South African Orchestral Music: Five Exponents Author(s): Veronica Mary Franke Source: Acta Musicologica, [Vol.] 84, [Fasc.] 1 (2012), pp. 87-125 Published by: International Musicological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23343910 Accessed: 22-06-2017 13:27 UTC

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This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms South African Orchestral Music: Five Exponents*

Veronica Mary Franke University of KwaZulu Natal

(Critical literature devoted exclusively to the development of orchestral music in is relatively sparse. No book chapters or books in their entirety are dedicated to a study of South African orchestral music; fur thermore, over the past twenty-five years, only a handful of published articles has appeared, predominantly in the South African Journal ofMusicology} In order to fill

* This article is an expanded version of a paper read at the joint RMA and SMI Meeting held in Dublin, July 2009. My thanks go to the National Research Foundation in South Africa for their generous support. Some expressions used throughout the paper are in need of clarification. First, the term orchestral composition refers to works using European-style conventional arrangements of large instrumental ensembles effectively organized into standard groups (woodwind, brass, strings, and percussion), and does not include vocal or choral compositions with instrumental accompaniment. Second, South African, indigenous, and home-grown are synonymous and refer to any , whether of black or of European descent, raised and educated in South Africa. 1 Studies on South African art music include Jan Bouws, Musiek in Suid-Afrika (Brugge: Voorland, 1946); Bouws, Suid-Afrikaanse Komponiste van Vandag en Gister (: Balkema, 1957); Eric Rosenthal, 125 Years of Music in South Africa: Darter's Jubilee (Cape Town: Darter, 1969); South African Department of Information, ed., Performing Arts in South Africa (: Department of Information, 1969); Jacques P. Malan, ed., South African Music Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1979-86); Bouws, Solank Daar Musiek is... : Musiek en Musiekmakers in Suid-Afrika, 1652-1982 (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1982); and , ed., in South Africa Today (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1987). Three recent publications (Christine Lucia, ed., The World of South African Music: A Reader [Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Schol ars, 2005]; Stephanus Muller and Chris Walton, eds., A Composer in Africa: Essays on the Life and Work of Stefans Grové [Stellenbosch: Sun Press, 2006]; and Grant Olwage, ed., Composing Apartheid: Music for and against Apartheid [: Wits University Press, 2008]), while excellent resources, and indispensable to scholars, contain a paucity of detailed analyses on South African art-music genres. For example in Composing Apartheid, only one chapter deals directly with art music—chapter 13, "Arnold's van Wyk's Hands," by Stephanus Muller. The remaining chapters pertain primarily to South African jazz, and traditional and popular music. Over the past twenty-five years, diverse analyses of individual compositions have appeared in the South African Journal ofMusicology and Musicus. Articles dedicated specifically to the study of orches tral music include Mary Rörich, "Tonal Procedures in Graham Newcater's Third Symphony," South African Journal of [= SAMUS] 7 (1987): 17-34; James May, "Arnold van Wyk's Two Symphonies: An Introduction," Musicus 19, no. 2 (1991): 102-8; Christopher James, "An Exam ination of Compositional Methods in Stefans Grové's Concertato Overture 'Five Salutations': An Orchestral Study on Two Zulu Themes," SAMUS 12 (1992): 107-22; Bertha Spies, "Peter Klatzow's Hamlet: A Drama in Music and Movement," SAMUS 24 (2004): 65-84; Hannes Taljaard, "Inter preting Tonality in Three Compositions for Orchestra," SAMUS 24 (2004): 29-64; Michael Blake,

This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 88 Veronica Mary Franke the void, the present essay traces the origins of South African orchestral music and moves through its various stages of development culminating in current composi tional techniques. In so doing it offers a critical appreciation of the contributions of five South African composers, namely Arnold van Wyk, Stefans Grové, Roelof Temmingh, Peter Klatzow and Hendrik Hofmeyr, all of whom have been prolific, pivotal protagonists in the sphere of orchestral music, making incalculable contri butions to this repertory. Van Wyk, one of the pioneers of an art-music tradition in South Africa, was the first South African to gain international recognition as a composer. Grové, Temmingh, Klatzow and Hofmeyr have amassed œuvres whose scope and variety are impressive, and have won prestigious composition prizes that attest to their audacious and inexorable search for new musical horizons. The over whelming majority of orchestral compositions of all five composers has been com missioned by both local and international organizations, with many works having notable international performances. Analytical descriptions of orchestral compositions of the selected exponents identify characteristic features, comment on compositional language, methods and style, and point to the resonance of these musical ideas and formulations within the context of art-music traditions spanning three generations of South African composers. In particular, I establish that tonality, conventional formal processes, thematic elaboration, and contrapuntal writing remain compelling aspects of the musical grammar of South Africa's orchestral music repertory.21 take into consid eration the synthesis of Western art forms with indigenous or exotic musics. This aspect, however, does not constitute the primary focus. While South African orches tral music reflects a diverse array of influences—derived from , Dutch, in digenous African, Malay and other sources, including jazz idioms—it remains firmly anchored in European musical traditions. At this stage, it is necessary to establish some points of understanding concerning the origins of South African orchestral music.

"The Present-Day Composer Refuses to Budge: Case Studies in New South African Orchestral Music," SAMUS 25 (2005): 127-43; Winfried Lüdemann, "Arnold van Wyk's Primavera: Music of Another South Africa," SAMUS 26/27 (2007): 87-107; and Stephanus Müller, "'n Blik op die Resep siegeskiedenis van Hendrik Hofmeyr se Sinfonia Africana," Musicus 37, no. 1 (2009): 19-23. A few postgraduate theses deal with individual South African composers and their œuvres, and may in clude a chapter on orchestral composition, such as Thomas Pooley, "Composition in Crisis: Case Studies in South African Art Music 1980-2006," (master's thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 2008), Chapter Three, "Expediency in the Field: Peter Klatzow's Orchestral Music," 59-85. 2 Tonality is used in the broadest sense, referring to orderly collections of pitch phenomena and relations between them.

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Origins

The roots of orchestral music in South Africa may be traced to the visiting theatri cal troupes and concert artists that frequented the Cape at the dawn of the nine teenth century. Whilst it remained a Batavian Republic (1803-6), only French tour ing companies visited, on their way to or from Mauritius, and this trend continued during the first fifty years of British rule, so that few British artists performed in the Cape.3 The discovery of gold and diamonds in 1884 catalysed a dramatic change of events, and the last two decades of the nineteenth century witnessed a relent less stream of entertainers, opera troupes, musicians and dancers disembarking at ports such as Cape Town, Durban, and Port Elizabeth, which provided access to the interior cities of Kimberly and Johannesburg.4 The vast majority came from Britain; a few others were from Holland, Germany, France and Italy. The sizeable influx of skilled European and British musicians had considerable impact on mu sical life. At first any structure comprising four walls and a roof might function as a venue. As larger communities became centres, and as the economy and trans portation network grew, purpose-built theatres and halls became available, and or ganized musical activity more widespread. At these functions, Jacques P. Malan observes, "smart clothing, boxes, bars, foyers, gas lighting or electricity and social conventions combined to create a sense of cultured well-being."5 Amateur and pro fessional musicians flourished under the umbrella of various cultural associations, including performing organizations devoted to instrumental, choral, dramatic, and operatic music. In particular, the musical life of Johannesburg in its formative stage (1886-1914) revealed lively, bustling orchestral and theatrical interests.6 Smaller orchestral ensembles, such as the Wanderers' Orchestra and the Military Band in Johannesburg, were also popular but consisted mainly of amateurs and played pre dominantly lighter classics, seldom attempting ambitious programs.7 The unprece dented amount of musical activity set the stage for higher levels of musical pursuits. It was the founding of the first full-fledged, resident orchestra in the country, the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra, that signaled the beginning of orchestral music in South Africa as a continuous, professional, and literate tradition. The orchestra gave its inaugural concert on 28 February 1914 in the Cape Town City Hall.8 Ob servers proposed that the orchestra "fulfill both the functions of a beach orchestra à la , and of a symphony orchestra on the model of its London coun

3 See Jacques P. Malan, "Touring Theatre Companies and Concert Artists, 1800-1914," in South African Music Encyclopedia, 4:348-75. 4 Ibid., 348. 5 Ibid., 349. 6 See Malan, "Music in Johannesburg," in South African Music Encyclopedia, 3:10-46. 7 Ibid., 13. 8 See Malan, "The Cape Town Municipal Orchestra," in South African Music Encyclopedia, 1:251. In 1968 the orchestra was renamed the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. It was privatised in 1996, and in 1997 it joined forces with the Cape Performing Arts Board Orchestra and became known as the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra.

This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 90 Veronica Mary Franke terparts."9 These obligations were augmented by outreach programmes in schools, developed to cultivate creative musical education, and by promenade concerts ac companying lecture recitals.10 Soon thereafter, other orchestras were established, including the South African Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra, originally known as the Cape Town Studio Orchestra (1927), and the Johannesburg Symphony Or chestra (1934).11 The chief factors in the general ferment of development that led South Africa be yond passive receptivity to the production of European-style art music included the proliferation of emigrant musicians, the widespread escalation of an aesthetic con sciousness, the emergence of a sound-recording industry in the early 1930s, with Gallo (Africa) Limited establishing its own South African factory, the formation of establishments to manufacture musical instruments, and the materialization of mu sic publishing houses, such as Darter & Sons, established in Cape Town in 1850 with branches later opened in Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown, Uitenhage and Stel lenbosch.12 The institutional means for nurturing, promoting and supporting that productivity were established in the early twentieth century with the creation of en hanced facilities for music education, such as the South African Conservatorium of Music (1905), which is the oldest institution for advanced musical education in the country and was later incorporated into the University of Stellenbosch, the South African College of Music (1910), subsequently absorbed into the as a Faculty of Music, and the University College of Johannesburg (1921). The individual perhaps most instrumental in mentoring and defining a role for the first generation of indigenous professional South African composers, in whom he incul cated a desire for excellence and for the discipline that their profession demanded, was William Henry Bell, a prolific English composer, who resigned from his posi tion as professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Royal Academy of Music in London to become the first appointed Director of the South African College of Mu sic in Cape Town, and who determined the College's destiny over two decades.13 The College remains today one of the most important educational institutions for music in South Africa.

