A reflection on the notion of late style in classical music, as elaborated by Edward Said in his posthumously published "On Late Style". Adorno wrote of Beethoven's late work: "Of the works themselves it leaves only fragments behind, and communicates itself, like a cipher, only through the blank spaces from which it has disengaged itself…objective is the fractured landscape, subjective the light in which – alone – it glows into life. He does not bring about their harmonious synthesis".

A Fractured Landscape (in memoriam Edward Said)

The practice of driving slowly in the middle lane is very common on South African motorways. Obviously It’s very dangerous since drivers overtake on the left as well as the right. Some of this danger permeates the piece through unexpected changes of tempo, material, texture, extremes of register and so on. The two instruments also appear to be independent a lot of the time. Darragh Morgan (violin) and Mary Dullea, who commissioned the piece, give the first performance here at University of West London, 8 November 2023.

DSIML 1

Fantasy Sonata for Violin and Piano (Driving Slowly in the Middle Lane)

Two circumstances led to the composition of my first piano sonata. The more recent one was a request from Daan Vandewalle (who I first met in 2005 in Bratislava) to compose a virtuoso piano sonata for him of about 15 minutes duration. He had given me his remarkable CD recording of the Ives Concord Sonata and so I needed little convincing; I knew at once that this would be a long-awaited opportunity to pay homage to the Ives, a piece I first got to know more than thirty years ago.

The other circumstance went back further, to a lecture-recital I gave in Buenos Aires in 2001 (around 9/11). I wanted to present a programme of South African piano music spanning both the length of the country and the depth of the 20th century, but inevitably ran into problems seeking out repertoire by so-called black composers. That's when I hit on the idea of making some transcriptions of choral pieces for piano solo, specifically pieces by Michael Moerane ("Ruri") and Reuben Caluza ("Umantindane").

I always intended to make further transcriptions, and I remembered this when I was thinking about writing a piano sonata for Daan Vandewalle. Eventually I decided on a 'double' homage (two for the price of one): pianistically to the Concord, materially to the choral composers, and conceptually to both. I consider the Ives work to be one of the pillars, if not the pillar, of the 20th century piano repertoire. It continues to inspire composers, challenge performers and affect listeners.

I tried to forge a parallel between the monumentalism of the Ives work and the enormous breadth of the so-called African choral tradition and the composers themselves, especially those composers who lived and worked in the earlier 20th century. These were the pillars of the Southern African choral tradition, our Palestrinas, Lassos, Tallis's and Byrds.

Like Ives I wanted to have a four-movement structure, but ended up with three: two substantial outer movements, and a very short central movement, all quite unrelenting. The first movement pays homage to Michael Moerane and quotes his song Ruri ("Truly") somewhat obliquely, the second to Reuben Caluza, quoting distorted fragments of his ragtime song Umantindane ("Tokoloshe"), while the last is a homage - in his centenary year - to Joshua Mohapeloa and takes his song Senqu ("Orange River") as a theme for variation.

The last movement follows a very particular scenario, which grew out of two interesting circumstances. The first was becoming acquainted with Senqu, a piece of Mohapeloa's that I did not know. Particularly unusual was the rarely used 9/8 metre - rarely used in Southern African choral music that is. The second was a visit to his sparsely furnished, and sadly crumbling, former home in Morija. One of the few remaining items on his bookshelf was a vocal score of Lucia di Lammermoor. With Kagelian fervour I pressed these circumstances into service and contemplated the possibility that Mohapeloa might have attended opera performances during his period of study with Percival Kirby in Johannesburg during the late 1930s and early 1940s, with the possible result that he may well have become the great Southern African opera composer we have never had.

Senqu and other choral compositions by Mohapeloa intimate the possibilities of an operatic language and so in my third movement I used fragments of Senqu as scene-setting, and then having presented the theme, I composed an operatic fantasy on that theme. I worked backwards from the 21st to the 19th century, culminating in a paraphrase on Liszt's Reminiscences of Lucia di Lammermoor, with the accompaniment closely modelled on Liszt's.

The Choral Sonata was commissioned by SAMRO Endowment for the National Arts for Daan Vandewalle to whom it is dedicated. He gave the first performance on 20 July 2008 at the Gentse Feesten in Belgium.

