Christine Lucia

After listening to the strangely familiar yet unfamiliar language of the music, my colleague commented, 'it's postmodern'. It seemed to have arrived at a state of postmodernism without having been through European modernism, eschewing reference to art music of the early twentieth century (Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartók) and ignoring serial or post-serial techniques. What it lacked most conspicuously, however, made it what it was. It rearranged the codes and conventions from an earlier tonal era but projected them onto a flatter surface. Hence it sounded, to a colleague schooled in contemporary art but not music theory or composition, postmodern. The codes this piece did employ belong to a substantial history and repertoire of written black South African choral music, but one transmitted half-orally because scores are scarce and choirs taught mainly by rote (see Lucia, 2005: xxvi). This is a tradition going back more than 125 years, with John Knox Bokwe (1855-1922) usually seen as colonial founding father

Abstract: Abdullah Ibrahim was born Adolph Johannes Brand on 9 October 1934 in Kensington, Cape Town. Ibrahim's mother, Rachel, was from a coloured family; his father, Sentso, was Sotho. His grandparents gave him their surname so he could be classified as ...

... Changes occurred in Ibrahim's style from the late sixties to late seventies, and without wishing to draw a simplistic parallel between "life" and "works", there is clearly a connection between these changes and his unset-tled life at that ... Thus, as recently as 2001, Maya Jaggi wrote: ...

When we celebrate the 70th birthday of a key figure in South African music such as Abdullah Ibrahim (born 9 October 1934 in Kensington, Cape Town), we are effectively remembering 70 years of South African history. Ibrahim's life and music is embedded in the culture of the country, inscribed on millions of lives and memories; and he can only be remembered in conjunction with other aspects of a collective South African past. This cannot deter, however, from the singular and monumental achievements of Ibrahim as an individual.

Abstract: Composer Kevin Volans turns 60 on 26 July 2009. His profile overseas is unparalleled by that of any other South African-born composer, and here are a few reasons why. Volans has produced over 100 commissioned, published, performed works; his artistic collaborations ...

English Abstract:This article explains a research project undertaken between 2014 and 2019 in order to locate music scores and other documents relating to a neglected black South African composer, Michael Mosoeu Moerane (1904–1980). Questioning why no record of him existed in the museum in his hometown, Queenstown, when other musicians were well represented there, it explores the problems and issues associated with the occlusion of African choral music as a genre and a historic practice. It reveals how choral practices, the field in which its composers have worked, and South Africa’s racialised past, and misinformation about Moerane have all contributed to almost erase physical traces of his music. The article argues for suspicion about the ‘work concept’ to be suspended in order for Moerane and composers like him to make it into the larger museum of southern African cultural and musical history.French Abstract:Cet article décrit un projet de recherche entrepris entre 2014 et 2019 qui vise à localiser des partitions musicales et d’autres documents relatifs à un compositeur sud-africain noir négligé jusqu’ici, Michael Mosoeu Moerane (1904–1980). En se questionnant sur les raisons qui font qu’aucune trace de son existence n’apparaissait dans le musée de sa ville natale, Queenstown, alors que d’autres musiciens y étaient bien représentés, il explore les problèmes et les enjeux liés à l’occultation de la musique chorale africaine en tant que genre et pratique historique. Il révèle comment les pratiques chorales, domaine dans lequel ses compositeurs ont travaillé, le passé racial de l’Afrique du Sud et la désinformation au sujet de Moerane ont contribué à effacer presque toutes les traces physiques de sa musique. L’article plaide en faveur de la levée des soupçons sur le “concept d’oeuvre” pour que Moerane ainsi que les compositeurs comme lui puissent entrer dans le grand musée de l’histoire culturelle et musicale de l’Afrique australe.German Abstract:Dieser Artikel erläutert ein Forschungsprojekt aus den Jahren 2014 bis 2019 zur Lokalisierung von Musiknoten und anderen Materialien aus dem Umfeld von Michael Mosoeu Moerane (1904–1980), eines von der Öffentlichkeit vernachlässigten schwarzen Komponisten aus Südafrika. Der Aufsatz befasst sich mit der mangelnden Sichtbarkeit der afrikanischen Chormusik als Gattung und in ihrer historischen Rolle. Dabei geht er von der Frage aus, warum sich im Museum von Moeranes Heimat-stadt Queenstown keine Dokumente zu ihm finden lassen, obwohl dort andere Musiker gut im Bestand repräsentiert sind. Der Beitrag enthüllt, wie die Chorpraxis, das Feld, auf dem ihre Komponisten gearbeitet haben sowie die rassistische Vergangenheit Südafrikas und Fehlinforma-tionen über Moerane dazu beigetragen haben, die physischen Spuren seiner Musik beinahe auszulöschen. Die Autorin spricht sich dafür aus, das Misstrauen gegenüber dem “Werkkonzept” aufzugeben, damit Moerane und andere ähnliche Komponisten in das große Museum der südafrikanischen Kultur-und Musikgeschichte aufgenommen werden können.