9 Ibid. See also Eric Rosenthal, 50 Years of the Cape Town Orchestra (Cape Town: Galvin, 1964). Newspaper articles which discuss the early history of the orchestra include: "Musical Progress of Cape Town," Cape Argus, 25 February 1939; "How the Orchestra was Born," Cape Argus, 13 June 1946; and "Beginjare van Stadsorkes," Die Burger, 25 February 1960. 10 Malan, "The Cape Town Municipal Orchestra," 251. 11 See Walter Swanson, "Cape Town Studio Orchestra," 1:254, and "Music in Johannesburg," 3:26 in South African Music Encyclopedia. 12 For a discussion of this publishing house, see Malan, "Darter," in South African Music Encyclopedia, 1:312-13. 13 For a detailed description of Bell's life and works see Hubert van der Spuy, "Bell: William Henry," in South African Music Encyclopedia, 1:152-60; Hubert du Plessis, ed., Letters from William Henry Bell, (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1973); and Robert Barnett, "Bell, W(illiam) H(enry)," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 2001), 3:183-84.

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When Bell retired in 1935, the South African College of Music was a compre hensive music school equipped with the multifaceted infrastructure necessary for the performing arts. Bell was succeeded by Stewart Deas, who had studied with Donald Tovey and Felix Weingartner, by Eric Grant, a former piano teacher at the Royal Academy of Music, and by Eric Chisholm, another pupil of Donald Tovey. Chisholm, an eminent and fluent composer who had been prominent in Scotland, Canada and East Asia, fuelled an interest in the cultivation and support of opera and ballet.14 It was the two foreign composers, Bell and Chisholm, who laid the foundations for the inception of South African orchestral music. Table 1 at the conclusion of this paper lists the best-known representatives of the three generations of home-grown South African composers. Various factors define boundaries of generations, including year of birth and mentors. All the com posers in the first generation were born prior to 1940 and were taught or guided by Chisholm and Bell. Composers from the second generation were born prior to 1953 and are the "products" of the first generation of composers. Composers in the third generation were born between 1953 and 1980, and have as their mentors either "older" first- or second-generation teachers. A fourth generation of younger fig ures is emerging, such as Adrian More and Andile Khumalo, and they are currently pursuing their studies in composition. Composers such as Friedrich Hartmann (b. 1900, Austria), Thomas Rajna (b. 1928, Hungary), Allan Stephenson (b. 1950, ), and Jürgen Bräuninger (b. 1956, Germany) have not been included in the table. Whilst their careers have unfolded in South Africa, they were born, raised and educated abroad. In considering the development and status of the orchestral music of South African composers, severed factors invite comment. First, composition during the first decades of the twentieth century, more so than any other musical activity, was largely concentrated in the Western Cape, owing to the early establishment of dynamic music departments at the universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch. Second, most composers extended their studies overseas and achieved favourable reception of their works abroad—often regarded as a desirable accreditation of their efforts. Notwithstanding the fact that most South African orchestral works have been commissioned, many of them remain in manuscript; others, although published, are not readily obtainable even in libraries, and they have not achieved currency in contemporary performances and recordings.15 As to stylistic features, tonality has proved to be a durable force, as have traditional conceptions of form.

14 For a more comprehensive examination of Chishotm's achievements see Malan, "Chishoim: Erik," in South African Music Encyclopedia, 1:271-75, and Caroline Mears and James May, "Chishoim, Erik," in The New Grove Dictionary, 2nd ed., 5:700. 15 Reviews of recordings and scores may be found in the South African Journal of Musicology, NewMusicSA Bulletin, and Musicus. See, for instance, the reviews by David Smith of two com pact disc recordings of the music of Arnold van Wyk, which includes performances by the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra of van Wyk's Primavera and two symphonies in SAMUS 13 (1993): 110-12. Also see the review of Peter Klatzow's by Bryan Clarke in SAMUS 14 (1994): 103.

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Together these features attest to a prevailing conservatism. Even prominent, progressively-minded composers, such as Roelof Temmingh and Peter Klatzow, who began their careers as experimentalists, identifying with the radical musical avant-garde, have changed their orientation, gradually implementing more conven tional idioms. A further, ubiquitous factor that needs to be taken into consideration is national identity, and in this regard the three generations of South African composers draw on a wide range of sources, including Afrikaans folk songs and African indigenous pieces, to create works emblematic of the country. It is impor tant to note that the present writer uses the term national identity devoid of specific political connotations. Thus, the use of Afrikaans or African elements reveals a national orientation that is purely and passively cultural, and one cannot infer from the infusion of vernacular materials the allegiance to an explicit political ideology, either the preceding apartheid regime or the present government of the African National Congress. Whilst no specific national school has emerged, it is surely true to say that some composers during the apartheid era, particularly Arnold van Wyk and Hubert du Plessis, enlarged their own art-music tradition by appropriating Afrikaans musical sources and influences.16 With the new socio-political dispensa tion (post-1994) and the resulting new allegiances, there has been greater interest in the incorporation of African musical materials so that certain composers have revitalized their art by injecting African values and materials, but always retaining a predominant Eurocentric perspective. The inclusion of African elements is partly governed by commissioning bodies, such as SAMRO (South African Music Rights Organisation), which insist on an African component, and partly by the revaluation of an African musical heritage, engendered by a "new South Africa" and "global ization" that enable the incorporation of exotic elements into a twentieth-century harmonic idiom.17 In some cases, indigenous materials provide little more than a springboard for large-scale orchestral structure and the results are no more than a mere appropriation of unusual elements into a "modern" art-music framework. Good examples may be found on the CD Timbila, which contains a collection of orchestral works by South African composers attempting to assimilate African in fluences and creating "cross-cultural" infusions.18 The majority of recorded works, however, displays disconnected and patchy depictions of African musical materials that are treated as "exoticisms" within an essentially European idiom, and, as David Smith has reinforced, these attempts at incorporating African sounds would

16 Van Wyk's orchestral works are discussed in detail later in this essay, and Du Plessis's use of Afrikaans folk song is referred to in footnote 35. 17 For a discussion of the crossing/interlinking of cultural boundaries, see Martin Scherzinger, "'Art' Music in a Cross-Cultural Context: The Case of Africa," in The Cambridge History of Twentieth Century Music, ed. Nicholas Cook and Anthony Pople (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 584-613. 18 The recorded works include Stefans Grove's Dance Rhapsody, Roelof Temmingh's Three Sonnets, Hans Roosenschoon's Timbila, Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph's Tempus Fugit, and Johan Cloete's Cele bration.

This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms South African Orchestral Music: Five Exponents 93 not "strike African ears as being rooted in the 'indigenous.'"19 In contrast, there are instances in which the resulting composition involves a more meaningful absorp tion of the indigenous setting inferring national identity. One composition show ing stronger national orientation is Hofmeyr's Iingoma. Whilst the composer has explicitly rejected nationalistic intent, the work clearly reveals a passive cultural national identity (as opposed to an active political national intent) because of the total absorption of its African materials and the linking of aesthetic spheres, which is highly effective and convincing. In Iingoma Hofmeyr has undoubtedly entered the "cross-cultural" domain.20 Finally, it may be observed from table 1 that the first two generations of South African art-music composers are dominated by males of European descent: There are almost no black composers, with the exception of Michael Moerane, Reuben Caluza, Joshua Mohapeloa, Mzilikazi Khumalo and Mziwabantu Dubula,21 and few female composers, with the exception of Blanche Gerstman, Rosa Nepgen, Priaulx Rainier and Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph. The post-apartheid era has, in fact, produced a number of classically trained black composers, but they have worked largely in the domain of vocal and choral genres, composing few works for full orchestra.22

19 See David Smith's pertinent review of Timbila, published in SAMUS 15 (1995): 59-61. Smith rightly points out that only Roosenschoon's Timbila "imports en bloc an indigenous effect: the sounds of a Chopi xylophone ensemble." Roosenschoon combines a modern symphony orchestra with a timbila (xylophone) ensemble from southern . His African elements include Chopi musical extracts, some traditional and popular Xhosa songs, and township jazz. European borrowings range from Mozart's Magic Flute and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and J. S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion. The thematic treatment is rather fractured, creating a collage approach in which the source material is treated as "'found' musical objects whose facets can be isolated, repeated, dissolved, kept in suspension." Ibid., 61. 20 The work has been performed frequently in South Africa, and its use of elements drawn from vernacular traditions is discussed in detail below. 21 This is because opportunities in education and work were restricted during the apartheid regime. Khumalo, in particular, has made an immense contribution to vocal and choral music. His well known operas, Princess Magogo and Ushaka KaSenzangakhona, blend Zulu poetry and song with the instrumental and orchestral tradition of Europe. However, the orchestration of Princess Ma gogo was undertaken by Michael Hankinson, while Christopher James and Robert Maxym pro duced the first and second orchestrated versions of Ushaka. Moerane's oeuvre is limited, focusing on choral works and descriptive piano pieces. He is well known for his symphonic poem, Fatse la Heso (My Country), in which the thematic material is derived from modified versions of three African songs and the harmonic framework is provided by a hymn. The African songs include a warrior's song, a reaper's song, and a cradle-song. 22 See, for instance, Mokale Koapeng, Bongani Ndodana-Breen, and Phelelani Mnomiya. Ndodana Breen has written mainly operas, vocal works, chamber music, works for solo instrument and some orchestral compositions, most notably African Kaddish. He has received commissions from both local and international organisations, and is probably best known for his opera, The Pas sion of Winnie, which he wrote in collaboration with Warren Wilensky, and is based on the life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Other third-generation composers (not listed in table 1) such as Qinisela Sibisi, Newman Sibisi, Mduduzi Xulu, Simon Ntombela and Thandaxolo Ngqobe, have contributed exclusively to the choral music tradition, which is well established in Black commu nities throughout South Africa. Qinisela Sibisi, for instance, wrote the first Zulu mass for choir,

