Doctoral Degrees (Music)

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An Anthology of Existence: Explorations into the Life and Works of Christopher Langford James (1952 - 2008)
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12) Rontsch, Marc Anton; Muller, Stephanus; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Christopher James Collection (CJC) in the Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS) at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, consists of over 100 boxes containing material ranging from hand-written manuscript scores, personal correspondences and diary entries. James was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and studied composition at the University of Pretoria before doing a Doctorate of Musical Arts (DMA) at the University of Cincinnati on a Fullbright bursary. As a composer, James’s style conflated traditional European musical textures with southern African instrumentation, rhythms and harmonies. His compositions include works such as Four portraits for pianoforte in four movements (1982), Songs of lamentation and remonstration (1985), Images of Africa (1987) and Paradise Regained (1999). James was also the original orchestrator of Mzilikazi Khumalo’s musical epic uShaka KaSenzangakhona. James’s music has not received significant attention from performers or musicologists, both during his life and posthumously. Because of this, the archive has become the main source of information in writing the untold story of James’s life. This projects is thus the first exploration into James’s life and music, explorations done through the lenses of archive theory, life-writing/(auto)-biographical theory and musicology. Discussions of selections of James’s music are found within the narrative of his life, a narrative which is structured around the location where James lived during a point in his life’s chronology. The selection criteria for which works have been selected for discussion is informed by the archive: namely the presence of recordings, frequency of the work appearing in letters and diary entries, and works being mentioned by interview participants. This dissertation thus aims not only to present critical discussions of James’s music as read through his life story, but also to explore the possibilities and limitations of the “life-and- works study” paradigm, and experiment with a structural framework which integrates musicological discussions with narrative ones. This work also probes the post-colonial problematic of location, place and ideas of “home” through structural devices.
Arnold van Wyk as liedkomponis : ’n ontsluiting van die liedere in die Arnold van Wyk-versameling by die Universiteit Stellenbosch
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014-04) Oosthuizen, Magdalena Johanna; Ludemann, Winfried; Muller, S. J. V. Z.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this study an investigation into Arnold van Wyk’s song oeuvre — including the published and unpublished (completed and incomplete) songs — is done on the basis of the available composition sketches in the Arnold van Wyk Collection at Stellenbosch University. Firstly, Van Wyk as composer of art song in South Africa was put in perspective against the broader cultural context, especially in relation to Afrikaans poets who were his contemporaries. An overall view is also provided of possible influences that other composers had on his work. This provides an holistic picture of Van Wyk as composer of the art song. In his Juvenilia a surprisingly large amount of his music language is present, though not yet mature. Four prominent periods characterise the discussion of Van Wyk’s song oeuvre. In addition to these periods the study provides a summary that clearly shows his development as an art song composer as well as the musical devices which, in the course of time, became characteristic as part of his style in song writing. Owing to the fact that the setting to music of each song’s vocal part is analysed in close relationship to the source text, the complete text have been provided, with Afrikaans verbatim translations for the Latin and Old Dutch poems. Even though the composer sometimes only sets a couple of stanzas of the text, the complete poem is provided to properly orientate the reader. This allows the complete picture of each song to be taken into account. The relationship between each text and its setting to music of the song’s vocal part is analysed. This also applies to the illustrative meaning of where in the vocal range each text lies (the range as well as tessiture of the vocal part) and the illustrative use of intervals and other melodic devices such as melismas, setting to rhythmic patterns, etc. The accompaniment is investigated, regarding the relationship to and illustrative of the text, complementary to and in support of the vocal part as well as to which extent it supports the song’s formal design. Only the most prominent characteristics of Van Wyk’s highly complex harmonic usage are pointed out. An important aspect of this study is the investigation from a vocal technical point of view into how Van Wyk merged the writing of a vocal melody with his knowledge of the human voice, for instance in Van liefde en verlatenheid as well as in the Petronius songs. Where available, the history of how a song evolved is recorded in great detail, to illustrate the inception of a specific musical idea as well as its development and finalisation, but moreover, to allow the sketches to reveal how tedious (and sometimes even laid-back) the composition process took place most of the time. Van Wyk’s method and tempo of composing can be clearly deduced from the compositional sketches. These conclusions are confirmed and illustrated by his fairly regular dating of his work, and by information such as an address and/or some diary information that he occasionally added. Particulars like these are often included in this study, to shed light on the compositional process as well as on the composer as a human being. To avoid scanning numerous examples of notes, the C1 tot c3 way of spelling the notes is used.
