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CONTENTS 1. About the Composer 2. His influences 3. Post-apartheid South Africa 4. Sinfonia Africana 5. Partita Africana 6. Conclusion 7.Bibliography

Hendrik Hofmeyr

About the composer Hendrik Hofmeyr is a well known South African composer, born in Cape Town during the apartheid regime in 1957. He studied composition at the University of Cape Town and was offered a scholarship to study composition, piano and conducting in Italy after completing his Masters degree at UCT. During the 10 years hes stayed in Italy, in 1987 he won the South African Opera competition with his The Fall of the House of the Usher which later received the annual Nederburg prize in 1988, after being performed at the State theatre in Pretoria (www.sacm.uct.ac.za/homeyr.html ,accessed 05 October 2012). When he returned in South Africa in 1992, he took a post as a lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch and later went to the University of Cape Town where he received his Doctorate in Music in 1999(Pooley 2008:88). Hofmeyr has won several international competitions overseas like the Trento International Competition, the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium and the first edition of the Dimitris Mitropoulos and he has completed more than fifty commissions for orchestras ,solo instruments, chamber ensembles and vocal works (Pooley 2008:88). His influences Being born during the apartheid era, Hofmeyr grew up in a neighbourhood where whites only lived and hardly had any contact with other races groups but fortunately his parents didnt support the apartheid regime and this also affected his notion towards apartheid too ( Cupido 2009:6). Although he was against the apartheid notion this didnt affect his musical philosophy as one would expect from him and as Cupido(2009:7) mentions ,Hofmeyr believed that music does not convey political ideas. Hofmeyr was exposed to classical elements at a very young age, he listened and followed composers such as Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Van Wyk, Puccini, Beethoven and this later influenced his style of composing (Cupido 2009:12). At this point this gives us a clear picture that Hofmeyrs early compositional style of writing would hardly be based on South African aesthetics just like Van Wyk whos

music was identified as music out of place by Muller(2008:62). Hofmeyrs music was not inclined to politics, and this can be seen in his award winning opera The Fall of the House of Usher which was rejected at the Grahamstown Arts Festival in South African during the apartheid era because it didnt convey to the ideological message of the politics of the time (Cupido 2009:7). After moving to Italy to study there, Hofmeyr had to adapt to the culture there as different as it was from what he had known to in South Africa and this broadened his writing style, one of his work called Tre liriche in stile antico is one example that displays his usage of Italian and German styles (Cupido 2009:14-15). Hofmeyr returned to South Africa just when apartheid was coming to an end and after the apartheid era he found inspiration in traditional African music, this includes South African music as well (Cupido 2009:12).

Post-apartheid South Africa

Perceptions amongst the societies in South Africa has changed after apartheid and thus resulting in a shift in composition that embraces in the different cultures found in the country, Klatzow (2004:138) underlines this view by mentioning how the perceptions in a post-apartheid have changed to a point that it is a very complex issue to identify what represents South African music because of these diverse cultures. Hofmeyrs incorporation of African elements can be argued that they serve as reconciliation to the apartheid since he was against it, and Klatzow (2004:138) explains how cross-cultural influence is important to aid the cultural divisions that where created during the apartheid era. Although one can look at cross-culture influence from a positive point of reconstruction however other composers can use it for their own profitable benefits and some even claim that a composition is African based on vague elements which is morally inappropriate. In Hofmeyrs case I shall discuss on two of his works which evoke African characteristics that is the Partita Africana and the Sinfonia Africana.