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Recent Critical Literature

Before traversing the terrain of South African orchestral music, I turn to some of the more recent critical literature that deals specifically with this repertory. In par ticular, the work of Michael Blake, Thomas Pooley, Stephanus Muller, and Winfried Lüdemann will be examined. Blake discusses the aesthetic of new work in South Africa and the complex debate about tradition versus newness. He examines six or chestral works composed between 2002 and 2005 that embrace a wide range of aes thetics and styles, including what he describes as "cross-cultural composition" and "the revival of representational styles."23 Blake believes that two traditions predom inate within South African composition: "new-romanticism and modernism—but we can also find aspects of impressionism, neoclassicism, folklorism and cross cul turalism on the one side, and minimalism, reductionism, experimentalism and post modernism on the other."24 Pooley also deals with ideologies of promulgation and reception affecting South African art music. He shows how an "'autonomous' (dic tated by its own logic) paradigm during the 1980s upheld the Eurocentric outlook and value system of apartheid, and how it was replaced in the early 1990s by a more 'heteronomous' (governed by political and economic pressures) or 'cross-cultural' paradigm."25 I argue here, however, that the influence of European modernism re mains a compelling factor within the development of South African orchestral mu sic and that there has been no emergence of a "radical shift" or "new paradigm". The inclusion of African materials in post-apartheid orchestral genres is merely part of a broader search for a passive cultural national identity. Stephanus Muller has produced some exceptional studies on the art-music com posers Arnold van Wyk and Stefans Grové. He has contributed, for instance, three chapters in the relatively recently published A Composer in Africa: Essays on the Life and Work of Stefans Grové.26 The chapter that is most relevant to the present essay bears the title "Reflections on the African Music of Stefans Grové." Among the works discussed is Grové's orchestral composition Raka (1995-96), a symphonic poem in the form of a concerto for piano and orchestra, based on N. P. van Wyk Louw's epic poem of the same name (1941) and a Sotho setting of Psalm 150. A review of the first performance of the concerto observes that Grové "addresses the essence of Raka [the apeman] economically—the conflict between good and evil,

orchestra and four solo voices (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone), which weaves together West ern orchestral traditions and Zulu choral rhythms. The mass has been performed in the United Kingdom and the United States. 23 Blake, "The Present-Day Composer Refuses to Budge," 130-39. 24 Ibid., 130. 25 Pooley, "Composition in Crisis," ii and 6. 26 See his chapters "Place, Identity and a Station Platform," "Imagining Afrikaners Musically: Re flections on the African Music of Stefans Grové," and "Stefans Grove's Narratives of Lateness" in A Composer in Africa.

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anchored in the confrontation between Raka and Koki. This leads the listener to experience the shocking violence between clashing forces."27 This programmatic concerto contains five episodes: "Early morning scene at the river," "Raka appears," "Interlude: Village life becomes peaceful again," "Koki's mother cleanses his slain body by the night fires," and "Raka returns as conqueror." Muller's discussion of Grové's incorporation of "African" elements into the musical fabric of Raka is most insightful and reinforces the outcomes of the present study. He points out that "[Grové's] music represents an adaptation of the traditional art music framework rather than a radical break from it.... This [Raka] is music that conceives of Africa as a meaning (and identity), not as subject."28 Lüdemann has undertaken a pertinent study on van Wyk's symphonic suite, Primavera.29 Van Wyk's cumulative setting is built on the elaborate recomposition of one principal melody, the Minnelied "Der May," by the thirteenth-century Min nesinger, Neidhart von Reuenthal. The melody with accompanying text appears in the preface of van Wyk's score. Lüdemann emphasizes the eclecticism of Primavera as follows:

First there is the Italian title, then the ancient German poem, the medieval modal melody, the more modern European symphonic genre, form, and style, the twentieth-century har monic vocabulary, the English sound of the strings-only third movement (reminiscent of for example Vaughan Williams), the African and Latin American sound of the dances in the last movement, and possibly even more. ... It is significant that the diverse elements are inte grated or "reconciled" into a whole without losing their identity, and without being given only token recognition.30

Whilst the use of multicultural features in Primavera can be seen merely as an at tempt to coordinate diverse styles within a single composition, Lüdemann believes that there is more significance to the synthesis of these heterogeneous elements. He asserts that the work "envisions an approach to cultural difference that was in strong contrast to the one that was taking shape at the time and that we know as apartheid," and concludes that "Primavera could thus be seen both to occupy a critical position toward the 'old' South Africa and simultaneously to represent a challenge to the country in its 'new' order."31

27 Thy s Odendaal in Beeld Kalender, 3 March 1999, quoted in Walton, "Stefans Grove; Work Cata logue," in A Composer in Africa, 102. 28 See Muller, "Imagining Afrikaners Musically: Reflections on the African Music of Stefans Grové," in A Composer in Africa, 17-39, particularly, 26-28. 29 Lüdemann, "Arnold van Wyk's Primavera," 87-107. The work is analysed later in detail. 30 Ibid., 101. 31 Ibid.

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The Five Exponents

I devote the remainder of the present essay to a general appraisal of style and an alytical discussions of compositions by the selected five major figures of South African art-music composition. These composers—van Wyk, Grové, Temmingh, Klatzow and Hofmeyr, drawn from across the three generations—have been sin gled out because they are leading exponents in the sphere of orchestral music. It is beyond the scope of this essay to include South African composers—Kevin Volans, Malcolm Forsyth, and Robert Fokkens, to name but a few—who have outstanding international profiles, but who have either emigrated permanently or have focused on other musical genres.32 One of the most original and creative composers of the first generation is Arnold van Wyk. He received no formal instruction in music until the age of twenty-two. Subsequently, his career became quintessentially academic, comprising study at the Royal Academy of Music in London under the guidance of Theodore Holland, ad vanced tutelage in composition from Howard Ferguson,33 a lectureship in compo sition at the South African College of Music in Cape Town (1949-60), and appoint ment as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music (1952) and as a Professor at the Conservatoire of Music of the University of Stellenbosch (1961-78). As a composer, van Wyk carved a distinctive identity for South African orches tral music, an identity that spoke to audiences of the time both nationally and inter nationally. Whilst his musical style demonstrated the use of a melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic vocabulary analogous to contemporaneous European art music, it also contained national characteristics, principally the use of Afrikaans and Dutch vernacular materials as sources of inspiration. In a recent appraisal of van Wyk's ca reer, Stephanus Muller has shown that van Wyk was not "vocal in proclaiming po litical beliefs in 'separate development' and Afrikaner nationalism," and that "there is little evidence that van Wyk ever tried to create a 'national' sound."34 I should argue, nevertheless, that van Wyk gained immeasurably from Afrikaner supremacy in South Africa, was well acquainted with influential Afrikaner intellectuals and poets at , the heart of Afrikaner intellectualism, where he remained for seventeen years, and was affiliated with Afrikaner organizations, all of which are signs that van Wyk proclaimed himself to be a proudly South African

32 Volans has concentrated his efforts predominantly on chamber music for smaller instrumen tal ensembles. A recent comprehensive review that pays tribute to his life and works may be found in Christine Lucia, "Celebrating Composer Kevin Charles Volans, b. 1949," Musicus 37, no. 1 (2009): 3-18. Forsyth, settled in Canada and was named Canadian composer of the year in 1989 and was elected a member of the Order of Canada in 2003. Fokkens, presently living in Wales, fo cuses on instrumental, vocal and choral compositions, whilst a crucial component of Joubert's ac complishments has been his contribution to the British choral tradition. Joubert left South Africa for the United Kingdom in 1946. 33 Ferguson later dedicated a chapter to van Wyk in Composers in South Africa Today, 1-32. 34 See Muller, "Arnold van Wyk's Hard, Stony, Flinty Path, or Making Things Beautiful in Apartheid South Africa," Musical Times 149, no. 1905 (2008): 61-78. Also see Muller, "Arnold's van Wyk's Hands," in Composing Apartheid, 281-99.

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composer. Representative examples include the symphonic suites, Southern Cross, based upon settings of three Afrikaans folk songs, and Vier Gebede by Jaargetye in die Boland (Four Prayers for the Changing Seasons in the Cape), derived from the Afrikaans poet N. P. vein Wyk Louw's Die Halwe Kring (The Half Circle). Southern Cross was written whilst the composer was employed as announcer, translator and program advisor in the Afrikaans section of the BBC during World War II. The first performance of the suite took place at an Afrikaans church service in December 1943. The three settings upon which it is based are "Vanaand gaan die volkies ko ring sny" (Tonight they'll go a-reaping), "Pollie ons gaan Paarl toe" (Pollie, we're going to Paarl), and "Die Vierperdewa" (The four-horse wagon). In such works van Wyk combines art music and his native vernacular in a natural, effortless manner. The melodic fibre and character of the folk songs are retained and are unmistak ably identifiable in their simple orchestral settings. With regard to Vier Gebede by Jaargetye in die Boland, only three of the four planned movements were complete at the time of van Wyk's death: "Vroegherfs" (Early Autumn), "Uit hierdie ligte Herf" (Out of this light Autumn), and "Winter" (Winter). All movements reflect van Wyk's personal feelings evoked by the poetry, rather than a description of the scenes from nature. As Howard Ferguson has aptly noted, "the poems' descriptions of various aspects of nature, though intensely vivid, are less significant than the poet's reac tions to them; and van Wyk's aim has been to concentrate on the latter rather than to provide 'sound pictures' or 'nature music.'"35 Because of his intense self-reflection as a composer van Wyk worked painstak ingly and fastidiously so that his ideas were soberly thought out and wrought into what he considered a perfect form. His music employs an expanded tonal idiom freely incorporating modal and chromatic inflections. Other elements that remained rigid features of his compositional profile include a versatile and virtuosic use of string, woodwind and brass sections in the orchestra, a preoccupation with motivic development, an emphasis on rhythmic innovation and variety involving complex rhythmic patterns and flexible metres, an affection for traditional concepts of form, and pervasive use of pedal points and ostinato figures. Van Wyk's oeuvre includes no fewer than three symphonic suites, two piano , his Saudade for violin and orchestra,36 and sets of variations for orches

35 See Ferguson, "Arnold van Wyk," 16. A contemporary of van Wyk, whose work also reveals a strong national identity, is Hubert du Plessis (see his Huguenot Cantata and Suid-Afrika - Nag en Daeraad, for orchestra, choir, and soprano soloist, based on two programmes: the Anglo-Boer War and the establishment of a Republic in 1961). Du Plessis has drawn his inspiration explicitly from Afrikaans poetry and folk songs. He has also incorporated Cape Malay folk songs, such as in his Slamse Beeide, op. 21 (1959), a setting for choir and orchestra based on three descriptive poems concerning Cape Malay life. Each of the three movements contains modal Malay melodies including two well-known songs: "Alibama" and "January, February," both used in the second movement. 36 Saudade was originally the middle movement of the , written whilst van Wyk was at the Royal Academy of Music. The work was first performed by Olive Zorian in Albert Hall with Sir Adrian Boult conducting. Saudade, a Portuguese word meaning longing or yearning, aptly describes the melancholic, reflective mood of the piece.