Artistic experimentation through decolonial sound projects for clarinet
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-04) Liebenberg, Visser; Muller, Stephanus; Pauw, Esther Marie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study explores the sounding capacity of the clarinet through decolonial projects. This study’s sound projects are infused by a decolonial imperative that invokes the conglomerate concept of modernity/(de)coloniality (Walter Mignolo, 2012: 90). Mignolo’s term, together with his notion of decolonial aestheSis operate as turbines from which to explore the sounding capacity of the clarinet, an instrument that is conventionally situated in a largely Western music practice. In my research, the clarinet, as well as the researcher, encounter endogenous sounds and thereby engage in processes of sound translation. The method of investigation used is that of artistic research and specifically artistic experimentation that relies on generating knowledge from practice and reflecting on the generated knowledges, as possible avenues for exploration. The avoidance of a potentially opportunistic use of a decolonial imperative for a sound translation process directs this study towards the researcher’s creation of an index of clarinet sounds. This index is codified as a list of newly improvised sounds and from this index a collaborative creation process for a new composition emerges. The new composition, created with the composer Pierre-Henri Wicomb, is composed, notated and performed by the researcher. Throughout this study, various decolonial encounters are staged ranging from interaction with musicians and dancers, discussions with colleague artistic researchers, as well as two research performance events, one in front of a small group of participants at the Percival Kirby Collection of Indigenous instruments, and the other in front of a much larger audience at the Stellenbosch University Museum. The experiments presented through this research delink the clarinet from Western performance practice and its discourses, so that novel avenues for exploring the sounding capacity of the clarinet, and the situatedness of the clarinet player, arise. Resulting knowledges and further questions from the various research processes crystallise into consideration of how a decolonial imperative confronts, questions, and enhances the sounding clarinet, together with how these processes morph with the identity of the clarinettist-researcher. The research finds that a decolonial imperative does indeed transform the sounding capacities of the clarinet, so that the clarinet practice of the researcher itself, as well as its contexts of influence, are shifted into forms of sonic migrancy. Aspects such as these are documented and clarified through self-reflexive writing in the dissertation. The research presented in the thesis is paired with film footage of sound experiments, as undertaken throughout the research.
Aspekte van twintigste-eeuse musiek : 'n bydrae tot die betekenisbepaling van die begrippe 'hedendaags' en 'eietyds' na aanleiding van komposisietegnieke sedert 1900
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1975) Temmingh, Roelof Willem; Otterman, R. E.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Music.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die skryf vari hierdie proefskrif is aanvanklik aangespoor deur 'n suiwer subjektiewe doelstelling: selfanalise en -orientering. Die onderwerp van die proefskrif is 'n logiese uitvloeisel van hierdie doelstelling, en orngekeerd: die doelstelling van die proefskrif is, vanwee die aard van die onderwerp, wesenlik subjektief. Vir 'n komponis wat kornposisietegnieke van sy eie tyd bestudeer, is sy studie altyd in die eerste plaas subjektief en rneestal ook didakties van aard. Deur sy studie van tydgenootlike werke word die kornponis beinvloed en bepaal hy, meestal bewus rnaar soms ook onbewus, sy houding teenoor en verhouding tot sy tydgenote an hul musiek.
Breaking into sound: dis/locating Ntu cosmology and improvisation in South African jazz
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-03) Makhathini, Nduduzo; Vos, Stephanie; Muller, Stephanus; Phalafala, Uhuru; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This artistic-led enquiry emerged from the premise that jazz studies exclude or, at least, do not adequately address the significance of spiritualities in South African jazz. Where spirituality is invoked, it is treated as background and not seriously engaged with. Emerging from this premise, this study argues that there is a deep connection between cosmologies and how people come to sound, including in what is known as ‘jazz’. As a scholar and an artist with a mature practice, I have come to understand jazz, in the context outlined in this study, as a process in improvisatory realms that dialogues, intimately, with cosmology. Two chapters formulate ntu cosmology as point of departure for engaging (South) African worldviews, in which concepts of wholeness and continuity form governing principles. The study shows how an understanding of ntu cosmology provides alternative lexicons for engaging South African jazz improvised musics. It suggests that improvisation could be understood as a form of ritual overlapping between physical and metaphysical planes. This process is understood as the breaking into sound, engaging with ‘elsewhere’. The contributions this study makes to jazz scholarship are located in a) theorizing the breaking into sound, b) reading the bandstand as communal and ritual space, and c) proposing divination (or the throwing of the bones) as a different way to think about improvisation. To elaborate on these perspectives the study walks in the footsteps of four seminal artists (Philip Tabane, Busi Mhlongo, Bheki Mseleku and Zim Ngqawana), with whom I have engaged in various ways: as a disciple, band member, session musician and a keen follower of the music. From a decentering point of view, the positioning of the study as an artistic-led inquiry constitutes an epistemological intervention, making it possible to argue from a musical and artistic standpoint. By advancing, through artistic practice as a primary means of knowing, the importance of the spiritual (rather than ineffable, or transcendent, or sublime), means that one approaches the issue of musical meaning (or importance) through cosmological registers. Guided by the artistic aspects of my work and that of my interlocutors, the study constructs a framework for understanding jazz improvised musics in South Africa that is cosmologically, ontologically and epistemologically conscious.
