Search

Whereas writings on African melodies have addressed their structures, shapes and forms, the way characteristic traits such as cadential practices aid to nuance the musics of different ethnolinguistic groups remains largely undocumented. Relying on Ogu songs, this article argues that there are group-specific stylistic practices that nuance the melodies of West African peoples. It examines ten songs selected from bands in Badagry (Lagos State, Nigeria), in the public domain, and the work of two iconic Ogu musicians from the Republic of Benin. The analyses reveal that Ogu melodies often display two important focal tones that share different aspects of 'tonic function' between them: an important tonal centre, and the primary resting note which assumes the status of a concluding tone at cadences. This and other stylistic characteristics and conventions could signal Ogu sensibilities in songs. These findings engage and extend previous descriptions of West African melodies by Kubik (1968), Ekwueme (1980), Kwami (1992) and Agawu (2016). The article concludes that there is a need to devote attention to the specifics of all musical practices in Africa, since artistic nuances on the continent could be glossed over when focusing only on regionally dominant practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

N. P. Van Wyk Louw's epic poem Raka (1941) is one of the most significant works in the Afrikaans literary canon. In the seven decades since its first publication, it has given rise to a varied interpretive discourse, comprising, of course, literary criticism, but also translations, and - importantly for the present context - creative responses (literary or otherwise) to the poem, in which the original functions as an intertext or a subtext. Stefans Grové (b. 1922) composed such a creative response to Raka, subtitled A symphonic poem in the form of a concerto for piano and orchestra (1996), and this article argues that this work makes two unique contributions to the Raka discourse: It complicates the rigid dualisms in the poem that many previous readings have identified in the poem, and it contributes to a postcolonial understanding of the Afrikaner in Africa. Most early interpretations of Van Wyk Louw's Raka centre on the identification of specific dualisms in the piece that are understood to represent its conceptual core. An obvious example of such a dualism is Koki/Raka, also understood as good/evil, where Koki represents the prophetic outsider that tries to defend cultural heritage, and Raka represents the primitive and violent forces that threaten the continued existence of culture. A related dualism (emerging from the Koki/Raka dualism) is culture/nature, which is also understood as good/evil, since "nature" in this reading stands for the absence of or disregard for culture. More recent interpretations, partaking of a postmodern spirit, have sought to understand such dualisms in terms of a relationship with an Other that is different rather than evil, and have criticised a perceived colonialist import in the "message" of the poem especially in its traditional interpretations. This article illustrates Stefans Grové' contribution to such more recent responses to Van Wyk Louw's poem. Stefans Growé's Music from Africa series has attracted some musicological criticism concerning issues that are especially pressing in his Raka concerto: his "Africanist" series of compositions have been criticised as neo-colonialist and inauthentic, since they present self-composed materials in an African-inspired style as "African" music, thereby displacing "authentic" Africa. In a composition based on a text as central to Afrikaner culture as Raka, the question of authenticity is especially pressing, since the subtext highlights questions about the Afrikaner's place in Africa. Stephanus Muller (2006:26) has argued that Grové's Raka "restores to [Afrikaner culture] (and art music with it) its local space", and this article interrogates Muller's observation musically. Grové uses similar musical materials (pentatonic diatonicism) to represent the African landscape (including bird call transcriptions) and Koki's tribe that lives within it, and the representation of the tribal music bears some affinity to the tonal structures implied by the uhadi. In this way, the music portrays an idealised pre-industrial life that critiques the negative impact that Western colonialism has had on the intimate relationship between Africa and her people. Moreover, the identification of Africa with the tribe through musical materials complicates the dualism nature/culture. Raka's (chromatic) musical materials contrast with those of Koki/the tribe/the African landscape, and yet this dualism (Raka/Koki) is also problematised in the music by means of the instrumentation: although the piano most often represents Raka, it is also involved in the characterisation of the other set of concepts, nature/tribe/Koki. A structuralist interpretation of Van Wyk Louw's Raka as sign might understand the Afrikaans poetry as the signifier and the events of the story as the signified. Because the story is set in an idealised fantasy of pre-industrial Africa and told in the voice of cultivated Afrikanerdom, authentic Africa can be understood to function as a "silent signified" in such a reading. By contrast, Stefans Grové's piano concerto replaces the Afrikaans poetry that has acted as the signifier with a musical narration that silences, so to speak, the voice of the Afrikaner and bestows a voice on the African landscape and its original inhabitants (through the transcribed bird calls and the possible connection with the ubadi), thereby contributing to a postcolonial interpretation of Van Wyk Louw's Raka. In this way, Grové's Raka strives to relocate the Afrikaner in Africa through an aesthetic gesture, offered in conjunction with the expression of the desire for a profound bond with the land and the wealth of its indigenous cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a multi-layered intertextual reading of the "Elegia" from Van Wyk's Duo Concertante for viola and piano. The intertexts that "converse with" Van Wyk's piece in this article highlight aspects of that composition not immediately obvious without such intertextual perspectives. Two of these intertexts have an obvious connection to the "Elegia" and constitute intuitively suggestive texts for interrogation: Martin Peerson's The Fall of the Leafe from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book was identified as a model for the "Elegia" by the composer on the sketch drafts and programme notes, and Gerald Finzi's The Fall of the Leaf (Elegy for Orchestra), opus 20, in turn is identified with that same intertext through its title, and, possibly, through musical references. The third intertext represents a more unusual intertextual practice, in that the intertext is a musical fragment by Arnold van Wyk himself, which he invented, by his own testimony, about twelve years before the completion of the first version of the Duo, and which he used as the main theme of the "Rondo" in the Duo. This article argues that Van Wyk wanted to embody the "extra-musical" concept of 'prophecy' through this musical idea, and traces the role of the musical idea through the composition process of the Duo. This idea and its associations for Van Wyk, like the other two intertexts that command attention here, contribute towards the construction of radical new understandings of the "Elegia" and the Duo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]