This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 98 Veronica Mary Franke tra, such as Maskerades, a set of eight variations on the Afrikaans folk song "Ek soek na my Dina" (I am looking for my Dina). This set contains some vividly or chestrated parodies emulating the compositional style of eight different composers including Stravinsky, Debussy, Britten, Bartok and Mahler.37 Van Wyk also penned two symphonies. The first, in a minor, composed in 1943, is a passionate work with a four-movements-in-one design. The second, entitled Sinfonia ricercata, is an elaborate contrapuntal composition in two parts, notable for its harsh harmonic language that proclaims an affiliation with Prokofiev and Bartôk at their most ag gressive.38 Both symphonies show strong thematic development and interrelations. In the first, the articulation and continuous development of the four concise themes at the outset creates the effect of an unraveling and spinning out of musical thought (see examples la-d).39 The first theme, a unison passage for strings, defined by its rhythmic dislocations and fortissimo dynamic markings, establishes the intense at mosphere that persists throughout much of the symphony. The second, a poignant melody presented by woodwinds in soft undertones with straightforward rhythmic configurations, provides release. The third, an animated rhythmic figure, is played triumphantly on trumpets and horns, whilst the fourth, a flowing semiquaver mo tive, becomes more significant as the movement unfolds. All four themes are de veloped within the three remaining sections of the symphony, namely, a scherzo like subdivision, employing the usual triple metre, a slow, majestic third section, functioning as a free recapitulation of the opening material, and a condensed final section, marked Poco Adagio, comprising 56 bars in total. Van Wyk's use of contrapuntal writing manifests itself in the Second Symphony, particularly in the energetic second movement, a strict fugue employing augmen tation, diminution, stretto and inversion. Henk Temmingh has aptly noted that the two movements can be conceived as a prelude and fugue.40 Again, van Wyk's pref erence for an organic approach to form may be observed in his elaboration of the initial material to create a large-scale work. In the first movement, the somber pri mary theme, presented on celli and double basses, slowly unfolds, gaining inten sity as it leads to a secondary theme, which commences with a rising whole-tone episode (see examples 2a and 2b). The two themes are expanded in the ensuing extended development and abbreviated recapitulation. The opening of the second movement is directly related to the first, and the primary motive eventually flowers into an expansive fugue subject (see example 3). The movement culminates with original and inverted forms of the subject in stretto, and the final stridently discor dant statement in the brass gives way to a convincing cadence in B major.

37 A select list of his orchestral works is included in table 2 at the conclusion of this paper. 38 Notable performances of the symphonies include the première of the First Symphony in London under Sir Henry Wood, its subsequent performance by the Hallé Orchestra under Sir John Barbi rolli at the Cheltenham Music Festival of 1951, and the performance of the Second Symphony by the Northwest German Radio Orchestra in Hamburg in 1955 with conducting. 39 All musical examples in the present paper come from unpublished, original manuscripts, some of which remain in handwritten form. 40 Henk Temmingh, "Die Tweede Simfonie van Arnold van Wyk," Acta Academia 16 (1984): 62.

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Ex. la: van Wyk, Symphony no. 1, first movement, bars 1-8

Ex. lb: van Wyk, Symphony no. 1, first movement, bars 27-30

Ex. le: van Wyk, Symphony no. 1, first movement, bars 41-45

frwwvw n V pp r 1 1 11 1 1 ■ — » r |»iy ^ik |t^ 1— } 1 illJ J J ^ •T r r LL =t=]—1 ^

Ex. Id: van Wyk, Symphony no. 1, first movement, bars 57-59

Ex. 2a: van Wyk, Symphony no. 2, first movement, bars 7-9

Ex. 2b: van Wyk, Symphony no. 2, first movement, bars 44-46

Ex. 3: van Wyk, Symphony no. 2, second movement, bars 8-10

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Poles apart from either symphony and one of van Wyk's most interesting essays in the genre of orchestral composition is Primavera, a symphonic suite in four, themat ically related movements, completed in 1960, in which all movements are played without break. The composer declares that the work "proceeds from bareness to luxuriance and from melancholy to fulfilled happiness."41 At first only the interval lie structure of the borrowed melody is used as thematic material. The melody is heard first in fragments and only gradually emerges to appear in its complete form near the end of the work, producing a feeling of synthesis and culmination. As noted earlier, Van Wyk's refashioning of the intervallic structure and motivic frag ments derived from the borrowed melody is analysed by Winfried Lüdemann.42 He asserts that "not only the intervallic material of Der May grows into a variety of themes, but, in addition, the themes grow into different versions of themselves as well."43 The close correlation between this paraphrase type of structure and what Peter Burkholder has described as cumulative form explored by Charles Ives is strik ing.44 An important feature is the thematic correlation between movements, which fosters a sense of continuity throughout the work. Also characteristic is the use of conventional form. The extensive first movement, for instance, uses sonata form with a telescoped development and recapitulation.45 It leads directly into the second movement, a scherzo, in which the woodwinds feature prominently, suggesting a countryside scene. As van Wyk affirms: "A suitable motto would be Tovey's charm ing observation in his essay on Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony: '... birds... repeat their songs continually when they are happy and have nothing else to do.' I should add that my birds are stylized and that, although many of the themes could be bird songs, I am not aware that any of them actually are."46 The third movement, a rondo, uses muted strings, reflecting "that particular sadness which may overcome one in the midst of very beautiful surroundings."47 The finale emphasizes three

41 Programme notes included as a foreword in the published score Arnold van Wyk: Primavera (Stel lenbosch: Arnold van Wyk Trust, 1988). 42 Lüdemann, "Arnold van Wyk's Primavera," 87-107. 43 Ibid., 93. 44 Burkholder has described in detail the methods of borrowing in the music of Ives, specifically Ives's cumulative settings, where the borrowed melody is paraphrased and only presented in complete form during the conclusion of a work, creating a climactic effect. See J. Peter Burkholder, "'Quotation' and Emulation: Charles Ives's Uses of His Models," The Musical Quarterly 71, no. 1 (1985): 1-26; "'Quotation' and Paraphrase in Ives's Second Symphony," 19th-century Music 11, no. 1 (1987): 3-25; and All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses of Musical Borrowing (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 137-267. 45 This movement commences with a lengthy introduction, marked poco lento, teneramente, in which fragmented motifs of the principal melody are cast into the musical structure. The usual two contrasting subjects appear in the Allegro, the first, rhythmical and passionate, for full orchestra; the second, poetic and lyrical, on two oboes and English horn, derived from the Minnelied. These are manipulated in the development and recapitulation, and the movement terminates with a quiet bridge passage. 46 See programme notes to score. 47 Ibid.

This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms South African Orchestral Music: Five Exponents 101 dance-inspired themes: The first, presented by bassoon, has an indigenous African flavour; the second, scored for woodwind and brass, employs tango rhythms; and the third, for full orchestra, combines elements of the preceding two dances. Once all three themes have been presented, the strings play a sustained hushed chord with a long pedal on the tonic B in the double basses and timpani, above which the entire Minnelied is superimposed, on distant horns, with each phrase punctu ated by echoing trumpet figurations.48 Horns alone conclude the movement, and "to symbolize the ever-returning spring, the work ends as it began."49 The sheer volume and varied expressive palette of Stefans Grové, another first generation home-grown composer, contrast sharply with that of van Wyk. It is not difficult to see why Grové's works have been given a special place and sta tus, for he has consistently explored new universes (see table 2 for a list of select orchestral works). Between 1945 and 1948 Grové undertook considerable formal study of art music at the College of Music in Cape Town under the guidance of Bell and Chisholm. A Fulbright fellowship enabled him to complete a Master's de gree at Harvard, where his tutors were Walter Piston and Thurston Dart. He soon won several awards for composition, including a Margaret Crofts scholarship, af fording him the opportunity of lessons with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. He subsequently taught composition and theory at Bard College (1955-56) and at the Peabody Conservatory (1956-72). Whilst in the United States, he founded the group Pro Musica Rara, which gave performances of the lesser-known church cantatas of J. S. Bach, became a member of the American Association of University Professors and of the American Guild of Organists, and won an Educator's Award, given an nually to inspiring teachers in the United States. Upon his return to South Africa in 1973, he was appointed to the Music Academy of the , where he remained until his retirement in 1987. Many of his compositions have received extensive international exposure, with performances in the United States, Europe, and Israel. Grové has worked primarily in the realm of instrumental music, and it is his orchestral works in particular that display his most important asset, a sense of in strumental colour and imagery. Constantly redirecting his compositional vision, he has cultivated his own, emphatically modern style, exhibiting expansions of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary. His early works are a synthesis of Debussy's colouristic approach, Bartôk's rhythmic animation and Hindemith's neo Baroque counterpoint. The most prominent characteristics are the focus on colour, spontaneity, dynamism, conspicuous contrapuntal structures, tonal harmonic pro cedures, and an adherence to traditional form, including sonata, rondo and ternary forms. Works composed during his early period include the expressive Elegy for Strings (1948) and the (1956). The Violin Concerto of 1958, first performed in Baltimore with Gabriel Benat as soloist, marks the beginning of a new phase—the "American period"—wherein Grové increasingly dissociated him

48 At this stage, the horns are instructed to play off-stage. 49 Ibid.

This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 102 Veronica Mary Franke self from neo-classicism and began applying an atonal style. During this period he also juxtaposed contrasting qualities, such as dramatic dynamism and haunt ing lyricism, and moved away from formal structures. The decade 1973-83 saw an extended development of Grové's individualistic style in large-scale symphonic works, such as Kettingrye (Chain Rows, 1978), which reveal a greater sense of in strumental colour and which make considerable use of "timbre modulation."50 1984 signaled the beginning of a new chapter in Grové's creative career—the use of the indigenous sounds of Africa, combined with traditionally Western forms and com positional techniques. Orchestral works from his "African Series" include Dance Rhapsody: An African City (1986), Concerto Overture: Five Salutations on two Zulu Themes (1986), Invocation from the Hills and Dances in the Plains (1994), a tone poem for orchestra, Raka (1995/96), his symphonic poem in the form of a concerto for pi ano and orchestra, 3 Meditations for Chamber Orchestra (2004), and two concertinos, one for piano and chamber orchestra (2003), and the other for flute, viola and cham ber orchestra (2005). The symbiosis between Africa and the West has been refresh ing: Rather than quote directly and fashion a national style, Grové prefers to evoke "Africa" by imitating the particular timbre of African instruments and suggesting stylistic characteristics, such as particular melodic and rhythmic idioms and osti nato patterns. His "Western" compositional techniques involve formal structuring and thematic development with material consistently subjected to harmonic, tim brai, rhythmic and contrapuntal manipulation. As Grové observed in an interview with Stephanus Muller in 2007, "my Afrocentric style did not form a complete break from my previous style. It is a continuation of my energy-driven music, but with the addition of 'African' rhythmic groupings, descending tendencies in my phrase construction and, of course, the ostinato element."51 Three compositions, the Violin Concerto, Symphony and Chain Row, merit broader discussion, giving some indication of Grové's wide-ranging stylistic breadth. The two-movement Violin Concerto, commissioned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation, abandons standardized forms for freer structures and uses a chromatic idiom that avoids functional progressions and displays high 'mod ern' dissonance. As genre, it is a symphonic concerto, in which the orchestra's role

