Doctoral Degrees (Music)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Music) by browse.metadata.advisor "Grobler, Pieter"

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    Windows on South African Art Music in the European Tradition
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-12) Ludemann, Winfried; Grobler, Pieter
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Although South African art music in the European tradition has a history of almost one hundred years, no comprehensive overview of this tradition has yet been written. Nine articles on widely diverging topics, written over the course of seventeen years, are brought together in this senior doctoral dissertation in an attempt to highlight some particularly relevant aspects of this tradition. They represent the “windows” through which the tradition is viewed. Besides studies on a number of landmark works and their composers, the compilation also includes contributions of a more conceptual nature. The changing musical culture in our country provides the context within which to subject South African art music in the European tradition to a comprehensive critique and to grapple with the question of its future. These considerations provide the frame within which the various topics are considered. They include the difficult matter of music and cultural diversity, the intellectual and aesthetic history of the Music Department of Stellenbosch University as well as the insufficiently understood and explored musical potential of the Afrikaans language, especially in respect of choral music. In addition, particularly pertinent examples of patriotic music from the era of Afrikaner nationalism are examined, compared to similar music elsewhere, and categorised. The focus falls on a number of songs and a work of symphonic proportions, Suid-Afrika – Nag en Daeraad by Hubert du Plessis. This is followed by a comprehensive discussion of textual and contextual aspects of Arnold van Wyk’s symphonic suite Primavera. In the latter part of his life the conductor and composer Gideon Fagan contributed a number of large-scale compositions to the creative tradition in question. Two of these, Karoo Symphony, an important example of landscape music, and the oratorio Een Vaderland are analysed in respect of their artistic intent and stylistic characteristics. The least-known composer in the compilation, whose life and work is brought to attention for the first time, is Jan Coetzee. His biographical details are documented, while the characteristics of his uncompromisingly modernist music are examined and placed into a wider perspective. A discussion of one of the more recent and arguably most significant additions to the repertoire of South African art music, Roelof Temmingh’s Kantorium, represents the last window on this creative tradition. A conclusion, in which the diverging perspectives are drawn together and future prospects are evaluated, ends with the hope that art music will find a meaningful place within the “poly-phonic” concert which is South African music and with the submission that it will have an important contribution to make to the intellectual and artistic future of the country.