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- Kevin Volans
White Man Sleeps for string ensemble (2016)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
The arrangement was commissioned by MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig
- str (min 4.4.4.4.2)
- 28 min
Programme Note
I wrote this piece in its original version for two harpsichords in modified African tuning, viola da gamba, and small percussion in 1982. I hoped to achieve an integration of African and European aesthetics. I believed that aesthetic change precedes political change, and that an integrated music would assist in integrating society. As it turned out, the music was black-listed by the pro-apartheid SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation).
Sources
The first movement was inspired by the two alternating chords (in/out) that seemed to form the basis of all Basotho concertina music. I was entertained by the idea of a movement consisting only of two chords, (with two minor variations). The rhythm is largely 13/4, which as far as I know is not found in African music. I “re-Africanised” the alternating chords by setting them as two interlocking patterns.
The second and fourth movements are based on Nyungwe music played by Makina Chirenje and his Nyanga panpipe group at Nsava, Tete valley, Mozambique, which was recorded and transcribed by Andrew Tracey (to be found in an article entitled The nyanga panpipe dance in African Music, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1971). The original music is filtered, re-cast into patterns suitable for strings and presented in contrasting tempi. I further re-worked the material to create the fourth movement, filtering it down to a single line and slowing the tempo by four time octaves. I added a freely composed viola line in the second section.
The third movement begins with rough transcriptions of San hunting bow renditions of animal gaits: elephant, and spring hare (recorded by Tony Traill of the University of the Witwatersrand) overlaid with Tswana panpipe music recorded by Christopher Ballantine of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, (African Music 3(4), 1965, 52–67), and followed by a loose re-working of a lesiba piece I recorded in Lesotho.
The fifth movement is an original composition that started out as a piece inspired by hyena running, as performed in San bow music. As this wasn’t working out, I developed my own rhythms and patterns, consisting mainly of an interlocking pattern in three’s, re-cast for solo instruments.
Kevin Volans
Sources
The first movement was inspired by the two alternating chords (in/out) that seemed to form the basis of all Basotho concertina music. I was entertained by the idea of a movement consisting only of two chords, (with two minor variations). The rhythm is largely 13/4, which as far as I know is not found in African music. I “re-Africanised” the alternating chords by setting them as two interlocking patterns.
The second and fourth movements are based on Nyungwe music played by Makina Chirenje and his Nyanga panpipe group at Nsava, Tete valley, Mozambique, which was recorded and transcribed by Andrew Tracey (to be found in an article entitled The nyanga panpipe dance in African Music, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1971). The original music is filtered, re-cast into patterns suitable for strings and presented in contrasting tempi. I further re-worked the material to create the fourth movement, filtering it down to a single line and slowing the tempo by four time octaves. I added a freely composed viola line in the second section.
The third movement begins with rough transcriptions of San hunting bow renditions of animal gaits: elephant, and spring hare (recorded by Tony Traill of the University of the Witwatersrand) overlaid with Tswana panpipe music recorded by Christopher Ballantine of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, (African Music 3(4), 1965, 52–67), and followed by a loose re-working of a lesiba piece I recorded in Lesotho.
The fifth movement is an original composition that started out as a piece inspired by hyena running, as performed in San bow music. As this wasn’t working out, I developed my own rhythms and patterns, consisting mainly of an interlocking pattern in three’s, re-cast for solo instruments.
Kevin Volans
Scores
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