Editing Carl Orff (section)

===Personal life===
Carl Orff was very guarded as to his personal life. When asked by the theater scholar {{ill|Carl Niessen|de}} to provide a handwritten entry for a collection of autobiographies of German composers of the day, for which some of his colleagues wrote as many as three pages, he sent only: "Carl Orff[,] born 1895 in Munich[,] living there" ''(Carl Orff[,] geboren 1895 in München[,] lebt daselbst).''<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Niessen |editor-first=Carl |date=1944 |title=Deutsche Oper der Gegenwart |publisher=Gustav Bosse |location=Regensburg |page=183}}</ref>

Orff was married four times and had three divorces. His first marriage was in 1920 to the singer Alice Solscher (1891–1970). Orff's only child, Godela Orff (later Orff-Büchtemann, 1921–2013) was born on 21 February 1921. The couple separated about six months after Godela's birth and were divorced officially in 1927.<ref>{{harvnb|Rösch|2021a|p=13}}. Other sources (e.g., {{harvnb|Dangel-Hofmann|1999}}; {{harvnb|Kater|1995|p=4}}) give 1925 as the date of the divorce, but Orff's {{lang|de|[[Ahnenpass]]}} (a document from the Third Reich proving ancestry, which he filled out early in 1938) gives the dates of marriage as 25 August 1920 and divorce as 9 December 1927 {{harv|Kohler|2015|pp=55, 84}}. No date is given in {{harvnb|Drobnitsch|1989|p=82}}.</ref> Godela remained with her father when her mother moved to [[Melbourne]] to pursue her career around 1930.{{sfn|Orff|1995|pp=10–15}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Marx |first=Karl |editor-last=Leuchtmann |editor-first=Horst |date=1985 |title=Erinnerungen an Carl Orff |journal=Carl Orff: Ein Gedenkbuch |publisher=Hans Schneider |location=Tutzing|pages=93–110, here 99–100}} Note the author incorrectly gives Alice Solscher's family name as Heuser.</ref> In 1939, Orff married [[Gertrud Orff|Gertrud Willert]] (1914–2000), who had been his student{{sfn|Palmer|2008|loc=38:27}} and who founded a method of music therapy using the Orff-Schulwerk; they divorced in 1953.{{sfn|Rösch|2004|p=1401}} By 1952, he began a relationship with author [[Luise Rinser]] (1911–2002), whom he married in 1954. In 1955, they moved from Munich to [[Dießen am Ammersee]].{{sfn|Rösch|2021a|p=42}} Their marriage was troubled and ended in divorce in 1959, by which time Orff was living with the person who would become his next wife.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sánchez de Murillo |first=José |date=2011 |title=Luise Rinser: Ein Leben in Widersprüchen |publisher=S. Fischer Verlag|location=Frankfurt am Main |pages=264–285}} The precise dates for marriage and divorce according to this source are, respectively, 6 March 1954 (p. 267) and 22 December 1959 (p. 284).</ref> Orff's final marriage, which lasted to the end of his life, was with Liselotte Schmitz (1930–2012), who had been his secretary, and who after his death carried on his legacy in her capacity with the Carl-Orff Stiftung.{{sfn|Rösch|2021a|p=43}} They married in [[Andechs]] on 10 May 1960.{{sfn|Drobnitsch|1989|p=82}}

Born to devout [[Roman Catholic]] parents, Orff broke from religious dogma at a young age. His daughter tied his break from the church to the suicide of a classmate, and she reported that he did not have her baptized.{{sfn|Orff |1995 |pp=29 and 126–129}}{{sfn|Gläß|2008|pp=136–137}}{{sfn|Kohler |2015 |pp=38–39, 68, 218–219}} Gertrud Orff said that "he never went to church; to the contrary. It was probably the time of inner rebellion against things like that. ... He was a religious person, yes. But not a person of the church." Nevertheless, he wanted to be buried in the [[Baroque]] church of the beer-brewing [[Benedictine]] priory of [[Andechs Abbey|Andechs]], southwest of Munich; he could see this monastery from his home in [[Dießen]].<ref>{{harvnb|Palmer|2008|loc=42:31}} (English translation from {{harvnb|Kohler|2015|p=38}}). Original language of quotation: "Er ging nie in die Kirche, im Gegenteil. Es war wohl auch die Zeit, der inneren Rebellion gegen so etwas ... Er war ein religiöser Mensch, ja, aber kein kirchlicher Mensch."</ref>