50 Here instrumental timbre plays an important structural role and may also effect subtle colour changes with "one tone modulating by means of orchestral overlapping to a related shade of colour." See Jacques P. Malan, "Grové, Stefans," in Four South African Composers, ed. C. G. Hen ning (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 1975), 16, and Mary Rörich, "Stefans Grové," in Composers in South Africa Today, 87, who discusses timbre modulation in relation to Grové's Symphony (1962), in which timbrai adjustments are variously achieved: "Of several combined, contrasting timbres (usually at the same pitch), some may be discontinued, leaving the others to sound; timbrai and pitch elements of a phonology may be continued as echo effects, produced, for example, by string flageolets ... ; the same pitch may be sustained by certain instruments and released with a percussive staccato in others, producing what the composer terms a whiplash effect." 51 Stephanus Muller, "A Composer in Africa: An Interview with Stefans Grové," Tempo 61, no. 240 (2007): 20.

This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms South African Orchestral Music: Five Exponents 103 in the development of thematic material is as important as the soloist's. Grové uses a relatively large orchestra, yet the forces of this orchestra are employed so the violin may assert itself as a solo instrument with astonishing ease. Throughout the work there is a balance between lyricism and dramatic, energetic writing. Both move ments contain rapidly changing metres and tempi which, while creating contrast, also establish an organic sense of intensification and vigorous expansion. The basic thematic material is economical, comprising a limited number of primary intervals and effective rhythmic impulses. Particularly striking are Grové's varied textures: rich, homophonic sections contrasting with linear contrapuntal exchanges, derived from motivic fragments.52 The Symphony of 1962, also commissioned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation, comprises two main movements linked by an interlude and concluded by a postlude. It was written whilst Grové was resident in the United States and was first performed by the Cincinnati Symphony under Max Rudolph. As in the Violin Concerto, traditional architectonic forms are dispensed with, and instead, timbre is treated as a principal form-generating parameter, defining structural areas. Grové's timbrai imagination exhibits itself in terms of colouristic effects. Attractive and un usual combinations of strings and woodwinds, for instance, occur throughout the Symphony, enhancing its expressive quality. A good example is found at the end of the interlude, where the alto flute presents a modified version of the opening theme accompanied by vertical sonorities in the harps, strings, vibraphone and a double-bass pedal point. The Symphony continually contrasts expansive, passionate sections with more lyrical and haunting passages. The expansive tutti episodes emphasize contrapuntal textures, high dissonance levels, fortissimo markings, and faster tempi. The melan cholic sections are cast in slower tempi for reduced instrumented forces with de creased rhythmic motion and subdued dynamic levels. Occasionally, these con trasting timbres and textures occur in simultaneous superimpositions. Also notable is Grové's thematic coherence, including his expansion of thematic material from germinal, intervallic figures to motivic patterns, culminating in extensive themes. The opening theme in the alto flute, for example, continuously grows and changes, generating most of the thematic fabric of the first movement, the interlude and the postlude. Similarly, the two themes stated at the outset of the second movement are developed and varied extensively throughout the movement. Solo instruments are a prominent feature, exemplifying his predilection for a concertante style,53 and the overall sound palette is characterized by devices such as flutter-tonguing, mutes, harmonics and other demanding colouristic devices.54

52 See Rörich, "Grové," 84-86, for a more detailed analysis of the concerto. 53 The alto flute in particular is significant, supported by a variety of instrumental combinations. At the outset it is accompanied by a double-bass pedal point, during the conclusion of the first movement, by muted strings, and towards the end of the second movement, by string quartet. 54 See sound-cassette recording of the Simfonie, 18'37" (Johannesburg: South African Broadcasting Corporation, n. d.).

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A good example of Grové's use of timbre as a principal form-creating component is found in Kettingrye, a for orchestra.55 Whilst the internal struc ture is shaped by the reiteration, elaboration and transformation of rhythmic and melodic cells, the external structure is defined by contrasts in timbrai metaphors and syntax. The concertato principle applies again, and concertante groups present cadenzas in each of the four movements. The first movement contains a lengthy ca denza for percussion, the second a cadenza for viola and woodwinds, the third, for bassoon, trumpet, harp and cello, and the fourth for solo organ (see example 4 for the opening of organ cadenza). Stylistic features include the use of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale, the reiteration of pitch centres acting as pivotal points, the use of instrumental effects, such as harmonics, glissandi, flutter-tonguing, col legno and sul ponticello, the delineation of structural divisions by repeated tutti chords, rests, long note values and pause marks, and the articulation of phrases through accelerando and ritardando markings accompanied by the amalgamations and dis solutions of textural, rhythmic and dynamic density (see the opening bars in the examples 5a and 5b). Mary Rörich affirms that

Kettingrye is, in every aspect of its syntax, a contextually consistent and carefully planned composition. ... As such it emerges as an imaginative series of timbre-structures whose expressive ambience and deep syntactic and psychological interrelationships give it both aes thetic and intellectual richness.56

Ex. 4: Grové, Kettingrye, fourth movement, bars 1-6

55 See sound-cassette recording of Kettingrye, 21'47" (Johannesburg: South African Broadcasting Corporation, n. d.). 56 Rörich, "Grové," 101.

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Largo 0=66

Ex. 5a: Grové, Kettingrye, first movement, bars 1-11

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Bassrd. Sizzlo Cymb.

i

Ex. 5b: Grové, Kettingrye, first movement, bars 12-15

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An important contribution from second-generation South African composers has been their significant change in orientation. Roelof Temmingh and Peter Klatzow are two such composers who began their careers as experimentalists, but proceeded with more tonal, conservative idioms. Both have amassed large and varied œuvres and have won many prestigious composition prizes attesting to their indefatigable search for new horizons.57 Their earlier, more avant-garde compositions demon strate a highly unconventional approach to form, and exhibit the use of aleatoric processes and of electronic and concrète sound generation, including elements of collage, quotation music, minimalism and stage acting by performers. Their mature compositional practice, on the other hand, adopts more conservative, tonal idioms, inspired melody, a more explicit harmonic basis, and exceptional skill in orches tration. Structure is rigorously controlled, resulting in a stronger sense of musical continuity and a sectional approach to form. Intervallic cells often serve as refer ential elements generating aggregates of both harmonic and melodic components, and pure contrapuntal forms are frequently found. Temmingh was appointed lecturer in musicology and composition at the Univer sity of Stellenbosch in 1973, where he remained until his retirement in 2001. Whilst vocal works represent the largest component of his oeuvre, he has many orchestral compositions to his credit: a scherzo for piano and orchestra, three symphonies, two concertos each for piano, oboe and organ, one concerto each for violin, cello, clarinet and flute, a double , three overtures, a for orches tra, and three sonnets for string orchestra. In all these works echoes of Bartôk and Shostakovich are prevalent. In the three Sonnets for string orchestra (1988), the string parts contain such technical difficulties as triple and quadruple harmonics and left-hand pizzicati, but these stem directly from the musical thought itself. The work has a dark, sustained and overwhelmingly intense tone, established at the outset. The two outer sonnets are moderate or slow in tempo, and, together with the fast-moving second son net, display an overriding symmetrical design which is reinforced by a network of interrelated motives that undergo transformations of rhythm, dynamics and in strumentation. All three sonnets show a significant turning towards tonality with their substantially triadic harmonic language, cyclic progressions, ostinato patterns and sustained pitches. The middle sonnet includes extensive pentatonic and modal melodic material (see example 6 containing the opening theme). Temmingh's use of contrapuntal writing manifests itself in the canonic treatment of the primary the matic material (see example 7, the fugato subject). He also often builds up textures through multiple layers of activity, creating the effect of several simultaneous mu

57 For instance, Temmingh has been awarded the coveted Helgaard Steyn Prize three of the five occasions it has been awarded, the first time for his orchestral composition Drie Sonette (1988), the second for his cantata, Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein (2001), and the third for Kantorium (2003). Klatzow's awards include the Royal Philharmonic Prize for his Variations for Orchestra (1965), the Stroud Festival Composers' Award for Night Magic U (1978), and the Toronto Guitar Festival International Composers' Award for his Contours and Transformations (1978).

