'YET NONE WITH TRUER FERVOUR SING': CORONATION SONG AND THE (DE)COLONIZATION OF AFRICAN CHORAL COMPOSITION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v10i3.2194Keywords:
Mohapeloa, Coronation Song, colonial, decolonial, Basutoland, Lesotho, choral, harmony, tonalityAbstract
In 1937, the Se(Sotho) composer, Mohapeloa published 'Coronation Song' a short a cappella choral work that celebrates the coronation of King George VI and which is ostensibly rooted in his colonial experience of the British Protectorate of Basutoland. It was reprinted in Morija in 1939 as 'Coronation March', by which time it was clear that this song's political message was at odds with his other songs. Reprinted in 1945, 55, 66, and 80 with minor changes, the song becomes increasingly anachronistic. Mohapeloa suddenly rewrote it in the mid 1970s, 10 years after Lesotho gained independence, by transforming it into a patriotic song, 'Lesotho Our Heritage' ('Lesotho Lefa la RÅna'). This article traces the song's journey through decades of political change by means of a close hermeneutic reading of its text, musical language and structure, arguing that the music had always identified with two political tendencies, the one European and colonizing, the other American and decolonizing. It was this ambiguity that kept Mohapeloa's interest and led to his last version of the song, finally published only in 2015.
References
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Ballantine, Christopher. 1999 "Looking to the USA: The Politics of Male Close-Harmony Song-style in South African in the 1940s and 50s.” Popular Music 18(1): 1—17.
Ballantine, Christopher. 2012. Marabi Nights: Jazz, 'Race' and Society in Early Apartheid South Africa. 2nd edition. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Basutoland Teachers' Magazine. 1937 "Greetings to the Children of Basutoland and Empire from the Children of the City of London.” Basutoland Teachers' Magazine 1 (November 1937): 9.
Born, Georgina and David Hesmondhalgh. 2000 "Introduction: On Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music.” In Western Music and its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music, Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh, eds. 1—58. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.
Bull, O.B. 1937a "The Aims of Education in Africa.” Basutoland Teachers' Magazine 1 (November): 2.
Bull, O.B. 1937b "To the Teachers of Basutoland.” Basutoland Teachers' Magazine 1 (November): 3—5.
Christol, Frédéric. 1897. Au Sud de l'Afrique. Paris: Berger-Levraut et Cie.
Coplan, David B. 1994. In the Time of Cannibals: The Word Music of South Africa's Basotho Migrants. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
Erlmann, Veit. 1991. African Stars: Studies in Black South African Music. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Erlmann, Veit. 1996. Nightsong: Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Erlmann, Veit. 1999. Music, Modernity and the Global Imagination: South Africa and the West. New York: Oxford University Press.
Galane, Sello Edwi. 2009 "The Music of Philip Tabane: An Historical Analytical Study of Malombo Music of South Africa.” Ph D Dissertation: University of Pretoria, Pretoria.
Gill, Stephen J. 1993. A Short History of Lesotho from the Late Stone Age until the 1993 Elections. Morija: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.
Haeker, Allyss Angela. 2012 'Post-apartheid South African Choral Music: An Analysis of Integrated Musical Styles with Specific Examples by Contemporary South African Composers.' DMA Dissertation: University of Iowa, Iowa City.
Hansen, Deirdre E. 1968. The Life and Work of Benjamin Tyamzashe, A Contemporary Xhosa Composer. Grahamstown: Institute of Social and Economic Research. Available: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020214.
Koapeng, Mokale. 2014 "I Compose What I Like: Challenges Facing a Composer in the Black Choral Field in South Africa.” M Mus Research Report, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Leselinyana la Lesotho. 1982 "Seqapi Se Phomotse [The Composer Has Rested]: Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa KCOR, OBE, DLitt.”, 116 (2): 1, 29 January.
Lucia, Christine. 2011 "Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa and the Heritage of African Song.” African Music 9(1): 56—86. Available: https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v9i1.1758.
Lucia, Christine. 2014 "Composing Towards/Against Whiteness: The African Music of Mohapeloa.” In Unsettling Whiteness, Michael and Samantha Schulz, eds. 219—230. Oxford: Interdisciplinary Press e-book, 2014. http://www. inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press [Accessed on 27 June 2017].