Collaborative archiving of music and dance : framework for a more-inclusive postcolonial archive among contemporary Bagisu, Uganda
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-12) Makwa, Dominic D.B.; Kohler, Ralf-Alexander; Nannyonga-Tamusuza, Sylvia; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this study, I examine the approaches the Bagisu people of eastern Uganda have used to archive their music and dance. This study was conducted against the backdrop that despite the proliferation of substantial work on reconceptualising the archive and archiving, there are inadequate studies on the approaches indigenous communities use to archive their music and dance, and how such approaches have been influenced by socio-cultural, religious, economic and technological conditions. The study is also informed by the inadequate scholarly work on how stakeholders involved in archiving music and dance can collaborate to sustainably archive these cultural materials at community levels. Through an ethnographic approach, I collected data in rural villages of Bududa District and the urban centre of Mbale Town as case studies to investigate how musicians, dancers, community members, cultural leaders, fieldworkers, music collectors, archivists among other stakeholders, participate in archiving music and dance among the Bagisu. I use an ethnomusicological approach to engage with concepts like archive, archiving, decolonisation of the archive, sustainability of an archival practice, power, hybridity and authenticity to investigate the nature of the archive contemporary Bagisu can adopt to preserve music and dance. By discussing the roles several stakeholders can perform under what I have regarded as a ‘more-inclusive postcolonial’ archive, I illuminate how the Bagisu can collaborate with other stakeholders to sustainably archive music and dance in this community. As this study demonstrates, two broad approaches to archiving music and dance among the Bagisu stand out, namely: 1) indigenous and 2) colonial archival practices. I have used the notion of ‘colonial’ approaches to archiving to refer to a form of preservation of music and dance based on practices established by the colonial administration. Conversely, the use of ‘indigenous’ archival practices refers to approaches developed by the Bagisu to safeguard their music and dance. This study has established that although these approaches have a number of advantages, they are also ‘inward-looking’ or ‘closed-ended’, a condition which makes them unsuitable for twenty-first century archiving. As such, I have proposed a framework for a more-inclusive postcolonial archive to act as a platform where several stakeholders can interact and establish archives that serve the needs of both present and future users of the archive. Considering the changing socio-cultural, religious, economic and technological conditions in Uganda, I argue that the establishment of a more-inclusive postcolonial archive opens up possibilities for defining appropriate archival practices of the twenty-first century.
Composing (in) contemporary South Africa theoretical and musical responses to complexity
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-12) Huyssen, Hans Heinrich; Muller, Stephanus; Cilliers, Paul; Hofmeyr, Jannie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis explicates a perception of music as complex phenomenon and, accordingly, the comprehension, creation and performance of music as complex tasks. While its immediate field of investigation is the composition of music, it proposes an understanding of musical composition that exceeds the conventionally confined acts of conceiving and notating music, by effectively including the acts of performing and perceiving music as inherent to the process of creating music and, in fact, as crucial to complete this creative process. This inclusion does not suggest an attenuation of the specialized skill of musical composition but, to the contrary, advocates the necessity of a heightened awareness for the complexity of this task, which will following from an understanding of music as systemically interrelated and principally inseverable set of (inter)actions encompassing its conception, performance and reception. In support of this approach an extensive introduction to complexity thinking is presented. For reasons of the intrinsic complexity of this topic and taking into account that complexity thinking has not yet formally been related to music studies, this section exceeds the scope of a preliminary preamble. Instead it constitutes one of four equally weighted sections of the dissertation. It offers to the musically trained reader not familiar with the topic an overview of historical developments leading to the theory of general complexity (Chapter 1) and a subsequent characterization of general complexity traits (Chapter 2). From here a link to musical considerations is established by means of a thorough reassessment of four terms – difference, identity, contexts and novelty – all of which are central to discourses in complexity, as well as in music studies (Chapter 3). From this basis an initial set of musical consequences arising from a complexity perspective is proposed (Chapter 4). One of the hallmarks of complex phenomena is the permeability of their boundaries. Following this insight the second section is dedicated to reflections on specific environments and circumstances acting as musical contexts, as well as a reading of musical responses with regard to the emergence of external contexts as internal subtexts. The first chapter in this section focuses on HIP (historically informed performances) as a complex methodology of transforming intangible historical evidence into tangibly different musical interpretations (Chapter 5). The second and third chapters are assessments of the effects of local circumstances on compositional activity in South Africa; one is based on empirical data obtained from a survey (Chapter 6), the other is of a very personal nature and reflects my own recent experiences from working as musician in this country (Chapter 7). The final chapter in this section expounds the core tenets of my personal compositional approach, framed as musical response to a subjective reading of South African circumstances perceived as equally challenging and enabling musical contexts (Chapter 8). Complementing the purely ‘theoretical considerations’ of these eight chapters, sections 3 and 4 contain ‘practical responses’, thereby fulfilling a requirement of the format of an integrated practical Ph.D. The practical research outputs are contained in a portfolio of four compositions (submitted both as scores and CD recordings in a separate volume), which represent my recent work of deliberate musical engagement with specific contexts framed from a South African perspective (Section 4). Preceding the portfolio, Section 3 contains a discussion of each of the respective works, linking the compositions to the theoretical reflections of Part One, thereby integrating practical and theoretical work and demonstrating the reciprocal influence and interaction between both sets of interventions. The discussion of The Songs of Madosini revolves mainly around the question of musical differences that emanate from intercultural collaborations (Chapter 9). The reflections on the Proteus Variations hinge on the issue of diversity, perceived not quantitatively, but as quality principally elevating the notion of variation to replace that of single dominance (Chapter 10). EisTau affords the opportunity to reflect on a musical response to the global crisis of climate change, as well as an engagement with the complex of music’s communicative, narrative and even semantic propensities (Chapter 11). Finally, the question of relational identity (determined by biographical, geographical and musical relations and thereby implying reflections on place, presence, absence and the ‘other’), are central to the elaborations on the Concerto for an African Cellist (Chapter 12). Interspersed between the twelve chapters are fourteen ‘Parentheses’. These are relatively short sections (distinguished from the ordinary text by grey background shadings) providing additional and somewhat independent reflections on topics that pertain to the main text. The preface to the thesis offers a brief introduction to PBR (practice-based research), which informs the integrated structure of this work.
