Carl Lafite

Carl Lafite was born on 31 October 1872 in Vienna (at that time Austria-Hungary, today: Austria). His father was the painter Carl Lafite. The son Carl Lafite showed musical talent and after his schooldays enrolled at the conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien and studied under Anton Bruckner, Johann Nepomuk Fuchs and E. Robert (composition) and Anton Door (organ, piano). He completed his studies in 1898.
After his studies Carl Lafite worked in different musical fields. He made his mark as one of the leading piano accompanists of his time and performed together with Frantisek Ondricek or Vasa Prihoda. Carl Lafite also was organist at the Piarist Church in Vienna from 1898 to 1910 and choir master of the Wiener Singakademie and of the Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien. Since 1906 he lectured music theory at the music school Duesberg and co-founded the Neues Wiener Konservatorium in 1909. In addition Carl Lafite also worked as an executive officer for the Wiener Sängerbund and as general secretary for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde from 1912 to 1938. And finally he also wrote critics for several Viennese and Austrian newspapers.
As a composer Carl Lafite had a strong emphasis on vocal music and composed many songs, music for choirs, stage music and radio plays.
Carl Lafite died on 19 November 1944 in Sankt Wolfgang im Salzkammergut (Austria).

In my possession is the autograph manuscript of the work "Dörpertanzweise (Madrigal)" for voice and viola by Carl Lafite. The text comes from the medieval poetry collection Carmina Burana and is today known under the title "Springen wir den Reigen". According to the manuscript the work was composed in 1930.

I found no information about this specific composition, but there is an interesting observation: In 1929 Carl Lafite composed "Drei mystische Gesänge" for voice and viola on texts from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn". This work was published by Doblinger the same year. A year later Carl Lafite composed this "Dörpertanzweise" with the same instrumentation and an old German text, now from another source. So maybe Carl Lafite wanted to create another set of songs deriving from the Carmina Burana. I have no information if he completed this idea or if the Dörpertanzweise remained the only setting.