The Influences of Traditional African Melodies in Luameravas Legend

The programmatic content of the title is directly related to the legend of Luamerava, and there are clear influences of traditional African melodic material. Hofmeyr specifically references mbira music in this work. The mbira is a traditional African instrument which belongs to the lamellaphone family. It is an instrument with a series of thin plates, each which is fixed at one end and has the other end free. When the musician depresses the free end of a plate with a finger, the released plate vibrates, creating the sound we hear.

Ingoma is also worth mentioning because Hofmeyr directly quotes musical material from two songs that originated on the east coast of South Africa the traditional isiXhosa lullaby Thula, babana and the isiXhosa wedding song uQongqot’hwane also known as the Xhosa click-song. This worked is scored for orchestra and divided into four parts: a prelude, “Ninna-nanna – Thula Babana,” “Danza – uQongqot’hwane,” and the postlude. As in their traditional settings, the melodies are repeated several times with a gradual variation and accumulation of accompanying textures.

In Ingoma the flute introduces the melodic material from the song uQongqot’hwane. Hofmeyr then use these intervals in a broken pattern in the string section as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Ingoma, use of traditional melody mm.

Like Grov? and Klatzow, Hofmeyr uses various methods to make integration possible in his music. Often this evocation of integration occurs in the imagination instead of through written out concrete structures on the page.

This may happen by giving pieces indigenous names that help the listener come to the piece with pre-conceived sound ideals, thus evoking a certain mood or emotion to the work.

South African composers born in the first half of the twentieth century were attracted to graduate studies outside of South Africa mainly in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. This phenomenon existed because the opportunities to receive quality music education above under graduate-level was basically non-existent. Therefore, prominent teachers such as Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, Nadia Boulanger, Aaron Copland, and Gyorgy Ligeti were among those who inspired the next generation of composers in South Africa. The composers that I have highlighted all returned to South Africa after their studies or a short tenure at universities abroad. Although many of them experimented with the integration of traditional South African music and Western art music upon their return, Temmingh remained strongly within the tradition of the education abroad he received abroad.

Each one of the three white contemporaries of Temmingh discussed viewed integration through a different lens. Stefans Grov? lived in the United States for two decades during the height of the Civil Rights movement and returned to South Africa referring to himself as an ‘African person’ who wrote ‘African music.’ Peter Klatzow studied in the United Kingdom and France during the early 1960s and returned acknowledging that integrating various musical styles in South Africa might be a great social vehicle for reconciliation when done with caution. Lastly, Hendrik Hofmeyr made a bold statement against Apartheid by going into self-imposed exile to Italy for a decade.

Grov?, Klatzow, and Hofmeyr presented the integration of Western European culture and traditional or native South African culture in their own respective ways. These included various methods from incorporating native languages into the work, such as in Klatzow’s A Mass for Africa, to giving the pieces titles that reference African culture, like Hofmeyr’s Ingoma or Grov?’s “Mbira Song Carried by the Night Breezes” from Songs and Dances from Africa. It is important to be aware that these so-called ‘African’ influences are more obviously present in some works than in others.

Given the examples of integration in the works of Grov?, Klatzow, and Hofmeyr, I suggest that the compositions by Roelof Temmingh can prompt discussion regarding musical influences in the context of an integrated society. For example, within the dichotomy of integration versus segregation with integration being the positive and segregation the negative is it necessary for musical identity and culture to reflect this integration for such a society to be successful? By examining Temmingh’s work, I suggest that the alternative to integrated musical ideas is not segregation, but rather that there is space to recognize the existence of a middle ground. I present these questions to initiate discussions around how to contextualize the music of Roelof Temmingh within the scope of a post-Apartheid South Africa. In the following chapter I explore the life of Roelof Temmingh and his compositional style. I address how he acclimated as composer after his graduate studies in Europe, by examining his approach to cross-cultural integration.