The compositions of Priaulx Rainier : an annotated catalogue
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1988) Van der Spuy, Herman Hubert; Ottermann, R. E.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: After having completed his D. Phil. dissertation on Die Musieklewe van Pietermaritzburg 1850-1902 in December 1975 the author went on an overseas holiday - his first re-visit to Europe after nine years. One of the findings of his dissertation was, that although Pietermaritzburg had had quite an active musical life for a centre with its population with concerts featuring prominent visiting musicians and local artists, a flourishing music society and in later years a borough-organist, there had actually been no first rate resident composers. The existing compositions of Reginald Statham , Alfred Day and others were more "occasional" pieces and did not really outlive the occasion for which they were composed. Today they are virtually unknown.
Constructing history from music reportage : Jewish musical life in South Africa, 1930-1948
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-04) Behr, Annemie; Muller, Stephanus; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A Jewish cultural life in South Africa is cast by secondary literatures as being English in form and Jewish in spirit. This established understanding of a South African Jewish identity is informed by cultural analyses that focus on tensions arising from being Jewish citizens of South Africa. The present thesis draws on socio-musical sources not yet introduced to general historiographies to question this construction of Jewish identity. These sources refer to music-related items that appear in the South African Jewish Chronicle and the Zionist Record newspaper publications of 1930-1948. The purpose of subjecting music reportage in local Jewish newspapers to a rigorous content analysis, is to open understandings of Jewish culture in South Africa from wider, cosmopolitan perspectives and to locate the function that music might have had in cultural processes of identity formation. Jews exercised South African musical citizenship through supporting the forming of musical institutions, as well as through pedagogy, the performing arts and composition, representations of which align with English cultural forms in the music reportage. While also concerned with securing the Jewish position in South Africa, Zionism developed a vision of and for Palestine by translating the act of making aliyah (immigrating to Palestine) into a symbolic, musical practice. The makings of the community’s internal Jewish identity forged around tensions between Eastern European and Western European (most notably German) Jewish immigrants. Musical representations of Eastern Europe, which emanated from Russia, America and South Africa, generated a volume of content that reflected a Jewish preoccupation with Russian Jews as both ignobly backward and commendably Jewish. German Jews fell out of favour with the South African Jewish community because of their proclivity to assimilate, which could explain why they received little musical attention in these newspapers. However, engagement with contemporary events in Europe, and strong depictions of German culture in the primary source material, emanated from the United States. American musical representations reveal the degree to which the internal tensions of European Jewry were racial. The musical geographies of England, Palestine, Russia, Germany and America in a South African Jewish imaginary reveal a cosmopolitanism of Jewish whiteness and the musical vision it harboured for Palestine as a Jewish country of the West.
Contemporary performance of the sonatas for cello and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven as informed by Carl Czerny
(2016-03) Martens, Peter; Ludemann, Winfried; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Music.; Magalhaes, Luis Miguel de Araujo.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation places the sonatas for cello and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven into the context of a continuing discussion about the composer’s metronomic tempo indications (MTIs) for a large number of his own works, many of which were added retrospectively after the patenting of Maelzel’s metronome in approximately 1815. There seems to be an increasing consensus that these indications deserve serious consideration when performing such works. The sonatas for cello and piano happen to fall into a category of works for which the composer did not leave MTIs. But it is in the writings of his associate and former pupil, Carl Czerny, that one does find a source that not only includes MTIs, but also performance instructions for these works. Despite its title, the book Carl Czerny – On the Proper Performance of All Beethoven’s Works for Piano is not limited to a discussion of his works for solo piano, but also contains specific mention of the sonatas for cello and piano as well as all his other chamber music with piano. Therefore this source is given a central position in the present study. The authenticity and validity of Czerny’s text is evaluated, leading to the acceptance of Czerny as a reputable and qualified figure to pronounce on Beethoven interpretation, in this case specifically on his sonatas for cello and piano. In addition, Beethoven’s preoccupation with tempo is examined within the context of a conceptual study of the notion of tempo. Following the newly established premises of Performance- or Practice-based Research the performance of the sonatas in accordance with Czerny’s instructions and at his MTIs is then included as an integral part of the study. At the same time this research is anchored within three relevant streams of current discourse: Historically Informed Performance Practice and the performance history of the works in question, both of which are underpinned by the notion that the musical work is ultimately realised in its performance. Consequently, the interpretations, captured on CD, experiment with and reveal new knowledge about Beethoven’s six sonatas for cello and piano through performance. To place these sonatas in an even wider context the study also includes performances of Beethoven’s “Triple” Concerto for violin, cello, piano and orchestra, Haydn’s cello concerto in D major, the second sonata for cello and piano in F major by Brahms and the sonata for cello and piano by Shostakovich. Finally, a South African link is created by the inclusion of Peter Klatzow’s sonata for cello and piano.