Sinfonia Africana

Sinfonia Africana is made up of three movements, listening to the entire work the first movement sounds like one of Mahlers symphonies with the dramatic trumpet solo with the choir emphasizing on the motif, the second movement sounds like an opera work with a soprano soloist and the last movement recalls the Mahler influence found in the 1st movement but incorporates the soprano solo and the choir with the orchestra. The work uses a Western orchestra with a choir and a soprano soloist and uses narration derived from the three Afrikaans poems, and this gives us an impression that he combines South African music culture with romantic music (Blake 2004:133). Viewing this from a cultural translation viewpoint described by Asad (in Viljoen 2004:1) that translation is always biased, Sinfonia Africana seems to be based more on European music aesthetics, with a touch on Afrikaans poems to create a new post-apartheid Afrikaner national identity and because of this, the work created a firing debate in the Western Cape ( Cupido 2009:102). The title of the piece and specifically the word Africana already gives the listener an idea as to elements that could be found that are African, but in the Sinfonia the evoked sounds of African drumming is the only clue that describes the clue of the title (Cupido 2009:133).

Partita Africana Most South African composers draw inspiration from African elements and Hendrik Hofmeyr found inspiration from visual arts and poetry and the Partita Africana was one of his works in which he uses an African titles or described in his programme notes as having African elements (Pooley 2008:102) and this same motive can be seen also in the way he titled the Sinfonia Africana. The work was completed in 2006 and it consists of four movements: Preludio, Umsindo, Hartbreekrivier and Kalunga (Pooley 2008:102) and he gives away the contrapuntal elements found in African music such as the use of the pentatonic scales and modes which were highly avoided by Volans whom paraphrases works by removing the most prominent features of African music like in his work called She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket (Pooley 2008:103).

The general characteristics found in African music in this piece that Hofmeyr describes is the fact that alternating hands are employed in the same ways as African drumming and this can be seen in the Kalunga movement whereby the same copy of drumming techniques were used by the piano ( Pooley 2008:104). So this poses a question of whether what makes these elements sound African. Can this be the titles he uses or the programme notes? Martin Scherzinger (n.d:214) argues this point by disliking works which use exotic African titles to make profit from it like Volans White Man Sleeps which uses fragments of African elements in the context of Western instrumentation. In an interview held in 2005 by Pooley (2008:106), Hendrik clarified his usage of African elements and this is what he mentioned:
I see myself simply as a composer who writes in the tradition that has been the tradition of Western Classical music for a very long time, which is also the tradition of appropriating, as in all the Nationalist movements of the nineteenth century for example, and I suppose I have done plenty of that kind of appropriation also of African elements- but as in that tradition I tried to integrate them as fully as I can into my own language and into my way of thinking music. I dont try to produce a pseudo-African piece. I dont try to produce a piece which people could mistake for African music. I incorporate it because, either its something that I like to incorporate, or because I feel it adds something to the symbolic vales in the piece

Conclusion Hendrik Hofmeyrs usage of African elements have a way different view to what is commonly seen, he argues that he is not a nationalist composer but continuing to misleading his listeners by using African models such as drumming and modal elements to convince them that his music is authentically from where he claims it from. Hofmeyer instead uses late Romantic music in most of his composition and therefore exploits the African titles to his advantage. Understanding the post-apartheid of creating music norm of reconciliation we cannot say that Hofmeyrs music could be under that norm. Bibliography SCHERZINGER, M n.d. WHOSE WHITE MAN SLEEPS. Aesthetics and Politics in the early work of Kevin Volans.

MULLER, S. 2008. Arnold van Wyks hard, stony, flinty path or making things beautiful in apartheid South Africa. VILJOEN M. n.d. Acta Academica KLATZOW, P. 2004.THE COMPOSERS DILEMMA: WRITING FOR TIME OR PLACE. Samus 24 POOLEY,T.M. 2008.COMPOSITION IN CRISIS: CASE STUDIES IN SOUTH AFRICAN ART MUSIC 19802006.Johannesburg.http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/1053,Acce ssed on 03 October 2012. BLAKE,M. 2005. The present-day composer refuses to budge: Case studies in the new South African orchestral music. Samus 25.http//:www.michaelblake.co.za/.../the-present-day-composer-refuses-tobud... ,Accessed on 08 October 2012 CUPIDO,A. 2009. Significant influences in the composition of Hendrik Hofmeyrs song cycle,Alleenstryd.http//:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc12110/..diss ertation.pdf, Accessed on 05 October 2012.