Browsing by Author "Viviers, Etienne"
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- ItemA critique of the survival anxieties that inform South African discourses about Western art music(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03) Viviers, Etienne; Muller, Stephanus; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Music.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates how survival anxieties have influenced the often unacknowledged ideology of Western art music in South Africa. The approach taken in this thesis to understand the articulations of survival that inform local musical/musicological discourse, is structured according to three compound parts. First, this study provides an overview of how positivism and formalism shaped the knowledge horizon of South African musicology, and how critical insights gathered from the “new musicology” gradually challenged the philological purgatory that meant to secure the endurance of Western art music (and by extension ”Western civilization”) in South Africa. This discussion leads into a comprehensive analysis of the J.M. Coetzee essay ”What Is A Classic?”, which uses T.S. Eliot‘s eponymous essay about the ideologically disinterested survival of Virgil‘s poetry to argue for an equivalent phenomenon in J.S. Bach‘s music. In opposition to Coetzee, I then contend that stripping the canon of Western art music from problematic ideological interpretations – i.e. deliberately placing these works inside the philological purgatory – denotes a hegemonic practice-based tactic aimed at safeguarding musical “classics” and civilisation from the anticipated onslaught of a destructive “barbarism”. Secondly, this study examines how Oswald Spengler‘s and Arnold Toynbee‘s foundational international discourses about civilisation‘s decline and survival were adopted in South Africa, up to the point where they significantly impacted on apartheid‘s ideology, through the construction of intellectual paradigms like the Afrikaner poet C.M. van den Heever‘s Die Afrikaanse Gedagte. Spengler‘s and Toynbee‘s discourses are furthermore compared with the Afrikaner discourse about “survival in justice” (voortbestaan in geregtigheid) formulated by N.P. van Wyk Louw, and subsequently responded to by prominent resistance figures such as Breyten Breytenbach and André P. Brink. In determining how these crucial international and local survival discourses filtered through into musicology, the focus shifts onto the Marxist sociological critiques published by the South African musicologist Klaus Heimes during the mid-1980s, and the politically sensitive critiques of the Western art music establishment published by Stephanus Muller in the period immediately after apartheid‘s abolishment. This is followed by an investigation into how Afrikaners used teleological concepts like Die Pad van Suid-Afrika to subvert Spengler‘s pessimistic prediction that Western civilisation was doomed to an inevitable cyclical decline. It is demonstrated how anxieties about this eventuality triggered a national obsession, during the 1930s, with maintaining racial purity through psychological construction of the “laager mentality”. Emphasis is given to understanding how the anthem “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika”, due to its exploitation during the Great Trek centenary celebrations, and due to its luminescent encapsulation inside the Voortrekker Monument, universalised Afrikaner nationalism into an utopian worldview, where the self-preservation of a few hundred pioneer migrants at the 1838 Battle of Bloedrivier was interpreted as a providential guarantee for Afrikanerdom‘s South African hegemony and survival in perpetuity. Thirdly, this study discusses two post-apartheid examples where musical/musicological discourse remains chained to pre-democratic ideals about cultural survival. Both of these examples are relevant to Stellenbosch in particular. The first example concerns the vehement reception discourse generated after the world premiere performance of Hendrik Hofmeyr‘s Sinfonia africana on 19 August 2004. This work, which was commissioned by the Stellenbosch-based group Vriende van Afrikaans, set the poetry of three historical Afrikaans poets to music within a teleological narrative that moves from despair to hope, and claims to be applicable to the entire African continent‘s humanity. Examination takes place of the exhaustive newspaper discourse of audience members who defended Hofmeyr and his symphony against an ideological critique that Stephanus Muller published in a review of the premiere performance. It is revealed how this Stellenbosch-driven discourse centres largely around heated political arguments about the survival of Afrikaans. Consequently, it is also pointed out as deeply problematic that Sinfonia africana‘s final movement pays tribute to the Spengler-inspired “white” supremacist philosophy contained in C.M. van den Heever‘s Die Afrikaanse Gedagte, by setting to climactic music his poem “Afrika”. The thesis then concludes with a second musical example of post-apartheid survival anxiety that is relevant to Stellenbosch in particular. Winfried Lüdemann‘s professorial inaugural lecture is subjected to a thorough critique that scrutinises the complicated evolutionary theoretical framework he uses to advocate for the institutional safekeeping of “Western” and “South African” art music at the Stellenbosch University Music Department. In contrast to Lüdemann‘s petition, this thesis finally argues for the deliberate miscegenation (versmelting) of diverse musics in order to undermine the essentialised identities forced on the South African cultural landscape by apartheid‘s Kuyperian fetish for segregation.
- Item'n Kritiese beskouing van Winfried Ludemann se teoretisering oor 'n musikale versoeningsdialoog(LitNet Akademies, 2020) Viviers, EtienneIn sy gewigtige en komplekse teoretisering oor musiek, kulturele diversiteit, menswaardigheid en Suid-Afrikaanse demokrasie formuleer Winfried Lüdemann ’n metodologie – of selfs ’n bloudruk – wat die georganiseerde beskerming van postapartheid Suid-Afrika se musiekkulturele diversiteit voorstaan. Sy voorgestelde aksie van dialoogvoering word aangebied as ’n versoeningsmeganisme waarsonder die moontlikheid van ’n multikulturele demokrasie ongedaan gemaak kan word. Alhoewel die teoretiese raamwerk van Lüdemann se gedagtegang ingewikkelde invalshoeke aan onder andere paleomusikologie en ekumeniese teologie ontleen, is daar ’n ongekompliseerde samevalling tussen sy betoog vir die beskerming van musiekkulturele diversiteit en eietydse, spesifiek Afrikaanse veldtogte by universiteite vir die beskerming van taaldiversiteit in postapartheid Suid-Afrika. In hierdie artikel word uitvoerig ondersoek ingestel na die spesifieke gedagtes en redenerings wat Lüdemann in hierdie verband met musiek se beskerming voorhou. Tesame met die uitwysing van enkele drogredenasies in sy voorgestelde sillogistiese metode om musiekkulturele diversiteit te implementeer en in stand te hou, word in hierdie artikel verskil met sy mening dat multikulturele samelewings se vreedsame naasbestaan afhanklik is van musikale interaksie en ’n versoenende musikale dialoogvoering rondom die gemeenskaplike waarde van menslikheid of menswaardigheid. Melding word gemaak van hoe enige toepassing van Lüdemann se voorgestelde metodologie of bloudruk onopsetlik die anachronistiese kulturele landskap van apartheid sou ondersteun in ’n scenario waar monistiese musiekkulture mekaar op ’n denkbeeldige tussengrond moet probeer ontmoet en daarna met mekaar ’n versoeningsdialoog voer. Indringende vrae word gestel oor sy opvatting dat veral Westerse en Suid-Afrikaanse kunsmusiek beskerm moet word om te dien as bolwerk teen die eenvormige versmelting van musiekkulturele diversiteit en die daarmee gepaardgaande en oënskynlike ongedaanmaking van Suid-Afrika se postapartheid demokrasie. Lüdemann se oortuiging dat interkulturele dialoogvoering met musiek nie deur middel van vertaling kan gebeur nie, word ook aan kritiese bevraagtekening onderwerp.