Contemporary performance practice of art music in South Africa : a practice-based research enquiry
(2012-12) Stolp, Mareli; Muller, Stephanus; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this dissertation, I examine contemporary South African art music performance practice and the social function it fulfils. Performance practice is understood in this study to mean an art practice or cultural item constituted by three types of 'role-players': performers of art music, composers of works in the art music genre and audiences that assimilate and respond to these works when performed. My own position as a performing artist in South Africa has suggested most of the research questions and problems dealt with in this dissertation, which was approached as a practice-based research study. Practice-based research, an emergent kind of research which aims at integrating practical and scholarly work, is becoming increasingly prevalent in academe internationally, although the present study is one of the first examples of such an approach in South Africa. Drawing on contemporary interpretations of the theories of phenomenology articulated by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, my position as a performer of art music in South Africa and the personal experiences I have had as a practitioner within this art practice are interrogated. While I was involved in a variety of practical engagements during the course of this study, all of which have contributed on some level to the final research product, the research design comprised five 'performance projects' that were designed to interrogate specific issues in contemporary art music performance practice in South Africa. The knowledge gained through these performance projects are presented together with theoretical work in this dissertation. An attempt is made to explicate these subjective experiences gained through practice and interrogate them through the application of social theory, ultimately translating them into an objective research outcome which is presented discursively. In this sense, the research project is approached according to a two-pronged strategy: subjective experiences generated through practice are examined through the use of social theory, ultimately resulting in a discursively articulated research outcome. I suggest in this dissertation that art music practice in contemporary South Africa has been and has remained a cultural territory largely inhabited by white South Africans. I further argue that this practice has shown little transformation since the end of apartheid in South Africa, in spite of the political, social and cultural transformation that has characterized the country since the beginning of democracy in 1994. Drawing on the theories of Homi Bhabha and Regula Qureshi, I posit that contemporary art music performance practice is providing an ideological counter-environment to predominant socio-cultural realities in post-apartheid South Africa. Qureshi suggests that the art music practice of a society 'constitutes a meaningful, cultural world for those who inhabit it'(Qureshi 2000: 26). Such a 'world within a society' is here interpreted as providing a counter-environment within which white South African identity can be articulated, negotiated and propagated.
Contextual readings of analysis and compositional process in selected works by Arnold van Wyk (1916-1983)
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013-03) Thom Wium, Magtild Johanna; Muller, Stephanus; Jackson, Timothy; Cook, Nicholas; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this project, contextual readings of four works by Arnold van Wyk are developed. They are the Symphony No. 1 in A Minor, the First String Quartet, the Duo Concertante and the Missa in illo tempore. These readings are grounded in richly detailed descriptions of the compositional processes, drawing on material such as sketches, autographs, diaries, correspondence and reception documents, as well as in structural analyses of Van Wyk’s music and of certain peer compositions. Each reading is set in a separate theoretical frame, resulting in a multi-perspectival consideration of Arnold van Wyk’s music that partakes in a range of current disciplinary discourses. The First Symphony is discussed in the discursive context of English Sibelianism, and Arnold van Wyk’s dialogue with Sibelius’s symphonic works is investigated through comparisons of Van Wyk’s and Sibelius’s applications of two-dimensional sonata form and tragic reversed sonata form. The reading so developed sheds new musical light on the difficulties of Van Wyk’s position as a colonial composer residing in the centre of a crumbling Empire. The compositional process of Van Wyk’s First String Quartet is described in juxtaposition with the compositional process of Bartók’s Sixth String Quartet, and the similarities and differences of the two narratives and the two compositions highlight a second aspect of Van Wyk’s colonial identity, namely the ambiguity of his return to South Africa from England, neither of which place could signify “home”. The reading of the Duo Concertante focuses on the Elegia from that work, interpreting the piece as part of a network of intertextual connections, including Van Wyk’s model for this piece, Martin Peerson’s (1580-1650) The Fall of the Leafe, Gerald Finzi’s Elegy for Orchestra Op. 20, entitled The Fall of the Leaf, as well as Van Wyk’s own theme for the Rondo of the Duo, to which he made various musical references in the Elegia which are associated with the concept of “prophecy”. This intertextual reading considers Van Wyk’s continuing problematic identification with the English musical culture and tradition, compounded by his uncomfortable place in the stifling cultural establishment of apartheid South Africa. Van Wyk’s Missa in illo tempore is interpreted in a post-apartheid context. The work purports to react to the conditions in London in 1945 at the end of the Second World War (when Van Wyk first started to work on it) as well as the conditions in apartheid South Africa in 1977-1979 (when he completed the work as a commission for the Stellenbosch Tercentenary Festival). The reading considers the ethics of art that intends to respond to situations of suffering, drawing on post-Holocaust art scholarship as a theoretical frame. In developing interpretations of compositions that have never been studied in such detail or with such theoretical rigour before, the thesis makes a significant contribution to Arnold van Wyk studies, and in its application of a range of methodological tools in order to construct poetic hermeneutic readings that are grounded in musical and contextual materials, it also represents a meaningful methodological innovation.