Abstract The symphonic poem Fatše La Heso (My Country) was composed in 1941 by Michael Mosoeu Moerane (1904–1980) as a requirement for completing a BMus degree curriculum through Rhodes University College, which in those days was a satellite campus of the University of South Africa (Unisa). This article argues that both the writing of this work and its subsequent reception history have been adversely affected by various factors, beginning with the fact that Moerane was the first black South African orchestral composer and there have been almost no others since. This was Moerane's only work for full orchestra and he is better known as a composer of choral music in tonic solfa notation, but for historical reasons, the fields of African choral and European orchestral composition have not coincided. The work reflects Moerane's Pan- African sympathies and is avowedly nationalistic. Information about the work and about Moerane has always been scant; and finally, Moerane tried in vain to get the work published. He reacted suspiciously when Percival Kirby—with whom he had previously corresponded about the work—began to ask him personal questions in 1966, saying, “The times do not permit.” In this article, the genesis of Fatše La Heso is explained, its structure and relations to African themes are described, and its reception history is explored, in order to promote a better and fairer understanding of this work's personal, historical, political, and cultural significance.

In 1937, the Se(Sotho) composer, Mohapeloa published ‘Coronation Song’ a short a cappella choral work that celebrates the coronation of King George VI and which is ostensibly rooted in his colonial experience of the British Protectorate of Basutoland. It was reprinted in Morija in 1939 as ‘Coronation March’, by which time it was clear that this song’s political message was at odds with his other songs. Reprinted in 1945, 55, 66, and 80 with minor changes, the song becomes increasingly anachronistic. Mohapeloa suddenly rewrote it in the mid 1970s, 10 years after Lesotho gained independence, by transforming it into a patriotic song, ‘Lesotho Our Heritage’ (‘Lesotho Lefa la Rōna’). This article traces the song’s journey through decades of political change by means of a close hermeneutic reading of its text, musical language and structure, arguing that the music had always identified with two political tendencies, the one European and colonizing, the other American and decolonizing. It was this ambiguity that kept Mohapeloa’s interest and led to his last version of the song, finally published only in 2015.

This article is based on a report on composition and performance as research equivalence commissioned by the National Research Foundation in 2005. It shows some aspects of equivalence in process and outcomes but chiefly it interrogates composition and performance as 'fields' in South African Higher Education, using Pierre Bourdieu's notion of a limited field to map the size, scope, and nature of these fields. The conclusion it draws is that composition is an extremely small field that struggles to relate to the larger field of composition nationally and internationally and has little critical support. Performance on the other hand is relatively successful as a field in the academy, drawing on a much longer history of reception that has not had to adapt to socio-political changes since 1994, to the same extent as composition.

History shows us that almost all great musicians were born and raised in permanent contact with music within the confines of their own family. Simha Arom’s childhood experience was that of accompanying his father, an amateur cantor, in the singing of Jewish liturgical chants, and this influenced his entire musical career. In particular, it aroused his curiosity about music that does not have any explicit theory, like the music found in African traditions. As he explains in the documentary Simha (2015),1 he and his brother used to sing the drone while their father sang the melody and through gentle nudges indicated when they had to change pitch. This is how they learnt, empirically, as is the case with the traditions just mentioned. After the ‘Kristallnacht’ pogrom in November 1938, Arom was forced to flee across Europe, a journey that profoundly affected his musical development. While crossing the Pyrenees into Spain on foot in 1944 en route to Palestine – then still under British mandate – he met a violinist called ‘Henry Violin’. It was so ‘miraculous’ listening to him play that it made Simha want to become a musician himself. Initially he was placed in a children’s village in Palestine, but soon managed to transfer to another such village, where he could study the violin. To do so, however, he first had to stage a ‘mild’ hunger strike and then had to work as a mason so that he had enough money to hire a violin in Tel Aviv and continue his studies. He was wounded in the right arm during military service in Israel’s War of Independence (1948), which put paid to his career as a violinist. But not his career as a musician, for he decided to change to the French horn, for which one mainly really needs the left hand... As Arom rather jokingly put it, this gave him more opportunities in Israel, where violinists were ten a penny but horn players rare. He began studying in Jerusalem, later pursuing his studies at the French National Conservatoire in Paris where

