Quartet Movement Op.22

Orff is best known for his staged cantata Carmina Burana, which was
hugely popular in Nazi Germany. He also developed a highly innovative approach
to music education for children, known as the Orff
Schulwerk, which combined movement, singing, playing and improvisation.

The Quartet
Movement is a student work and was comparatively recently discovered and only
received its premiere in 1989. It opens with a dream-like, sinuous melody,
muted in the French manner. The energetic, bordering on aggressive second
subject is in complete contrast and throughout the movement it keeps
interrupting the increasingly passionate reverie of the opening idea. In the
coda the original, unvaried melody returns before being cut off for the last
time.