Lucia, Christine. 2015. Editor, Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa Critical Edition in Six Volumes. Cape Town: African Composers Edition; www.african-composers-edition.co.za [Accessed on 27 June 2017].
Mashologu, Bennie. 1952 "A Peep into Basuto Music.” Basutoland Witness 6(2): 50—51.
Mohapeloa, James Makibinyane. 1985. From Mission to Church: Fifty Years of the Work of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society and the Lesotho Evangelical Church 1933—83. Morija: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1935. Meloli le Lithallere tsa Afrika I [Sounds and Songs of Africa Book I]. Morija: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1937 "A Song for the Coronation of King George VI.” Basutoland Teachers' Magazine 1 (November 1937): 6—8.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1939. Meloli le Lithallere tsa Afrika II. [Sounds and Songs of Africa Book II]. Morija: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1951. Khalima-Nosi tsa 'Mino Oa Kajeno [Shining examples of today's music]: Harnessing Salient Features of Modern African Music. Morija: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1960 "Likhomo Mokoena!” Leselinyana le Lesotho 93(6): 1. 1963 "Leheshe-heshe.” in Binang ka Thabo, 3 and 12—14. Mazenod, Lesotho: Mazenod Institute.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1976. Meluluetsa ea Ntáetso-pele le Bosechaba Lesotho. [Anthems for the Development of the Nation of Lesotho.] Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 2013 "Coronation March.” African Choral Legacy: Historic Recordings of Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa. Cape Town: African Composers Edition, ACE CD001, Trk 20.
Mugovhani, Ndwamato George. 2010 "The Role of Indigenous African Choral Music in the Search for Identity: With Special Reference to Mzilikazi Khumalo's Music.” Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa 7(1): 60—75.
Muwati, Itai. 2015 "Negotiating Space, Voice and Recognition: An Analysis of the 'District Song' of the Tonga People of Binga, Zimbabwe.” Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa 12(2): 22-36.
Muwati, Itai and David E. Mutasa. 2008 "An Analysis of Selected Shona Children's Songs: Philosophical Perspectives. "Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa 5(1): 1—10.
Olwage, Grant. 2002 "Scriptions of the Choral: The Historiography of Black South African Choralism.” South African Journal of Musicology 22: 29—45.
Olwage, Grant. 2003 'Music and (Post)Colonialism: The Dialectics of Choral Culture on a South African Frontier.' Ph D Dissertation: Rhodes University, Grahamstown. Available: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007717.
Olwage, Grant. 2006 "John Knox Bokwe, Colonial Composer: Tales About Race and Music.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 131(1): 1—37.
Parker, Roger. 2006. Remaking the Song: Operatic Visions and Revisions from Handel to Berio. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Pooley, Thomas. 2014 "Melody as Prosody: Towards a Usage-Based Theory of Music.” Ph D Dissertation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Potgieter, Zelda and Vuyani Mazomba. 2005 "Liberating Voices: Narrative Strategies and Style in Township Choral Music, with Specific Reference to Selected Works by Three Xhosa Composers.” Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa 2(1): 23—54.
Qabula, Alfred Temba. 1989 "In the Tracks of Our Train.” in A Working Life: Cruel Beyond Belief, 69—71. Durban: National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa.
Radano, Ronald and Tejumola Olaniyan. 2016 "Introduction: Hearing Empire — Imperial Listening.” In Audible Empire: Music, Global Politics, Critique, Ronald Radano and Tejumola Olaniyan, eds. 1—22. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Rosenberg, Scott and Richard F. Wiesfelder. 2013 Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Sapire, Hilary. 2016 "'We Have Seen the Son of Heaven/We Have Seen the Son of Our Queen': African Encounters with Prince Alfred on his Royal Tour, 1860.” in Mistress of Everything: Queen Victoria in Indigenous Worlds, Sarah Carter and Maria Nugent, eds. 25—53. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Scherzinger, Martin. 2001 "Negotiating the Music-Theory/African-Music Nexus: A Political Critique of Ethnomusicological Anti-Formalism and a Strategic Analysis of the Harmonic Patterning of the Shona Mbira Song Nyamaropa.” Perspectives of New Music 39(1): 5—117.
Spener, David. 2016. We Shall Not Be Moved/No nos Moverán: Biography of a Song of Struggle. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. The Echo 1973 "43 Years as Composer.” The Echo, 5 October, 1973: 3, 6.