A 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.
Curating South African flute compositions : landscape as theme of exhibition
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-12) Pauw, Esther Marie; Muller, Stephanus; Matei, Corvin; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study explores intersections between curatorship, South African flute compositions in concert practice and ‘landscape’ as theme of exhibition for concert events. The investigation into these intersections is informed by artistic research, an approach that is relatively new for South African research in music. This type of transformative research, similar in some ways to action research, embraces the performative integration of multi-directional processes of theoretical work, reflection and the performance of music towards generating knowledges. Methodologies therefore include theoretical research, reflection, meta-reflection and self-reflection, as well as performance itself, processes that, at times, happen concurrently, or chronologically, or in other integrated ways. Outcomes include the formulation of knowledges into a discursive mode that is written up in the format of a dissertation. Online internet-based links to the videos of the three events accompany this dissertation. These written and videographed documents attest to the notion of the concert as site of research (rather than merely a site of repertoire and skill display), amongst others, and remind that curated concert events and their worded reflections (that now exist, traceably) are artwork texts themselves, thereby indicating the complex processes that occur when artistic product transforms into artistic argument. This project views the notion of themed presentation as one of the means that curatorship practices offer to direct museological and visual arts exhibitions. The research contends that curating as theoretical framework, but also as interventionist practice that is context-sensitive, is able to inform and invigorate conventional concert practices in the exhibition of South African flute compositions. In a first phase of the research I investigate how South African flute music compositions have been curated by flautists who have engaged with this body of music over the past three decades. In a second phase I act as flautist-curator to curate three concerts that feature a selection of this body of compositions, using the theme of landscape as central emphasis. Three of the chapters of this dissertation serve to document the design, presentation of and reflection on these curations. In the process I am compelled to ask whether and how the theme of landscape influences my concert practice, as I am aware that the topic of landscape – and land – constitutes ongoing moments of national crisis. The landscape-centred curations, each in turn, take me to a critical engagement with the romantic landscape paintings of artist J.H. Pierneef; to the insecure, unstable and risk-laden ‘smooth space’ of Johannesburg city, and also to the recognition and embracing of a sub-altern voice that sounds decoloniality as a radical tool towards social transformation. In these curations I play the flute, an instrument that is traditionally and mythologically associated with the pastoral, but through my concert curations I perhaps find ‘An Other Tongue’, as Walter Mignolo suggests decolonial aestheSis is able to instigate. This research project demonstrates the power of the flute and its Western scored notations to intervene, transform and be transformed locally amidst curations that are context sensitive. Ultimately, the research is concerned with the possibilities presented by artistic research.
Didactical perspectives of aural training
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1993-12) Herbst, Anna Catharina; Loeb van Zuilenburg, P. E. O. F.; Ottermann, R.; Blanckenberg, J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences. Dept. of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The purpose of this research endeavour is to develop an understanding of the general state of Aural Training as presented in Aural Training literature and at a tertiary level. Based on this understanding, recommendations for a theory towards Aural Training are furthermore made. The investigation consists of three main parts. In the first two parts, an in-depth theoretical study, exploring aspects such as the rationale behind Aural Training, teaching ideologies, contents and target group and methodological approaches found in published and unpublished sources, as well as a practical questionnaire-based survey, investigating selected Aural Training aspects as presented on a tertiary level in the Republic of South Africa (RSA), the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), and the United States of America (USA) are presented. A model of an integrated Aural Training approach for children is proposed in the third part. Results from both the theoretical and practical surveys indicate that: (a) the rationale behind Aural Training has not been thoroughly thought through; (b) Aural Training lecturers with sound pedagogical credentials are needed; (c) prospective students are not prepared for their tertiary Aural Training courses; (d) the Aural Training curricula at most tertiary music institutions do not meet lecturers' expectations; (e) more instruction time is needed for classes scheduled in both individual and group tuition; (f) Aural Training literature and teaching methods are still influenced by the Behaviouristic school of psychological thinking, with its emphasis on drill and practice; (g) methods such as Sight Singing and Dictation are more frequently applied than others, possibly because they are readily quantifiable; (h) most emphasis is placed on tonal music; (i) research results in which holistic approaches to Aural Training have been recommended since the early 1980s are not reflected in the majority of Aural Training work-/textbooks and teaching methods; (j) commercially available software is often chosen because of its availability and not because of being based on sound pedagogical principles; (k) there is a growing interest amongst lecturers to re-examine the goals of Aural Training and to apply music psychological principles. Because of the already mentioned problem of improperly prepared prospective music students" and the scarcity of Aural Training approaches to develop children's musical consciousnesses, a model for integrating' Aural Training into the instrumental/vocal music lesson through composition