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

12.3 Summary 347
Western. It was only towards the middle of the twentieth century that composers started to search
for a peculiarly "African style" of choral composition. Composers found inspiration in the hymns
of Ntsikana and in the recordings of traditional song material like the Zulu bow songs of Princess
Magogo. Mzilikazi Khumalo, who was at the forefront of this development, started to experiment
with traditional linguistic elements like the tonal glides in form of "grace-notes". In his latest
composition, Khumalo attempted to realise an ''African style" in several large-scale works.
The five periods reveal a clear development in the use of African musical elements at the expense
of Western ones. From the early twentieth century, composers consciously attempted to rediscover
and continue African folk tradition by incorporating and imitating elements of traditional
song material in their compositions. These compositions are also marked by a constant process of
negotiation of the traditional and the modern. As argued in the first part of this thesis, this process
of negotiation has been a central aspect of black middle class communities throughout the nineteenth
and twentieth century. Though initially assimilation and imitation were the main strategies in
the struggle to win the recognition of the dominant European culture, this changed decisively towards
the turn of the century when the black middle class began to question their rejection of their
African cultural heritage in favour of an exclusive imitation of Western culture. This re thinking
came at a time when the black middle class found themselves caught between their own culture
which they had left and the Western culture to which they aspired, and belonging to neither of
them. They started to redefine their identity and began to form ideas of a national culture, emphasising
the process of negotiation between traditional and Western values. Their growing awareness
of their African roots, which culminated in the black consciousness movement and later in the African
Renaissance, had a decisive influence on the stylistic development of amakwqya composers and
their compositions. That the process of negotiation has remained a central concern of amakwqya
compositions to the present day is illustrated not least in the project of creating an African opera, in
which a Western art form is used to express African content. Princess Magogo kaDinizulu may be regarded
as the latest example of a process of negotiation that started early in the twentieth century
with the rise of African nationalism.
What is the vision of amakwqya composers for the future?
Mokale Koapeng is convinced that the question of whether "we are taking African music towards
[Western] classical music, or... [Western] classical music towards African music" is going to
become less relevant. Koapeng's answer reminds us of a similar statement of Mzilikazi Khumalo,
which, though quoted earlier, I want to repeat at this point because of its significance: "I think that
finally our music is going to develop by sometimes taking a few things from something of world
music. I don't think you can get any music to develop completely on its own, on the things that
come from that music alone... Each and every tradition gets enriched by what the world has
t
" 176 go .
To amakwaya composers this report of Khumalo's views should be of interest:
[C]horal music of the future should dig to our roots and unearth the wealth of songs that formed the
basis of our traditional communities. In his view, these must be sung and arranged to modern instruments
to establish a continuity with the past while at the same time allowing us to fully realise the ideals
of an African Renaissance humanism or whatever appellation one may wish to add.m
Koapeng considers that one of the central questions that will have to be discussed in future is:
"can we allow ourselves [as composers] to be different and interest choirs to stretch themselves
176 Personal communication with Mzilikazi Khumalo,]ohannesburg, SAMRO, February 13, 2001.
177 Mzi1ikazi Khumalo quoted from a research paper written by Thembela Vokwana for Radio Ulwazi, 2001.