Van Rhyn, Chris. 2013 "Towards a Mapping of the Marginal: Readings of Art Songs By Nigerian, Ghanaian, Egyptian and South African Composers.” Ph D Dissertation: Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch.
Wells, Robin E. 1994. An Introduction to the Music of the Basotho. Morija, Lesotho: Morija Museum and Archives.
Agawu, Kofi. 2016a "Tonality as a Colonizing Force in Africa.” in Audible Empire: Music, Global Politics, Critique, Ronald Radano and Tejumola Olaniyan, eds. 334—55. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Agawu, Kofi. 2016b. The African Imagination in Music. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ballantine, Christopher. 1999 "Looking to the USA: The Politics of Male Close-Harmony Song-style in South African in the 1940s and 50s.” Popular Music 18(1): 1—17.
Ballantine, Christopher. 2012. Marabi Nights: Jazz, 'Race' and Society in Early Apartheid South Africa. 2nd edition. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Basutoland Teachers' Magazine. 1937 "Greetings to the Children of Basutoland and Empire from the Children of the City of London.” Basutoland Teachers' Magazine 1 (November 1937): 9.
Born, Georgina and David Hesmondhalgh. 2000 "Introduction: On Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music.” In Western Music and its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music, Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh, eds. 1—58. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.
Bull, O.B. 1937a "The Aims of Education in Africa.” Basutoland Teachers' Magazine 1 (November): 2.
Bull, O.B. 1937b "To the Teachers of Basutoland.” Basutoland Teachers' Magazine 1 (November): 3—5.
Christol, Frédéric. 1897. Au Sud de l'Afrique. Paris: Berger-Levraut et Cie.
Coplan, David B. 1994. In the Time of Cannibals: The Word Music of South Africa's Basotho Migrants. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
Erlmann, Veit. 1991. African Stars: Studies in Black South African Music. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Erlmann, Veit. 1996. Nightsong: Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Erlmann, Veit. 1999. Music, Modernity and the Global Imagination: South Africa and the West. New York: Oxford University Press.
Galane, Sello Edwi. 2009 "The Music of Philip Tabane: An Historical Analytical Study of Malombo Music of South Africa.” Ph D Dissertation: University of Pretoria, Pretoria.
Gill, Stephen J. 1993. A Short History of Lesotho from the Late Stone Age until the 1993 Elections. Morija: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.
Haeker, Allyss Angela. 2012 'Post-apartheid South African Choral Music: An Analysis of Integrated Musical Styles with Specific Examples by Contemporary South African Composers.' DMA Dissertation: University of Iowa, Iowa City.
Hansen, Deirdre E. 1968. The Life and Work of Benjamin Tyamzashe, A Contemporary Xhosa Composer. Grahamstown: Institute of Social and Economic Research. Available: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020214.
Koapeng, Mokale. 2014 "I Compose What I Like: Challenges Facing a Composer in the Black Choral Field in South Africa.” M Mus Research Report, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Leselinyana la Lesotho. 1982 "Seqapi Se Phomotse [The Composer Has Rested]: Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa KCOR, OBE, DLitt.”, 116 (2): 1, 29 January.
Lucia, Christine. 2011 "Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa and the Heritage of African Song.” African Music 9(1): 56—86. Available: https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v9i1.1758.
Lucia, Christine. 2014 "Composing Towards/Against Whiteness: The African Music of Mohapeloa.” In Unsettling Whiteness, Michael and Samantha Schulz, eds. 219—230. Oxford: Interdisciplinary Press e-book, 2014. http://www. inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press [Accessed on 27 June 2017].
Lucia, Christine. 2015. Editor, Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa Critical Edition in Six Volumes. Cape Town: African Composers Edition; www.african-composers-edition.co.za [Accessed on 27 June 2017].
Mashologu, Bennie. 1952 "A Peep into Basuto Music.” Basutoland Witness 6(2): 50—51.
