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

13.2 The Significance ofOratorio: Mngoma's Ionian Choir and Handel's Messiah
• 1967: Verdi Requiem;
• 1968: Handel Messiah;
• 1969: Bach 5t. Matthew Passion;
• 1970: Haydn 5even ust Wordr;
The concert activities of the Ionian Music Society were not confined to Johannesburg. Langa
Nkosi, adjudicator of the National Choir Festival, remembers being impressed by Mngoma's per­
formances:
I was very young... [when Khabi Mngoma] came to present his music in the different provinces... So
that choir influenced a lot of choirs because it would go around the country singing. During Easter,
every Easter, it would go down to Durban to the YMCA and sing. It had a lot of influence on us as well.
So that's one choir that sung mosdy away from competitions. And again it's the choir among the black
choirs that started singing choral music with accompaniment. Then they started singing the works, the
Messiah, the Judas Maccabaeus, you knoW; in South Africa, and that is the choir that had the fIrst group of
violinists, I mean an orchestra. So that had a lot of influence as well.50
George Mxadana has similar memories of performances that "were elements of joy for most of
us". The Ionian Choir inspired the creation of many "excellent choirs" in Johannesburg, as
Mxadana goes on to explain:
We used to have something like a concert a week or maybe once a month or once in two months. We
had the Capedium [Choir conducted by Jabulani Mazibuko] maybe going there and performing The Creation.
51 Then we would have the Ionian [Choir] performing Judas Maccabaeus... And then we would have
the Pretoria Adult Choir doing some other things, and there were many other choirs... I mean these
choirs that I just have mentioned, these choirs really belong to the early, early ages of choral music in the
country. But they did a lot of contribution... I mean those were really what you may call role models in
the African singing. They really were absolutely excellent. The Ionian had also a lot of people who were
excellent soloists as well... And remember that the f1rst African group to have an orchestra trained by
Khabi Mngoma was the Ionian [Music Society]. They were the f1rst group to have African instrumentalists.
52
Khabi Mngoma's concerts, tours, and workshops triggered a process of restructuring repertoire.
In the 1970s a cappella music was still part of amakwqya performance repertoire, but the trend was
clearly towards Western art music composed with accompaniment. In a 1961 review in The Rand
DailY Mail the critic asserted that "both [The Creation] and the earlier, higWy successful performance
of [The Messiah] have shown how much Africans enter into the spirit of oratorio".53 Mngoma's promotion
of the view that "the introduction of instrumental accompaniment is gradually helping the
problem of intonation", resulted in many competitions starting to prescribe repertoire taken
exclusively from oratorios and masses. 54 Thulasizwe Nkabinde, Conductor of the SABC Choir in
Johannesburg, explains that the rationale behind this move was Mngoma's conception of improving
intonation amongst amakwqya groups: "If you keep on singing a cappella stuff, we will never solve
50 Personal communication with Langa Nkosi, Johannesburg, July 20, 2000.
51 The performances caused quite a stir and received wide coverage. For reviews of the concerts with piano accompaniment
given in the Selborne Hall, Orlando, see The Star (August 26,1961) and (September 8, 1961), and The Rand DailY
Mail (September 26,1961). The follow-up concerts done with a small orchestra are covered by The Star (November 25,
1961), and The Rand DailY Mail (November 7,1961) and (November 25, 1961).
52 Personal communication with George Mxadana, Johannesburg, February 08, 2001.
53 The Rand DailY Mail (November 7, 1961).
54 Personal communication with Thulasizwe Nkabinde, Johannesburg, July 17, 2000.
359