This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 108 Veronica Mary Franke sical events. In the central portion of the second sonnet, for instance, four layers of musical activity, which frequently constitute separate entities in the movement, are juxtaposed: an animated pizzicato passage for violas and cellos creating over all continuity; a reiterated rhythmic motif in the second violins, functioning as an important organizational feature, creating forward drive; a supportive passage in the double bass, anchoring the music and giving it substructural coherence; and a melodic line containing wide leaps in which an augmented fourth predominates and which highlights a major seventh (F-E) followed by a rapid descent in pitch, effecting release (example 8). One of Temmingh's most important essays in orchestral music is his organ con certo of 1993, a through-composed single movement of exceptional creativity, con viction and unity. Its sixteen-minute span takes the listener through an unremitting succession of textures and tempos. The concerto relies on thematic transformation with tonal and formal features providing a relatively passive framework. Elements of sonata and fugue are found throughout. The opening germinal motif, presented over a pedal point in the timpani, double basses and celli, gradually expands, gain ing momentum through to the opening of the Allegro, where the primary the matic materials unfold (see example 9 for the introductory bars of the Allegro). The octatonic scale is used extensively, as is the well-known musical signature of Shostakovich (D-Eb-C-B), which musically articulates the thematic material. The development section culminates in a cadenza for the soloist that is integrated into the whole and is followed by a recapitulation of the primary thematic material. The Piano Concerto of 1995, commissioned by the South African Music Rights Organization, is neo-classical in structure and scoring. It uses the standard three movement arrangement, with a haunting, lyrical central movement framed by two buoyant outer movements. The concerto is inundated with solid allusions to the twentieth-century tonal Russian school (Prokofiev and Shostakovich). The long, lyrical melodic lines and pitch-class structures take as their point of departure dia tonic scales and chords. Temmingh rambunctiously conveys a fondness for popular styles and forms. In his elaboration of the development in the first movement, for instance, he combines jazz elements with art-music idioms by introducing a syn copated motif. The synthesis is highly effective (see example 10). The concerto's unambiguous sense of tonality is seen particularly in the first and last movements, which are solidly built on A. The highly structured and organized principles, as well as the use of sonata form in all three movements, each constructed out of the principles of restatement, variation and contrast, reveal Temmingh's affection for traditional concepts of form and his interest in the elaboration of large-scale structures from the initial material. The work makes explicit references to music of the past with its "Mozart" theme, employed in all three movements and supported by a triadic harmonic language at important moments of articulation (example 11). Throughout the concerto, Temmingh displays a predilection for octatonic pitch col lections. He occasionally makes use of whole-tone structures and chromatic pro gressions. The minor third is of considerable importance, and its inclusion at struc turally important positions creates a continuity based on element-recurrence.

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Ex. 6: Temmingh, Drie Sonette, second movement, bars 5-7 (viola)

Ex. 7: Temmingh, Drie Sonette, first movement, bars 22-29 (cello)

Ex. 8: Temmingh, Drie Sonette, second movement, bars 60-66

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Ex. 9: Temmingh, , first movement, bars 24-32

Ex. 10: Temmingh, Piano Concerto, first movement, bars 92-96 (reduced score)

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Espressivo J = 76 r cjt= r fJ r r lj f——% pp

0:4 . J J ■' t <=< — LJ—^—J.—g—L it J i—* loco

Jr 1 L i *■ ■")...

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Ex. 11: Temmingh, Piano Concerto, first movement, bars 64-71

Peter Klatzow has actively promoted the cause of modern art music in South Africa, particularly in Cape Town. He founded a contemporary music society in 1975, which has been responsible for the publication and performance of a large number of South African musical compositions and for South African premières of signif icant works in contemporary European and American repertoires. These concerts have been seminal in bringing progressive compositions to public attention. An other Klatzow initiative, the formation of the publishing company, Musications, has provided a unique outlet for contemporary scores and compact discs. Klatzow began his musical studies in Johannesburg. At the age of nineteen he headed abroad for formal training as an art-music composer. He enrolled as a stu dent at the Royal College of Music in London where he studied composition under Bernard Stevens, orchestration under Gordon Jacob and conducting with Adrian Boult. This was followed by a brief period of study in Florence (1965-66) and, subse quently, compositional instruction in Paris, where his mentor was Nadia Boulanger. On his return to southern Africa in 1966, he was appointed lecturer at the Rhode sian College, in 1968, music producer for the South African Broadcasting Corpo ration, and in 1973, lecturer at the University of Cape Town, where he retired in 2010 as Professor and Director of Music. He has written music in a wide range of styles, presenting a composite, diverse profile. Many works have been inspired by paintings or poetry and reflect a concomitant emphasis on instrumental colour. His objective is to unveil the essence of the original source, translating its mood, at mosphere and imagery into music so that the source becomes an integral part of his compositional concept. A good example is Still Life with Moonbeams (completed in 1975 and choreographed as a ballet by Veronica Paeper). Inspired by a painting by Douglas Portway, with whom Klatzow had become acquainted during a visit to St Ives, the work is both descriptive and reflective. Portway's atmospheric paint ing with its dreamlike images in soft colours, finds its counterpart in the texture of Klatzow's work, particularly that of the finale. A more recent example is Three Paintings by Irma Stern (2005), comprising three movements, "Arab Priest," "Congo

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River," and "Peach Blossoms." The work is scored for small orchestra and an array of percussion instruments. The strong pitch centricity and triadic sonorities give the music a specifically tonal identity. Blake emphasizes that the work and particularly Arab Priest "is awash like the painting with orientalisms: the declamatory style, the synthesized sound of the sitar and the melodic lines with widely-spaced doublings recalling early twentieth-century French composers' impressions of the Orient."58 Klatzow's First Symphony, subtitled Phoenix, was written in 1972, during his atonal period. It contains three movements, each with a programmatic title: "En ergy and Disintegration," "Abyss," and "Regenesis." Violently contrasting materials are juxtaposed: The first two movements are essentially discordant, replete with au dacious harmonies, and their gratingly harsh elements are reconciled in the unruf fled, serene third movement. In the second movement two-part counterpoint is used extensively, though the two parts are in strong conflict with one another. Rhyth mic displacement, contrary motion and contrasting articulation contribute to their contrapuntal independence, generating a chaotic frenzy and effecting immense har monic tension. The third movement is significant, largely due to its contemplative disposition, lighter orchestration and slowly changing kaleidoscopic textures mov ing around pivotal notes. There is a floating, improvisational feel to the music, each section melting into the next, avoiding any points of demarcation. The Chamber Concerto for Seven, written in 1979 to celebrate the 150th anniver sary of the University of Cape Town, and later choreographed by Erica Brummidge for a ballet entitled Medea, is scored for flute, clarinet, horn, guitar, percussion, pi ano and electric organ. The ensemble writing is startlingly original, exhibiting a strong sense of instrumental virtuosity and colour. Klatzow has elucidated:

Seen as a whole, the work consists of three movements—the outer two both in slow tempi, and a central movement which is short, but extremely fast. The first and third movements are made up of contrapuntal fabric of considerable complexity and density. The first movement opens with bell-like resonances from the piano, which is the central core to the first part of the piece. The other instruments contribute to the richness of the piano timbre, and the variety of colour is my own multi-instrumental answer to John Cage's Prepared Piano. The instrumental crux of the first movement is the explosive organ solo towards the centre. If the outer two movements are of flesh and blood, the middle movement is of steel. The recitative for flute and organ gives way to a nimble moto perpetuo in which colour change is related to a highly dynamic pulse. The idea of strongly measured meter is carried over to the third movement, which begins as an extended Night Piece for guitar. Here the pulses are much slower, rather like several large pendulums swinging slowly in different tempi. Against these the flute carries a fluid melodic line. The work ends as it begins, with bell sounds.59

The first movement is divided into four sections (ABBA), of approximately equal duration. The A sections, which focus on solo piano, are predominantly homo phonic in texture, whilst the B sections, emphasizing solo organ, are more con

58 Blake, "The Present-Day Composer Refuses to Budge," 131. 59 Peter Klatzow, "Programme Notes," in Klatzow, Concerto for Clarinet and Small Orchestra, Mass for Choir, Horn, Marimba and Strings, String Quartet, Chamber Concerto for Seven, Claremont Records GSE 1524, 1993, compact disc.

This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms South African Orchestral Music: Five Exponents 113 trapuntal. Throughout the movement the music features wide melodic leaps, but is repetitive and harmonically static. Sections are linked by elaborating individ ual notes of the closing chords of preceding sections. The opening thirty-four bars present most of the material used in the remainder of the work. "Bell-like resonances" (e.g., the opening ten-note chord) constitute an important element throughout the first movement. The second movement opens with an extended dialogue between organ and flute which paves the way for the perpetuum mobile (see example 12). A static feeling is created by the restricted repertoire of gestures: the incessant repetition of semiquaver rhythmic figures, functioning as ostinati, sustained pitches, repeated chords, and oscillations between two pitch classes. The narrowness of rhythmic and melodic focus in the musical materials creates a hyp notic allure. The movement ends with the same chord repeated nine times. The third movement is dominated by the guitar, whose melodic and rhythmic lines are finely moulded. It is divided into three sections and a coda. The work concludes with the same bell-like resonances on the piano that were heard in the opening movement.60 Perhaps the most elaborate and complex of Klatzow's orchestral compositions is Incantations of 1984. The work, a single movement in ternary form, combines tonal ity, atonality, multitonal combinations, and octatonic passages. The composer's pro gram notes explain:

In many of the Shakespeare plays, music and magical transformations are very closely asso ciated. Whether it be the "solemn and strange" music of "the Tempest," or the delicate and ethereal music for the nocturnal fairies, it is melody and harmony which serve the intangible to the greatest advantage. Does music itself have the power to transform, or is it merely a nec essary adjunct? The word "Incantation" implies the former. These thoughts lay at the back of my mind when I began to compose my "Shakespeare" piece. Both the solemn and elfin musics have their place here, and they interact to produce complex orchestral textures. The strata between the mundane and the divine are symbolized by the simultaneous layers of unrelated tonalities—just as earth, air and sky range outwards from the centrepoints of our immediate awareness.61

The opening is played mostly staccato with rapid figuration revolving around three constituent pitches, A, Bb, and Db. A somber section ensues and leads to a chant like melody in the bassoons (see example 13), punctuated occasionally by brief, transitory passages from flute, vibraphones, gong, harp and double bass. When the chant recurs, it is accompanied by differing, sparse orchestral textures, emphasiz ing its austerity. The central section, featuring solo violin and tambourine, is an animated embellishment of the figure Bb-D-E, what the composer has declared to be his musical signature. It is at this stage that the "simultaneous layers of unre lated tonalities" become apparent with B major, Ab major, and D major featured concurrently and anticipating the material of the conclusion.

60 For a more detailed analysis of the work, see James May, "Peter Klatzow," in Composers in South Africa Today, 149-54. 61 Klatzow, Incantations for Orchestra (Claremont, South Africa: Musications, 1984).

