked on the progressive enlargement of the melodic range of the models and the internal ordering of the five volumes of Musik für Kinder, which cover all the major modes (books 2 and 3) and all minor ones (books 4 and 5) in the sequence Bordun–Stufen–Dominanten, he studiously avoided an evolutionary portrayal of the history of music.

The efficacy of the concept of elemental music presupposes a dimension of craftsmanship which has aesthetic autonomy and requires no simplification of complex artistic means of expression. Nonetheless, at the time the first edition appeared the models used in the Schulwerk were already being misunderstood as musical ‘texts’ rather than cues for improvisation. The difficulty of applying in a creative manner the methodological suggestions of Orff and his colleagues has not prevented the Schulwerk from demonstrating its incredible vitality and powers of regeneration within ever-changing social and cultural environments, a vigour that is also confirmed by the application of this approach with handicapped children and in the field of music therapy.

Orff, Carl