African and European voices: speaking ‘in harmony’ as contemporary authenticity

Abstract

Hans Huyssen, a contemporary South African composer whose social consciousness is an essential facet of his work, stresses the importance of period performance practice as a rejuvenating and significant movement within Western art music. Regarding contemporary music as ‘the period music of our time’, it is his conviction that period performance practice and contemporary composition share the same goal, and moreover that a synthesis of their artistic ideals offers possibilities for responding specifically to the intricate challenges posed by the ‘new’ South African multiculturalism. Recent international debates on the nature of the Early Music Movement and Historically Informed Performance Practice (HIPP) have not yet entered into South African musicological scholarship. Yet Huyssen is firmly convinced that these need to become part both of current local musicology, and of the great diversity in South African art music’s creative, reproductive and reception contexts. This article, in presenting some of the composer’s views on the topic, attempts an appraisal of Huyssen’s stance. It contextualises the relevance of the debate about performance practice for the crucial shifts in cultural consciousness currently taking place within South African art music composition. Of particular interest is its propensity for obscuring distinctions between the past and the present, and for accommodating the diversity in compositional styles that reflect an increasing multiculturalism within the local art-music scene.

Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa Volume 5 2008, 19–36