South African Choral Music (Amakwaya): Song, Contest and the ...

144 Music at the Mission Station and the Importance ofthe Hymn
5.5 Musical Innovations, Structural Influences and the Secularisation of the
Hymn
Because of the obviouslY very keen oral tradition,
those harmonies were picked up and
then thry infiltrated into our singing. EspeciallY
in areas which were Christian areas,
mainlY along the coast along Kwa Zulu Natal
and even in the Cape bifore the Christians
moved inland. IOf
It is important to understand the sweeping effect that the musical education imparted by the missionaries
had on their converts, resulting in amakwqya choral practice. When mission-trained musicians
started to compose in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, they initiated a long tradition
of mainly choral compositions both secular and sacred. Composers like John Knox Bokwe, Rev.
Tiyo Soga and Enoch Sontonga, who in 1897 composed the Xhosa hymn, Nkosi Sikelei'iAfrika
(God bless Africa)102, built almost exclusively on their experience of the hymns and psalms taught
by the missionaries. In most of their compositions the only African aspect was the vernacular lyrics.
The musical structure, the shape of the melodies and the choice of harmonies, however, were almost
exclusively influenced by Western music. At this point it is enough to say that the musical
background of early composers was mainly restricted to the mission stations and the musical practice
introduced by the missionaries. I will, however, return to the historical development of African
amakwqya choral compositions at a later stage of this thesis, when I look at the repertoire performed
by amakwqya groups. 103
Musa Xulu remarks that "hymns no longer feature in most schools in Kwazulu and Natal" and
have been replaced by "amakhorasi which are more in line with the African thought patterns on song
structure".104 Xulu is certainly correct in his observation that the practice of hymn singing has undergone
a decisive process of change. One must not forget, however, that elements of the current
singing practice show the influence of the Western hymn. Nearly all the neo-traditional music that
exists today in South Africa has evolved from the African encounters with European culture, and
hymns in particular can be regarded as an important source of most the musical genres performed
by black South Africans today. Bongani Mthethwa agrees that "modern African popular music is an
offshoot of the baroque hymn. The baroque hymn is therefore the most influential music genre in
South Africa today".lOs According to Musa Xulu, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
the secularisation of the hymns was responsible for the emergence of many new musical styles,
101 Personal communication with Ludumo Magangane,Johannesburg,July 18, 2000.
102 Enoch Mankayi Sontonga, from the Mpinga clan of the Xhosa nation, was born in the Eastern Cape circa 1873. He
obtained his training as a teacher at Lovedale Institution and was later sent to a Methodist mission school in Nancefield,
near Johannnesburg. In 1897, Enoch Sontonga composed "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrica" (God bless Africa), which became
the most famous South African freedom song. It was the anthem of the ANC for decades before becoming part of the
official national anthem of South Africa after the first democratic elections in April 1994. The tunes of the national
anthems of Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe are based on this same hymn.
103 See Chapter 12 for a detailed discussion on the historical development of South African choral compositions in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries
104 M. Xulu, "Socio-Political Change and the National Anthem in South Africa: A Critical Appraisal of 'Nkosi Sikelel'
iAfrika"'. Papers Presented at the 10 th Symposium on Ethnomusic%gy, Rhodes University, 1991 (Grahamstown: International
Library of African Music, 1995): 165.
105 B. Mthethwa, 1988: 28; Mthethwa's use of the term 'baroque' is probably a misuse of the term. Nineteenth century
hymns derive from the hymns of the Lutheran Church that were composed in a simple harmonic form that opposed
the complexities of baroque polyphony. See above, 5.2.1 for more details.