Carl Orff is among the most misunderstood and thereby underestimated composers of the last century – which is odd when you consider that one work, Carmina Burana, is among the most popular pieces of music ever written. There is at least one performance of it somewhere in the world every single day of the year, and that has been going on for the last 30 years. And with over 300 different recordings extant in the catalogue today, it easily outranks even Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

So, why misunderstood? Was he really a member of the Nazi Party as is often assumed? No, but there is little doubt that in 1943/4 he was positioning himself to take over as Reichsminister for Music come the Final Victory. He was a close friend of the Gauleiter for Vienna, and previously of Hitler Youth, Baldur von Schirach, later a convicted War Criminal. And when all the other major composers of the Third Reich, including Richard Strauss, had refused...