Orff had no desire to follow in his family's military tradition, even as a child. He later wrote: "My father [Heinrich Orff] knew that everything soldierly lay far from me and that I could not warm up to it."{{sfn|Orff|1975–1983|p=15, Vol. 1 (English translation from Kohler 2015, p. 36) |postscript=. Original language: "Mein Vater wußte, daß mir alles Soldatische fern lag und ich mich dafür nicht erwärmen konnte."}} According to Godela Orff, the composer's parents "nevertheless always remained lovingly inclined toward him, even when his way of life did not meet their expectations", and Orff and his sister "were watched over and supported with loving tolerance."{{sfn|Orff|1995|pp=29 and 23, respectively (English translations from Kohler 2015, p. 232) |postscript=. Original language: "blieben ihm trotzdem immer liebevoll zugeneigt, auch wenn seine Lebensweise ihren Vorstellungen nicht entsprach. / ... wurden behütet und mit liebevoller Toleranz gefördert."}} She also wrote that her father's mother, Paula Orff, always fostered her son's creativity and gave him "the gift of inspiration".{{sfn|Orff|1995|p=23 (English translation from Kohler 2015, p. 36); see also ibid., p. 29|postscript=. Original language: "Die Gabe des Inspirierens".}} Orff himself wrote of his mother: "From time immemorial I was a real mother's boy. In life's serious and most difficult situations she understood me deeply with her heart, even if her ideas, strongly set in tradition, stood in the way of it."{{sfn|Orff|1975–1983|p=15, Vol. 1 (English translation from Kohler 2015, p. 37). Original language: "Von eh und je war ich ein rechtes Mutterkind. In schweren und schwierigsten Lebenslagen verstand sie mich zutiefst mit dem Herzen, auch wenn ihre stark in der Tradition befangenen Vorstellungen dem entgegenstanden."}} Paula Orff died on 22 July 1960,{{sfn|Drobnitsch|1989|p=82}} after which Orff's colleague [[Karl Amadeus Hartmann]] wrote to him: "I know how intimately bonded you were with your mother, similar to me with mine, and can therefore especially sympathize with the entire gravity of the loss."{{sfn|Haas|2004|p=247|postscript=, quoting letter from 1960, without exact date (English translation from {{harvnb|Kohler|2015|pp=37, 308}}). Original language: "Ich weiss, wie innig Sie mit Ihrer Mutter verbunden waren, ähnlich wie ich mit meiner und kann daher die ganze Schwere des Verlustes besonders mitempfinden."}}

Godela Orff described her relationship with her father as having been difficult at times.{{sfn|Orff|1995|pp=57 and 65–68}} "He had his life and that was that", she tells [[Tony Palmer (director)|Tony Palmer]] in the documentary ''O&nbsp;Fortuna''.<ref>{{harvnb|Palmer|2008|loc=1:01:05}} (see also statements from Godela Orff beginning at 34:36, 1:06:17, and 1:10:24)</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Kettle |first=Martin |date=2 January 2009 |title=Secret of the White Rose |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/jan/02/classical-music-film-carmina-burana |work=[[The Guardian]] |location=London |access-date=13 February 2019}}</ref> Their relationship became especially strained in the late 1940s; they reconciled around the early 1970s.{{sfn|Orff|1995|pp=85–88, 126, and 142–145}}{{sfn|Rösch|2015|p=298}}