is proposed. This model is based entirely on (a) the conviction that most effective learning takes place through active involvement and creation, and (b) music psychological principles such as Gestalt perception, the developmental theories of Piaget, Gardner and Swanwick-Tillman, and the musical thinking process theories of Prince and Webster. Through the application of this model, Aural Training can be approached by dealing with wholes within a musical context. Structural and perceptual thinking, as well as the mental principles of exploring, applying, problem-solving and critical reasoning can also be developed. It offers a comprehensive approach to learning written theory skills, and the opportunity to apply all other Aural Training methods. Examples of children's compositions are presented to support this model. It is finally recommended that: (a) Aural Training lecturers should constantly re-examine their objectives, contents, teaching philosophies and methods applied; (b) advanced courses in Aural Training should be offered at all tertiary music institutions in order to meet the need for adequately trained lecturers; (c) a compulsory course on the didactics of Aural Training should be offered for all music students; (d) more instruction time should be made available for Aural Training; (e) Aural Training should be treated in its own right in grading policies; (f) holistic approaches to both classroom-based and programmed Aural Training should replace drill and practice; (g) music from all style periods should be included; (h) a wide spectrum of Aural Training methods should be incorporated and not mainly Sight Singing and Dictation; (i) lecturers should inform themselves about recent research results and try to incorporate these into their Aural Training curricula and syllabi; g) Work-/textbooks and computer software based on holistic and comprehensive approaches to Aural Training should be released; (k) Aural Training should be incorporated from the very first instrumental/vocal lesson by applying an integrated, holistic approach through composition.
Die Instrumentalwerke Hugo Distlers : ein Beitrag zu ihrer Stilbestimmung
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1988-12) Lüdemann, Winfried August; Ottermann, R. E.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences. Dept. of Music.
This dissertation analyses the style of the published instrumental works of Hugo Distler (1908-1942). Emphasis is placed on the innovative aspects of the style rather than on the rejuvenation of older stylistic models, this latter feature having up to the present received more attention than any other. An examination of the concept of style analysis in general as well as the problems arising from its application specifically to the instrumental works of Distler prepares the ground for an investigation of the principles on which the style is based. To begin with these principles are presented hypothetically and then verified by way of detailed discussion and numerous examples from the music itself. It is argued that they result from a style of remarkable integrity. A distinction is made between general stylistic principles (which include a linear-additive principle, a vocal principle and the principle of play) and specific structural principles. The latter are explained as specific realizations of the former on a structural level. Consequently the innovations on this level are described in great detail. This forms the main body of the dissertation. The terminology thus developed is then applied to an examination of melodic, harmonic, rhythmical and formal characteristics. It is found that an appropriate analysis and apt description of the style is possible in this way. The most important result of the investigation is the finding that Distler's style represents a highly original contribution to the search 'for a way to overcome the conventional tonal style without, however, resorting to atonality.
Die koortjie undercommons
(2023-12) Engelbrecht, Inge Alvine; Froneman, Willemien; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences. Dept. of Music.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die koortjie het nog altyd ’n peripheral space in die meer conventional kerkmusiek practices en discourses in die coloured kerk communities ge-occupy. Dit was hierdie marginality wat vir my problematic was en wat ek wou address. Die storie van die koortjie unfold gradually deur die tesis. Hierdie unfolding loop parallel met die narratives van die figure wat in die tesis feature, en hierdeur word issues soos history, cultural en spiritual identity op ’n unieke manier address. Consequently is die narrative van die koortjie interwoven into die tapestry van die lived experiences van hierdie belangrike figure, asook in my eie discoveries. Omdat ek ook ’n outsider of sorts is wanneer dit by die koortjie kom, ontdek die leser wat die koortjie is, wat dit entail en hoe dit function partly deur my oë asook deur die oë van die experts, en die meestal real-time documenting reinforce die notion van ’n gradual unfolding. Linguistically het die tesis vanaf die proposal stage deur ’n taal shift van Engels na Afrikaans gegaan wat eventually die boundary tussen die twee tale blur. Dus represent die tesis ’n bepaalde linguistic expression wat, nes die koortjie, nie net meer op die fringes van wat as standaard beskou word, exist nie. Moreover, is die Afrikaans wat in hierdie tesis gebruik word partly ’n reflection van die linguistic traits wat generally met coloured mense ge-associate word en is especially representative van die narratives van die “mense wat feature innie storie” (Arendse, 2021). Die structure van die tesis is deur die narratives van die respondente en my eie etnografiese beskrywings bepaal. Die eerste twee hoofstukke word ge-underscore deur die theme van die commons en undercommons (Harney & Moten, 2013) soos dit pertain tot die spaces wat die karakters involved in exist en daagliks in moet function en navigate, asook die rol wat die koortjie in hierdie spaces speel en in turn represent. In die derde hoofstuk word die development van die koortjie extend deur middel van die intergenerational connection tussen twee prominente figure in hierdie genre en in die Suid-Afrikaanse gospel industry. Die koortjie se evolution word deur die tension wat deur hierdie figure se onderskeie musical en spiritual timelines create word, gemap, tensions wat deur comparable tog contradicting sensibilities gehighlight word. Hoofstuk vier address en spotlight die issue van colouredness