Scholarly
Four musicians/musicologists have published research reports on my compositions over the last few years. Three musicians reported on my compositions as part of a study of a larger field: flute compositions by South African composers, string quartets by South African composers, and compositions for saxophone by South African composers.
South African Saxophone Compositions: Exploring the process of creating new music for saxophone through the lens of artistic research and performer-composer collaboration
Globally, there is a substantial body of repertoire for the classical saxophone. In South Africa, however, compositions for the classical saxophone by national composers are in short supply. This research investigated possible reasons for the limited compositional output of the instrument in this genre in South Africa. […] The interviews provided invaluable insight into the context within which the classical saxophone is situated in South Africa, where it is viewed as an instrument commonly used in jazz performance. The lack of saxophone-specific pedagogical resources, the high cost of commissions and the small number of classically-trained saxophone specialists country-wide, are all factors which limit the number of classical saxophone performers and repertoire. […] In the absence of a commissioning guide in South Africa, participants in the study shared their methods of commissioning works and their reasons for doing so. The data revealed that the role of national festivals and competitions are powerful conduits for promoting South African music. The participants shared their hopes and opinions for the future of the classical saxophone. Finally, the researcher created a draft catalogue of existing classical saxophone works to complement the fragmented databases found during the course of this research.
An Overview of the Choral Music of Hannes Taljaard
Between 1993 and 2020 Hannes Taljaard’s contribution to new music composed is admirable in both quantity and quality. His choral music amounts to about an eighth of his total creative output as composer. None of these works are published though some have been performed by choirs and singing ensembles. Most of these are arrangements of folk melodies, and as with composers such as Bartok and Kodály, most of the arrangements have been reworked to such an extent that it could be referred to as studies on folk melodies. The composer feels that he could reach the audience through the arrangements of melodies which are known to them. Furthermore, he wanted to contribute to the choral repertoire in South Africa’s strong choral tradition. From a work list provided by the composer, the choral genre was not his first engineered establishment as composer. Not only did instrumental music preceded this vocal genre, but lieder for solo voice also laid the path for his exploration of choral compositions. Reference to conversations with the composer presents the background, composing techniques and history of the works, while analytical examples of the works itself highlights different examples of Taljaard’s techniques of creating music for singing ensemble.
Embodiment, Consciousness, and Space-Time: Hannes Taljaard’s Setudes for Piano
This tribute to the music of Hannes Taljaard, more specifically his Setudes for piano, takes sensory cognition as its point of departure. The performer’s immediate embodiment of the music and the intuitive auditory awareness of the listening experience facilitate two different ways of perceiving and understanding a kind of music that is not aligned with traditional tonal structures and processes. Insight into the composer’s craft as a vehicle for artistic expression represents a third route towards understanding. Allowing for diverse overlapping of actions, the kinetic-tactile connection with music during performance and unmediated experience that allows music to speak directly to the listener’s consciousness recreate the composition, thereby completing Ernst Gombrich’s ‘magic circle of creation’. Sensory experience is linked with the idea of craftmanship in the service of the art by finally considering the composer’s shaping of music in time and space. This essay deals with the fourdimensional concept of space-time in the discussion of Taljaard’s Setudes in order to show how the static idea of the moment is transformed into the dynamic idea of becoming in musical perception.
Inspired by Lullabies: Folk Song Arrangements by Hannes Taljaard
This article analyses and discusses some of the characteristics of two sets of piano arrangements of traditional lullabies by the South African composer Hannes Taljaard (1971-). The deceptively simple arrangements in Two lullabies (2001) and Zwikumbu Zwingana (2010) feature interesting accompaniments, colourful harmony and the alteration of melodic contours, as well as metric and harmonic instability and the avoidance of clear cadences.
The Moving Force of Gestures: Gestural Transformation in the Seriosofrom Hannes Taljaard’s Four Essays (2001-2005)
Hannes Taljaard’s string quartet Four Essaysis a quintessential work in the South African string quartet literature. Various layers of ambivalence and ambiguity in this work make it a cognitively rich work to listeners and analysts. This article is an analysis of the first movement, Serioso, that shows the composer’s complex compositional technique against the backdrop of influences of metaphors in music, Indian Music and Bharatanatyam, musical gestures, musical forces, Set Theory, French poetry, and lullabies. As with many creative individuals, their lives and their creative outputs are mutually shaped. That is one of the fundamental aspects that are elucidated through the analysis presented in this article. I focus mainly on the thematic material of the work and statements that are based on what Taljaard refers to as the ‘protostatement’.
String Quartets by South African Composers: A Comprehensive Catalogue and Annotated Discussion of Works Composed Between 1940 and 2016
[…] Works by more than 75 composers are listed in alphabetical order according to the composer’s surname. Each composer’s works are listed chronologically according to date of composition. Although this document lists more than 180 works for string quartet, as well as a few significant works for string quartet with one or two other voices, this document should not be regarded as fully comprehensive. Each catalogue inscription consists of the name, birth year and birth place of the composer; country of residence, if not in South Africa; publishing details of the composer, where applicable; contact details of the composer; title of work and year of composition; dedicatee and commission, where applicable; approximate duration; titles of movements; details of first performance; details of recordings; notes (annotations). The catalogue is preceded by a succinct historic overview of the development of the string quartet as a medium, as well as a timeline of composers of string quartets in South Africa. A short chapter explaining the annotation process is included. The research document concludes with suggestions for further investigation.
Curating South African flute compositions: landscape as theme of exhibition
This study explores intersections between curatorship, South African flute compositions in concert practice and ‘landscape’ as theme of exhibition for concert events. The investigation into these intersections is informed by artistic research […] The research contends that curating as theoretical framework, but also as interventionist practice that is context-sensitive, is able to inform and invigorate conventional concert practices in the exhibition of South African flute compositions. […] In these curations I play the flute, an instrument that is traditionally and mythologically associated with the pastoral, but through my concert curations I perhaps find ‘An Other Tongue’, as Walter Mignolo suggests decolonial aestheSis is able to instigate. This research project demonstrates the power of the flute and its Western scored notations to intervene, transform and be transformed locally amidst curations that are context sensitive. Ultimately, the research is concerned with the possibilities presented by artistic research.