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Ex. 12: Klatzow, Chamber Concerto for Seven, second movement, bars 12-14

Ex. 13: Klatzow, Incantations, bars 35-44

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There are five works for a solo instrument and orchestra, one each for cello, horn, organ, marimba and clarinet. The Organ Concerto, dedicated to Nadia Boulanger and composed in 1981, is scored for large orchestra and is in three movements all played uninterrupted. Its overarching structure reflects the three subdivisions of a sonata-form movement: The first movement represents the exposition; the sec ond, commencing with a cadenza for the solo instrument, the development; and the third, a passacaglia with ten variations, the recapitulation (see example 14, the passacaglia theme).62 James May has commented:

The overall structure leads from initial fluidity towards the final monumental form of the passacaglia in which the momentum is arrested and contained within the axis created by the passacaglia theme. The impression is gained of a gradually evolving centre of gravity in the work and the progression towards a tonal centre of C sharp.63

The Concerto for Marimba (1985) is accompanied by string orchestra, rather than full orchestra, to enhance the more gentle and refined timbre of the marimba. It is not hard to understand why this concerto has been popular, constituting an im portant contribution to the repertoire of this versatile instrument: It is exotic and accessible at the same time. The work is in three movements and is tonal through out. Tonality is highlighted in the last movement, which is explicitly in A major. The first movement, somber in tone, is built on the progressively elaborate recom position of a single theme. The disposition of the second movement is that of a monologue for the soloist, whilst the third movement is a rhythmic toccata. Klatzow's , written in Santorini and scored for soloist, strings and two horns, was completed in 1990.

Most of it was composed on a surprisingly good little piano in a bar perched perilously on a cliff overlooking the Aegean sea. During the day I composed, and later played remnants of my repertoire for the odd inhabitant grown weary of the endless discos on Santorini and for the cheer of the donkeys who carried fat tourists up the steep cliffs.64

The concerto consists of four movements and is cyclically arranged in that the first and last movements, both marked Allegretto with the same metronomic marking, are pastoral in style. The second movement is an impassioned scherzo written in an asymmetrical metre (see example 15, the primary clarinet theme), whilst the third contains an extended solo passage for clarinet in subdued tones and leads without interruption to the finale.

62 All variations retain the same five-bar format as the passacaglia theme. They are followed by an eight-bar coda in which a C-sharp pedal is held throughout on the organ pedals. Variations I, II, and VII are for solo organ, variations III, IX, and X for organ and orchestra and variation VIII for organ and brass culminating in a cadenza for organ. In variations IV, V and VI the organ is not used. The orchestral music is contrapuntally complex and includes a canon at the augmented fourth for trumpet and oboe in the fifth variation. For a detailed analysis of the concerto, see May, "Klatzow," in Composers in South Africa Today, 160-65. 63 Ibid., 160. 64 Klatzow, "Programme Notes."

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Ex. 14: Klatzow, Organ Concerto, third movement, bars 1-5

Ex. 15: Klatzow, Clarinet Concerto, second movement, bars 1-7

Finally, the full-length ballet Hamlet in two acts, composed in 1992, shows a rapprochement with tonality without completely abandoning Klatzow's previous atonal vocabulary. He collaborated with the choreographer Veronica Paeper, who adapted and reduced the five-act play by Shakespeare to two acts. The ninety minute score for full orchestra, extended percussion and synthesizer, was begun in 1988 and took only eighteen months to complete. The music is eclectic and includes lyrical melodies, abrupt syncopated gestures embracing wide, dissonant leaps, majestic, tonal court music, rich harmonies including dissonant sustained chords, pedal points, ostinatos, augmented triads and intervals, and major and mi nor vertical structures. Special colouristic effects are created by marimba, vibra phone and synthesizer. Characters are represented by specific musical themes and instruments, analogous to leitmotifs. The Ghost, for instance, is always represented by the synthesizer, Gertrude by the clarinet, Claudius by the trombone, Ophelia by various flutes, and Rosenkranz and Guildenstern by two bassoons. The com plex character of Hamlet is assigned to varying instruments and combinations. As Bertha Spies points out in her critical essay on the ballet:

By understanding and following the performative effects in Klatzow's music as they express the unfolding of the dramatic plot in the ballet, the music speaks to the listener in some kind of non-verbal language. . . . The successful fusion of dramatic plot, music, and movement effectively demonstrates the dilemma of Hamlet or, for that matter, any individual who is sensitive to psychological and moral dilemmas.65

Unlike Temmingh and Klatzow, who have substituted experimentalism for tonal ity, Hendrik Hofmeyr, the final composer under discussion from the third gen eration, has shown a consistent antipathy toward Romanticism in the form of a

65 Bertha Spies, "Peter Klatzow's Hamlet',' 65-84.

This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms South African Orchestral Music: Five Exponents 117 well-anchored tonal identity, virtuosic and extroverted gestures. Cyclic forms, such as sonata, ternary, variation and rondo, may underlie the structures of his music, but are not slavishly regimented. He studied at the conservatories of Florence and Bologna and currently holds the post of professor at the University of Cape Town.66 Composers exerting an especially profound influence on Hofmeyr's orchestral style include Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Szymanowski and van Wyk. His career in orches tral composition began in 1988 when he won first prize in an international com petition in Italy with his first orchestral work, Immagini da "II cielo sopra Berlino." This was followed in the late 1990s by a host of works, including, most notably, Raptus for solo violin and orchestra, lingoma, Apocalypsis, Sinfonia Africana, Ode to the West Wind and five concertos, one each for piano, flute, and cello, one for two pianos, and a for flute and violin. All the concertos are rigorously demanding, fully exploring their soloists' versatility and technical proficiency.67 In a recent essay on Hofmeyr's orchestral works I identify the hallmarks of his orchestral profile throughout his career as

... broad, sweeping, lyrical melodic lines which make use of leap and stepwise motion in the opposite direction, creating a sense of balance and symmetry; an organic approach to form revealed in his affection for traditional conceptions of form, involving the elaboration of large scale works from the initial material; an emphasis on rhythmic innovation that consistently finds expression through complex and shifting meters, and through rhythmic configurations such as cross rhythms, isorhythmic structures and hemiola patterns; a predilection for system atic contrapuntal devices including canon, fugue and fugato; and the utilization of the device of moto perpetuo in dance-like and frenetic sections In terms of his harmonic vocabulary, modular scales, particularly octatonic and hexatonic scales, are used extensively. Whole-tone scales are less common. Fourth-chords are significant, and the augmented fourth is incorpo rated for expressive purposes. In his neo-Classical works, Hofmeyr frequently employs what he terms "contaminated" triads—"triads with one extraneous note" creating unusual sound combinations. One other harmonic feature, the use of Phrygian inflections at cadences, sur faces so regularly in Hofmeyr's orchestral music, and indeed throughout his oeuvre, that it is practically a signature.68

66 See my detailed article on Hofmeyr entitled "Structure and Context in the Orchestral Composi tions of Hendrik Hofmeyr," Musicus 35 (2007): 57-71.1 extend my gratitude to Musicus for their kind permission to include sections of my article in the present publication. 67 See table 2 at the conclusion of this article, which enumerates all orchestral works. Hofmeyr's orchestral compositions have been well received in Europe. In 1997 two of them elicited major international awards: Raptus for violin and orchestra won the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Com petition; and Byzantium for soprano and orchestra became the winner of the first session of the Dimitris Mitropoulos Competition in Athens. Both works are programmatic. The latter features voice, and is based on a poem by Yeats in which "the fabled domed city is used as a metaphor for spiritual perfection, to which the soul can gain access only Elfter a process of purification, symbol ized by the imperial furnaces." See Hofmeyr, "Programme Notes," in Hofmeyr, Concerto perflauto e orchestra; Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra; Ingoma, Distell Foundation for the Performing Arts CDX02/002, 2002, compact disc. "Raptus" refers to "a state of transcendental rapture, and was in spired by the almost necromantic capacity of the violin to evoke that state." Ibid. In this work we witness Hofmeyr's ability to crystallize perfectly a particular mood as the work grows from two superimposed and interconnected motifs into a taut, powerfully evocative movement. 68 Franke, "Structure and Context in the Orchestral Compositions of Hendrik Hofmeyr," 58. Cross rhythm refers here to the device used strictly in Western classical composition and not to the

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In the three orchestral compositions, Iingoma, Umculo Wemvula (Rainmusic), and Sinfonia Africana, Hofineyr combines European art-music and indigenous African music traditions. He utilizes two traditional Xhosa melodies in Iingoma, while the "African" tune in Rainmusic employs elements of African style but is not derived from any specific tune, and in Sinfonia the only indigenous African element used is the irregular rhythmic groupings (3-2-3-2-2 in the outer movements, using a 12/8 time signature) that owe something to the asymmetric rhythm cycles found in much sub-Saharan African music.69 Sinfonia Africana, scored for soprano, chorus and orchestra, consists of three movements, and has strong programmatic connec tions. Each movement is based on a literary work by a South African poet. The inspiration for the first movement, a march in free rondo form, is the poem "The Song of South Africa" by Eugène Marais, whilst the programmatic reference for the second movement is D. J. Opperman's "Prayer for the Bones," and for the third, C. M. van den Heever's "Africa." The three poems expressly convey the transi tion from emotions of desolation and hopelessness to those of renewal and re vival, sentiments which are vividly portrayed and communicated in the music. Thematic interrelations between movements are significant, binding the work as a whole and establishing tight cohesion.70 The work has sparked much heated de bate in South Africa,71 with commentators, such as Stephanus Muller, arguing that Hofmeyr's unabashedly late-Romantic aesthetic and the use of older Afrikaans po etry are not compatible with the ideological position expected from a composer in post-apartheid South Africa. Muller emphasises that the employment of the "old" Afrikaans does not serve the overall program of the work, and that the music is of no relevance and interest to the broader part of the musical community of South Africa.72 Muller, however, makes no attempt to define what he means by "old" Afrikaans or to explain his objections to it. Hofmeyr, in contrast, has asserted that the musical rhetoric and poetry convey the trajectory of a work which strives to

inter-rhythm found in African indigenous music. It results from the accentuation of a melody conflict either with the normal strong beats of the bar or with the accents of another melody combined with it. 69 For discussion of such cycles in African indigenous music, see Simha Arom, African Polyphony and Polyrhythm: Musical Structure and Methodology, trans. Martin Thom, Barbara Tuckett, and Raymond Boyd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Kofi Agawu, "The Invention of African 'Rhythm,'" Journal of the American Musicological Society 48, no. 3 (1995): 380-95; and David Temperley, "Meter and Grouping in African Music: A View from Music Theory," Ethnomu sicology 44, no. 1 (2000): 65-96. The issue of additive rhythm is a contested one, and Hofmeyr's perspective is a Western one. For an African perspective on additive rhythm, see Meki Nzewi, A Contemporary Study of Musical Arts, vol. 4, Reflections and Explorations (Pretoria: Centre for Indigenous Instrumental African Music and Dance, 2007), 80-86, 91-93,114-15, and 243-48. 70 The three themes of the second movement, for example, are closely related to motives from the first movement, and the material of the third movement is connected to themes of both preceding movements. 71 See, for instance, Blake, "The Present-Day Composer Refuses to Budge," 131-34; and Muller, "'n Blik op die Resepsiegeskiedenis van Hendrik Hofmeyr se Sinfonia Africana," 19-23. 72 Muller, "'n Blik op die Resepsiegeskiedenis van Hendrik Hofmeyr se Sinfonia Africana•" 20.