Piano Sonata  ("Choral") - 4. Flowing

Honey Gathering Song was originally composed in 1989 as a piece for dance (choreographed by Gill Clarke and titled For the Off). Revising it in 1999 as a concert piece I expanded the more interesting material and scrapped what seemed less interesting. I approached the traditionally problematic medium of flute and piano by integrating the two instruments through the use of almost identical material and by bringing their timbres as close together as possible in interlocking or heterophonic textures. Pieces with the title Honey Gathering Song can be found among the music of the pygmy communities in Central Africa. While I make use of African materials and compositional techniques, generally filtered or paraphrased, there is no direct reference to pygmy music in this piece. The revised version was premiered in Grahamstown, South Africa in 2000 by Anne Laberge and Michael Blake. This version for two soprano birbynes and harpsichord was made at the request of Darius Klysis for Ensemble Reversio, who premiered it on 7 September 2013 in the Marijampole Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lithuania.

Honey Gathering Song (version for 2 birbynes and harpsichord)

Honey Gathering Song was originally composed in 1989 as a piece for dance (choreographed by Gill Clarke and titled For the Off). Revising it in 1999 as a concert piece I expanded the more interesting material and scrapped that which seemed less interesting. I approached the traditionally problematic medium of flute and piano by integrating the two instruments through the use of almost identical material and by bringing their timbres as close together as possible in interlocking or heterophonic textures. Pieces with the title Honey Gathering Song can be found among the music of the pygmy communities in Central Africa. While I make use of African materials and compositional techniques, generally filtered or paraphrased, there is no direct reference to pygmy music in this piece. The revised version was premiered in Grahamstown, South Africa in 2000 by Anne Laberge and Michael Blake. 

Honey Gathering Song (original version)

Darragh Morgan's request for a new piece came about the time I was starting work on my first opera, Looking for Salome (based on Etienne Leroux's novel Sewe Dae by die Silbersteins), so I decided to make a paraphrase of the first scene, more or less giving the voice parts to the violin and the orchestral parts to the piano. There are roughly three types of material: music associated with the Silberstein family, with the main character Henry in his monologues, and with the 'Bishopscourt set'. This is prefaced by solo violin music, based on an mbira chord cycle, which then goes on to become the orchestral music. The title is the opening line of the libretto (written by Christine Lucia) and as I recall was also the first thing Darragh Morgan said to me when we met in person in Durban for the first time in 2004. The composition of the opera, and this piece, was made possible through a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pretoria. Do you prefer red or white? is dedicated to Darragh Morgan and Mary Dullea who gave the world premiere in Howard College Theatre, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban on 26 June 2004.

Do You Prefer Red or White? (2004)

String Quartet No 3 ("Nofinishi")

Piano Concerto No 1 ("Rain Dancing")

Sterkfontein, where I initially developed this piece, is situated in the Cradle of Humankind, outside Johannesburg. When I started thinking about a piece for Ivo and Jonny, I posited this question to myself: what kind of music might the early hominids have made? Then I allowed my imagination to run riot. Among other things the alto trombone could conjure up the loping of large prehistoric animals in this landscape with the very muted, often quite inaudible vibraphone perhaps suggesting more agile creatures. The first performance was given by the present artists on Thursday 8 October 2015 in the Konstnärsnämnden, Stockholm.

Alto Trombone And Vibe (2015)

Played by Robert Pickup (clarinet) and Jill Richards (piano)
South African premiere, 27 August 2004, Atrium, Wits University
Untitled was begun in August 2000 but largely completed in Cape Town the following summer. With a working title of Fast and Loud, a deliberate departure from previous works, it also turned into my most minimalist work up to then. It is largely concerned with surface and very little with traditional formal structures; its minimalist surface — finely graded variations of nuance and colour — belies the virtuosity required of both performers. Untitled was commissioned by SAMRO Endowment for the National Arts for Robert Pickup and Jill Richards to whom the piece is dedicated. The first performance was given by Robert Pickup (clarinet) and Jean-Jacques Dünki (piano) on 12 July 2002 in the Basílica Menor San Francisco de Asís, Havana (Cuba) during a tour by the Ensemble Opera Nova Zürich. It lasts about 19 minutes. 
Watch Aryan Kaganof's Untitled: https://vimeo.com/album/3290650/video/110780000



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