deur ’n quasi-conversation met die skrywer van ’n spesifieke bron waarin stereotypical commentary oor die supposed problematiese mindset en thinking van coloured mense bespreek word. Die issue van colouredness word verder op expand in hoofstuk vyf deur op die relationship tussen die koortjie en colouredness te fokus. Dit word gedoen deur die origin van die koortjie in terme van coloured kerkmusiek te bespreek, asook die notion van ownership en curatorship van die koortjie deur members van die coloured community. In hoofstuk ses word die koortjie as ’n code switching device geharness wat as die facilitator van hierdie switching tussen die physical en metaphysical inspect word. Hierdie idee van die koortjie as metaphysical code switching device word dan in hoofstuk sewe in meer detail ondersoek en word daar gekyk na hoe die act van trancing (Poloma, 2003; Becker, 2004) deur praktyke wat met die koortjie gepaardgaan, soos die koordans en ‘die trap’, teweeggebring word. Die tesis word conclude met ’n Epilogue wat die narrative van die koortjie proverbially full circle bring deur die koortjie terug na die space van die undercommons te bring. Hierdie deel serve ook as ’n voorbeeld van die possibilities nie net vir verdere navorsing in soortgelyke cultural musiek nie, maar ook vir die continued proliferation van knowledge oor die existence, practices en importance van die koortjie in Suid-Afrikaanse cultural en religious studies.
Die musiek van die Griekwas
(Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 1986-10) Cloete, Annette Marie; Van Zuilenburg, P.E.O.F.L.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences . Dept. of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: no abstract available
Ethnography and the archive : power and politics in five South African music archives
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2012-12) Lambrechts, Lizabe; Muller, Stephanus; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study addresses issues concerning power and politics in five music archives in South Africa. It has a three-fold approach. First, it provides an overview of archival theory as it has developed since the French Revolution in 1789. It follows the trajectory of changing archival principles such as appraisal and provenance and provides an oversight into the changing understanding of ‘the archive’ as an impartial custodian of the Truth, to its conceptualisation in the Humanities as a concept deeply rooted in discourses around power, justice and knowledge production. Interrogating the unfolding concept of the archive throws into relief its current envisioned function within a post-Apartheid South Africa. Secondly, this dissertation explores five music archives in South Africa to investigate the level to which archival theory is engaged with and practiced in music archives. The archives in question are the International Library of African Music (ILAM), the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Radio and Sound Archive, the Gallo Record Archive, the Hidden Years Music Archive (HYMA) and the Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS). This interrogation serves to illustrate how music archives take part in or subvert the power mechanisms inherent in archival practice. As such, this dissertation is situated within a body of scholarship that seeks to subvert the still prevailing consideration of the music archive as a neutral repository. Third, it investigates how a critical reading of music archives within a consideration of archival theory can add to our understanding of the practical realities of archives that firmly ground them as objects of power.
Future-focussed music education: developing 21st-century competencies in a South African middle school music classroom
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-04) Mullins, Angela Catherine; Lucia, Christine; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Music.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Educators world-wide find themselves in the challenging position of educating young adolescents for a future in which exponential knowledge doubling will become a reality. Together with the medical prognosis of a much longer life span for this age group and a radical restructuring of the global economy, the implication is that today’s youth will need the skills to negotiate a much longer career of self-employment through a succession of jobs, often collaborative in nature and mostly Internet-driven. These factors have triggered a shift, worldwide, from a knowledge-based school curriculum to a competency-based curriculum. Using a constructivist and humanistic theoretical framework, this dissertation explores the impact that a competency-based music curriculum could make in the development of the 21st-century competencies that students will need to thrive in the workplace of the future. It also investigates which pedagogical methods could be most effective in developing these competencies, what types of feedback students might find most effective, how an explicit focus on 21st-century competencies can assist students in their development of these skills, and which of the competencies developed through music can be transferred into other learning areas. An extensive literature review that identified the most pertinent set of 21st-century competencies is followed by a detailed description and evaluation of a teacher-based case study I conducted in a Johannesburg private school music class consisting of 23 students aged 12-13 years. I designed a year-long class music course using L Dee Fink’s taxonomy of significant learning (2003) and collected data through rubric-based observations, student self-assessments, and focus groups. This data, collected over four research cycles and a final assessment, was collated into competency profile maps that illustrate the growth and development of the competencies. The main finding is that an explicit focus on 21st-century competencies in a music curriculum, in conjunction with the pedagogical methods of project-based learning, gamification, and blended learning, have an uneven but positive impact on students’ development of these competencies. A secondary finding is that such competency development through music can be adapted to other subjects, schools and locations. In an age of Covid-19, another significant finding is that teaching and assessment that is heavily Internet-based can be no less successful in music than in any traditional ‘academic’ subject.

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