This content downloaded from 146.230.187.77 on Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:27:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms South African Orchestral Music: Five Exponents 119 transcend nationalist intent or orientation. In an interview with Morné Bezuiden hout Hofmeyr stresses:

Members of the cultural police have seen fit to attack me for daring not to subscribe to their notion of what represents (depending on their own agendas) an Afrikaans, or South African style, or African style Western classical music has become an easy political target in this country, [South Africa] not because it is a Western import..., but because as an art form it requires time and effort. The practitioners of a simplistic "cultural critique" have no problem in connecting the dots from "requiring time and effort" to "elitist" to "anti-democratic" and thus "un-South African." I am South African, and, like many other South Africans, I find in Western Classical music a world which addresses the totality of my being in a way that no other music does.73

In Iingoma Hofmeyr does not employ intricate and complex refashioning tech niques. Rather, his borrowings of Thula Babana and Uqongqot'hwane are sponta neous and natural, retaining the Xhosa melodies in their original contexts with little or no elaboration. Whilst he respects the linear integrity of the borrowed melodies, he frequently explores the expressive potential of the harmonies in the form of contrapuntal elaboration and in the grouping and spacing of the orches tral voices in vertical combination. Particularly striking in Hofmeyr's music are his varied textures. This is immediately noticeable at the opening of Iingoma, where the indeterminate alignment of the parts and the juxtapositions of tunes result in a vocalization of clashing, tumultuous, and dissonant sounds highlighting brass and percussion instruments within a densely polyphonic setting. Out of the chaos, the African lullaby theme Thula Babana emerges quietly and unadorned on bas soon, resembling the manifestation of the Shaker tune "Simple Gifts" in Copland's Appalachian Spring (see example 16). In fact, there are parallels between the two works: These include the use of folk themes, the late-Romantic harmonic vocab ulary, and the manner in which the folk tune is persistently articulated unembel lished, with variety and contrast created through tone colour, dynamics, register and accompaniment, resulting in a cumulative effect. Whatever the extent of Cop land's influence, however, Hofmeyr's selection of thematic materials has less to do with a conscious nationalism than an attraction to, and an attempt to incorporate, indigenous, timeless African materials within a modern harmonic framework. In Iingoma the indigenous material provides an exotic colour that acts as a springboard for thematic, harmonic and timbrai development. The lullaby melody is used to the point of saturation with the entries repeated over an undulating, con stantly mutating accompaniment. By the time the second traditional Xhosa melody, Uqongqot'hwane, appears, its folk flavour and modal material seems to arise natu rally out of its surrounding musical environment. Within the coda, both motives are finally combined, creating a thick and sumptuous orchestral texture. The two melodies spin themselves out, entering into textures involving both chordal ac companiment and elements of counterpoint. Nowhere is Hofmeyr's sense of colour more vibrant or his approach to orchestration more adventurous.74

73 Morné Bezuidenhout, "An Interview with Hendrik Hofmeyr," Musicus 35, no. 2 (2007): 19-21. 74 Cf. Franke, "Structure and Context in the Orchestral Compositions of Hendrik Hofmeyr," 64.

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Ex. 16: Hofmeyr, Ingoma, bars 13-16

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Conclusion

I conclude by pointing out that the present study fulfills the modest function of pre senting a provisional survey of South African orchestral music. The first part of the article explores the foundation-building endeavours of the last decades of the nine teenth century and covers the background and status of orchestral music in the earlier twentieth century, a crucial period in the establishment of a solid musical infrastructure in the country. South African orchestral music, encompassing three generations of composers, reveals a mixture of many ingredients, as composers bor row from an array of traditions whilst cultivating a personal style. Accordingly, no centralized or universal musical nationalism or consciousness exists in the country; rather, a hybridized cultural national identity prevails that subsumes indigenous African, Malay and Afrikaans musical sources and influences. Whilst South African orchestral music includes references to an array of na tional cultures, it is clear that a compelling factor has been the influence of Euro pean modernism. The training of many South African composers, including the five under discussion, included study at European or American institutions, where they have absorbed the ideals, forms and techniques of European art music. Their or chestral music is thus strikingly European in conception, organization, material, and orchestration. It is also evident that South Africa's orchestral music is, for the most part, conservative, with composers preserving, and indeed safeguarding, tonal and conventional formal principles. The more traditional orientation is also reflected in a desire to project a clear-cut musical expressivity through an emphasis on thematic and melodic development, richly coloured textures, contrapuntal elab oration and distinct structural boundaries. As a consequence of this adoption of a more traditional and expressive tone, one can recognize a widespread interest in the cultivation of a more consistent and directly communicative language. Many truly worthy works currently in manuscript deserve to be published and recorded. The compositions selected for analysis here provide a cross-section of authentically rep resentative landmarks in the evolution of South African orchestral music, charting the innovations and experiments of several of its most distinctive composers.

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Table 1: Three Generations of South African Composers: A Selective List

FIRST GENERATION SECOND GENERATION THIRD GENERATION

Benjamin John Peter Tyamzashe Graham Newcater Jacques de Vos Malan 1890-1978 b. 1941 b. 1953 Reuben Caluza Carl van Wyk Peter Louis van Dijk 1895-1969 b. 1942 b. 1953 Stephanus Le Roux Marais John Simon Johan Cloete 1896-1979 b. 1944 b. 1957 Priaulx Rainier Peter Klatzow Barry Jordan 1903-1986 b. 1945 b. 1957 Gideon Fagan Mziwabantu Dubula Hendrik Hofmeyr 1904-1980 b. 1945 b. 1957 Michael Moerane Roelof Temmingh David Kosviner 1909-1981 b. 1946 b. 1957 Joshua Mohapeloa Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph John Coulter 1908-1982 b. 1948 b. 1958 Rosa Nepgen Kevin Volans David Honigsberg 1909-2000 b. 1949 1959-2005 Blanche Gerstman Michael Blake Dirk de Klerk 1910-1973 b. 1951 b. 1959 Arnold van Wyk David Earl Phelelani Mnomiya 1916-1983 b. 1951 b. 1960 Hubert du Plessis Hans Roosenschoon Niel van der Watt 1922-2011 b. 1952 b. 1962 Stefans Grove Christopher James Surendendran Reddy b. 1922 1952-2008 1962-2010 Cromwell Everson Mokale Koapeng 1925-1991 b. 1963 Stanley Glasser Hannes Taljaaard b. 1926 b. 1971 John Joubert Bongani Ndodana-Breen b. 1927 b. 1975 Dawid Engela Robert Fokkens 1931-1967 b. 1975 Mzilikazi Khumalo Jan-Hendrik Harley b. 1932 b. 1980 Malcolm Forsyth 1936-2011 Albrecht Holm b. 1937

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Table 2: Orchestral Compositions of the Five South African Composers (selective lists)

Arnold van Wyk

1942: Saudade for solo violin and orchestra 1943: Symphony No. 1 in A Minor 1943: Suiderkruis 1952: Symphony No. 2 (Sinfonia ricercata) I960: Primavera 1961: Fantasia in F minor for piano and orchestra (arr. of Schubert, D. 940) 1963: Maskerade 1966: Gebede by Jaargetye in die Boland 1974: Quasi Variationi for piano and orchestra

Stefans Grove

1948: Elegy for Strings 1956: Sinfonia concertante 1959: Violin Concerto 1962: Symphony 1970: 1974: Concerto Grosso 1978: Kettingrye (Chain Rows) 1986: Dance Rhapsody 1988: Concertato Overture: Five Salutations on Two Zulu themes 1994: Invocation from the Hills and Dances in the Plains 1996: Raka: Symphonic Poem in the Form of a Concerto for piano and orchestra 2004: Meditations for chamber orchestra 2005: Concertino for Flute, Viola and Chamber Orchestra

Peter Klatzow

1966: Nagstuk 1971: Interactions I for piano, percussion and chamber orchestra 1972: Symphony: Phoenix 1972: The Temptation of St Anthony for violin and orchestra 1974: Time Structure II for orchestra and tape 1975: Still Life with Moonbeams 1976: Night Magic I 1978: Concerto for Horn and Orchestra

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1979: Chamber Concerto for Seven 1980: Sound Sculpture: Reflections of the City 1981: Concerto for Organ and Orchestra 1984: Incantations 1985: Concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra 1986: Citiscape for large orchestra 1989: Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra 1992: Hamlet (ballet in two acts) 1993: Concerto for Flute, Marimba, and Strings 1994: Tintinyane 1995: Concerto for Piano and Eight Instruments 2001: Concerto for Organ and String Orchestra 2005: Three Paintings of Irma Stern

Roelof Temmingh

1968: Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra 1970: Movement for piano and orchestra 1972: Lobola 1974: Symphony No. 1 1975: Symphony No. 2 1978: Symphony No. 3 (die Winterbruid) 1978: No. 1 1982: Radar 1 1983: Organ Concerto No. 1 1985: Oboe Concerto No.2 1985: Radar 2 1988: Drie Sonnette 1988: Natal Festival Overture 1989: 1992: Cello Concerto 1993: Organ Concerto No. 2 2004: 2005: Concert Overture 2005: Konsert vir Twee Klaviere en Orkes 2009: Clarinet Concerto 2009: Piano Concerto No. 2 2009: Violin Concerto

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Hendrik Hofmeyr

1988: Immagini da "II cielo sopra Berlino" 1996: Suite from "Alice" 1996: Raptus for solo violin and orchestra 1997: Byzantium (W. B. Yeats) for high voice and orchestra 1998: Iingoma (1st version) 1998: Iingoma (2nd version) 1998: Apocalypsis 1998: Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra 1999: Concerto per flauto e orchestra 2000: Simulacrum 2001: Umculo Wemvula (Rainmusic) 2002: Concerto per violino e flauto 2004: Concerto per due pianoforti 2005: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra 2007 : Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra 2010: The four-note overture 2010: Concerto for Baritone Saxophone and Orchestra

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