When we celebrate the 70th birthday of a key figure in South African music such as Abdullah Ibrahim (born 9 October 1934 in Kensington, Cape Town), we are effectively remembering 70 years of South African history. Ibrahim's life and music is embedded in the culture of the country, inscribed on millions of lives and memories; and he can only be remembered in conjunction with other aspects of a collective South African past. This cannot deter, however, from the singular and monumental achievements of Ibrahim as an individual.

History shows us that almost all great musicians were born and raised in permanent contact with music within the confines of their own family. Simha Arom’s childhood experience was that of accompanying his father, an amateur cantor, in the singing of Jewish liturgical chants, and this influenced his entire musical career. In particular, it aroused his curiosity about music that does not have any explicit theory, like the music found in African traditions. As he explains in the documentary Simha (2015),1 he and his brother used to sing the drone while their father sang the melody and through gentle nudges indicated when they had to change pitch. This is how they learnt, empirically, as is the case with the traditions just mentioned. After the ‘Kristallnacht’ pogrom in November 1938, Arom was forced to flee across Europe, a journey that profoundly affected his musical development. While crossing the Pyrenees into Spain on foot in 1944 en route to Palestine – then still under British mandate – he met a violinist called ‘Henry Violin’. It was so ‘miraculous’ listening to him play that it made Simha want to become a musician himself. Initially he was placed in a children’s village in Palestine, but soon managed to transfer to another such village, where he could study the violin. To do so, however, he first had to stage a ‘mild’ hunger strike and then had to work as a mason so that he had enough money to hire a violin in Tel Aviv and continue his studies. He was wounded in the right arm during military service in Israel’s War of Independence (1948), which put paid to his career as a violinist. But not his career as a musician, for he decided to change to the French horn, for which one mainly really needs the left hand... As Arom rather jokingly put it, this gave him more opportunities in Israel, where violinists were ten a penny but horn players rare. He began studying in Jerusalem, later pursuing his studies at the French National Conservatoire in Paris where

English Abstract:This article explains a research project undertaken between 2014 and 2019 in order to locate music scores and other documents relating to a neglected black South African composer, Michael Mosoeu Moerane (1904–1980). Questioning why no record of him existed in the museum in his hometown, Queenstown, when other musicians were well represented there, it explores the problems and issues associated with the occlusion of African choral music as a genre and a historic practice. It reveals how choral practices, the field in which its composers have worked, and South Africa’s racialised past, and misinformation about Moerane have all contributed to almost erase physical traces of his music. The article argues for suspicion about the ‘work concept’ to be suspended in order for Moerane and composers like him to make it into the larger museum of southern African cultural and musical history.French Abstract:Cet article décrit un projet de recherche entrepris entre 2014 et 2019 q...

One cannot but admire the effort of this pioneering addition to the literature on African music education. It is a triple bill (book, CD, video). The CD and video do not, however, 'go with' the book in the sense of paralleling or illustrating it systematically; they merely record a live performance of a multicultural concert at the University of Cape Town in April 2002, a concert that must have constituted a significant parallel event for many of those involved in the making of the book. To the extent that some of the a/v material complements music mentioned in parts of the book it might be useful, but most interesting for me is the way it records a particular perception of multiculturalism and a conglomeration of musicians in the Cape, at a single moment in history. Such a record should not be underestimated as a document, although it cannot really serve as an introduction to African musical arts, nor does it indicate in any way the richness of the book or form a holistic t...

Bernard Girard's book, Conversations avec Tom Johnson was published in French by Éditions Aedam Musicae in 2011 and is here translated into English for the first time by Christine Lucia. The original book comprised 137 pages of wide-ranging conversations held at various times, covering Johnson's music and career in some detail and organised into categories such as ‘The Man Who Counts', ‘Minimalisms', ‘Mathematics and Music', and ‘Opera'. The book also included two short essays on Johnson by musicologist Gilbert Delor and mathematician Franck Jedrzejewski, a brief Worklist and an Index that lists the more than 150 composers, performers, mathematicians and other key figures in Johnson's life discussed in the text. The translated text includes all but the Worklist and Index. The conversations range across six decades of new music and give unique insights into the development of musical minimalism, to which Johnson contributed as a critic in his early career ...