Mohapeloa, James Makibinyane. 1985. From Mission to Church: Fifty Years of the Work of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society and the Lesotho Evangelical Church 1933—83. Morija: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1935. Meloli le Lithallere tsa Afrika I [Sounds and Songs of Africa Book I]. Morija: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1937 "A Song for the Coronation of King George VI.” Basutoland Teachers' Magazine 1 (November 1937): 6—8.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1939. Meloli le Lithallere tsa Afrika II. [Sounds and Songs of Africa Book II]. Morija: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1951. Khalima-Nosi tsa 'Mino Oa Kajeno [Shining examples of today's music]: Harnessing Salient Features of Modern African Music. Morija: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1960 "Likhomo Mokoena!” Leselinyana le Lesotho 93(6): 1. 1963 "Leheshe-heshe.” in Binang ka Thabo, 3 and 12—14. Mazenod, Lesotho: Mazenod Institute.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 1976. Meluluetsa ea Ntáetso-pele le Bosechaba Lesotho. [Anthems for the Development of the Nation of Lesotho.] Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
Mohapeloa, Joshua Pulumo. 2013 "Coronation March.” African Choral Legacy: Historic Recordings of Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa. Cape Town: African Composers Edition, ACE CD001, Trk 20.
Mugovhani, Ndwamato George. 2010 "The Role of Indigenous African Choral Music in the Search for Identity: With Special Reference to Mzilikazi Khumalo's Music.” Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa 7(1): 60—75.
Muwati, Itai. 2015 "Negotiating Space, Voice and Recognition: An Analysis of the 'District Song' of the Tonga People of Binga, Zimbabwe.” Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa 12(2): 22-36.
Muwati, Itai and David E. Mutasa. 2008 "An Analysis of Selected Shona Children's Songs: Philosophical Perspectives. "Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa 5(1): 1—10.
Olwage, Grant. 2002 "Scriptions of the Choral: The Historiography of Black South African Choralism.” South African Journal of Musicology 22: 29—45.
Olwage, Grant. 2003 'Music and (Post)Colonialism: The Dialectics of Choral Culture on a South African Frontier.' Ph D Dissertation: Rhodes University, Grahamstown. Available: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007717.
Olwage, Grant. 2006 "John Knox Bokwe, Colonial Composer: Tales About Race and Music.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 131(1): 1—37.
Parker, Roger. 2006. Remaking the Song: Operatic Visions and Revisions from Handel to Berio. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Pooley, Thomas. 2014 "Melody as Prosody: Towards a Usage-Based Theory of Music.” Ph D Dissertation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Potgieter, Zelda and Vuyani Mazomba. 2005 "Liberating Voices: Narrative Strategies and Style in Township Choral Music, with Specific Reference to Selected Works by Three Xhosa Composers.” Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa 2(1): 23—54.
Qabula, Alfred Temba. 1989 "In the Tracks of Our Train.” in A Working Life: Cruel Beyond Belief, 69—71. Durban: National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa.
Radano, Ronald and Tejumola Olaniyan. 2016 "Introduction: Hearing Empire — Imperial Listening.” In Audible Empire: Music, Global Politics, Critique, Ronald Radano and Tejumola Olaniyan, eds. 1—22. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Rosenberg, Scott and Richard F. Wiesfelder. 2013 Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Sapire, Hilary. 2016 "'We Have Seen the Son of Heaven/We Have Seen the Son of Our Queen': African Encounters with Prince Alfred on his Royal Tour, 1860.” in Mistress of Everything: Queen Victoria in Indigenous Worlds, Sarah Carter and Maria Nugent, eds. 25—53. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Scherzinger, Martin. 2001 "Negotiating the Music-Theory/African-Music Nexus: A Political Critique of Ethnomusicological Anti-Formalism and a Strategic Analysis of the Harmonic Patterning of the Shona Mbira Song Nyamaropa.” Perspectives of New Music 39(1): 5—117.
Spener, David. 2016. We Shall Not Be Moved/No nos Moverán: Biography of a Song of Struggle. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. The Echo 1973 "43 Years as Composer.” The Echo, 5 October, 1973: 3, 6.
Van Rhyn, Chris. 2013 "Towards a Mapping of the Marginal: Readings of Art Songs By Nigerian, Ghanaian, Egyptian and South African Composers.” Ph D Dissertation: Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch.
Wells, Robin E. 1994. An Introduction to the Music of the Basotho. Morija, Lesotho: Morija Museum and Archives.
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2017-11-01
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“’YET NONE WITH TRUER FERVOUR SING’: CORONATION SONG AND THE (DE)COLONIZATION OF AFRICAN CHORAL COMPOSITION”. 2017. African Music : Journal of the International Library of African Music 10 (3): 23-44. https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v10i3.2194.
