Richard Morrison [Times Online, 19 December 2008]

The opening line of Carmina Burana - “O Fortuna!” - could hardly be more apt. Few composers felt themselves more at the mercy of capricious gods and twists of fate than its composer, Carl Orff. He was never a diehard Nazi; indeed, he looked with disdain on their oafish cultural values. Far from espousing the hounding of “inferior races”, he was fascinated by jazz and by what today we would call world music. Yet he rose to become one of the Third Reich’s top musicians.