Conference Agenda

One challenge facing representations of historical processes of cultural globalization, transnationalism and hybridization concerns the legacy of their colonial-capitalist coordinates. This paper examines the way early African musics—ranging from 18^th-century matepe music from the Korekore region in northern Zimbabwe and amadinda music from the Kampala region in southern Uganda from the era before the destruction of the Lubiri Court—pose a challenge to, if not conceptually invert, the Newtonian-inflected European relation of metric time. Newton’s theory of time—grounded in force and geometry—proffered an abstract measure of isochronous units for locating and coordinating events. Matrices for framing musical time in the 18^th century were theorized along similar lines; and, along with pitch templates, instruments, devices, etc.—were standardized and scaled. Key technological artefacts for keeping time in music emerged throughout this period—Winkel’s musical chronometer of 1814, Maelzel’s newly-patented metronome of 1816, and so on. Likewise, music’s metric division was re-theorized as a kind of undifferentiated flow of absolute time [“Zeit”], intercalated by an isochronous circular time that was subdivided by accen­tuations grouped in two, three, and four beats [“Tackte”] (Kirnberger, Forkel, Koch, etc.).

The reconceptualization of meter as an equidistant sequence of durationless instants (or points) on a standardized geometric line of time—themselves further subdivided by an operational hierarchy guided by an autonomous cardinality—became normative by the early 20th century. Igor Stravinsky, for example, insisted on strict tempo controls in his music. These were based on beats projected as discreet mathematical units, which in turn facilitated the layering of complex rhythmic constructions, including polyrhythm. This kind of metric divisionism inflected not only compositional practice but also basic music theoretical writings throughout the century. The “metric-preference rules” found in Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff’s Generative Theory of Tonal Music, for example, crafted a complex grammar for meter-formation grounded in a projection of basic Newtonian principles, curiously tethered to the then-emerging field of cognitive psychology.

How might we shed light on, if not disrupt, the antinomies of 19th-century colonialism wrought by attendant standards—technical, legal, political, economic, cultural, and, for the purpose of this essay, musical? This paper argues that a close analysis of those musical techniques and technologies that could not survive the colonial assault—the sparse conditions of the archive notwithstanding—might serve as an entryway. In contrast to the Euro-industrial conception of it, consolidated in the modern Enlightenment era, “melo-rhythmic” pattern formation (Nzewi, Omojola) in Bugandan amadinda and embaire music, as well as matepe music of Zimbabwe, often remain stable, while metric schemes are meticulously rotated. In these precolonial musical forms, furthermore meter itself is mostly crafted as an algorithmic transformation of a rhythmic interaction. This paper describes the systems that undergird their performance practices, demonstrating, 1. how interlocking polyrhythmic parts elicit beat entrainment patterns set adrift of the embodied movements of performers; and 2. how procedures for pitch transposition rotate distinct metric schemes, effectively recouping a kind of melo-rhythmic identity under various transformations. Instead of relativizing Euro-industrial practices of meter (and its attendant rhythm-concept) the talk hopes to Africanize those metric practices that go as universal; and thereby to decenter Eurogenetic legacies of musical time.

As a violinist and composer, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, fell into oblivion in the musical world shortly after his death in 1799. However, he was present in the 19th century, though less as a musician than as a „romantic personage“ (La Laurencie) in literary fiction. This was mostly due to the novel Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1840) by Roger de Beauvoir, but even more to its dramatization, i.e., the three-act "comédie mélée de chant" of the same name by Beauvoir and Mélesville (Paris, Théâtre des Variétés, 1840). This play had a considerable impact on the reception of Saint-Georges, offering other facets of the „Don Juan noir,“ as 18th-century gentlewomen labeled him. However, bringing a person of color onto the stage implied blackfacing, albeit in an entirely noble costume.
The first part of this paper deals with Mélesville’s play, which contains a considerable amount of music (vaudevilles), lending the dramatis personae a ‚voice,‘ not least Saint-Georges himself. The focal point is an Air créole which musically acts as a significant reminiscence motif, likewise symbolizing in its text the impossibility of an interracial marriage. Although the plot takes place in the late Ancien Régime, this central message mirrors arguments of the French anti-slavery debate in the 1840s (eventually leading to the abolishment of the Code noir in 1848).
The second part of my paper focusses on translations and adaptations of Mélesville‘s play. Although in Spanish, German, and English translations music was reduced to a minimum, the London adaptation for the Princess’s Theatre (1845; published after 1850) is revelatory. For the ‚theme song‘ this version made use of the ballad „Child of the sun“ from Balfe’s opera The Bondman (Drury Lane, December 1846). Scholars (Hibberd 2016, Biddlecome 2018) have already identified Mélesville’s play as the model for Balfe’s opera, certainly originating in the 1845 London performances of The Chevalier de St. George. However, the reverse impact, from the opera back onto the play, is likewise revealing, in particular as concerns the intertextual framework produced by the aforementioned song in Balfe's later opera. From this perspective, I will discuss whether the (anti-slavery) message of Mélesville’s play is mitigated through this operatic cross-reference, or in contrast even strengthened in the London context.

José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767-1830), Brazilian church and court chapel master of mixed racial background, has been approached like any other fair-skinned monolithic subject, to the point that he is repeatedly described as “not a Black composer”—and often nicknamed the “Brazilian Mozart.” His whitening represents not so much a token of respect as a blurring and erasure of the racial discrimination that Nunes demonstrably encountered—just as it also eschews the need to problematize his oeuvre. While his biography continues to be refined and discussed, his distinguished production still lacks a substantial body of scholarship.

Musically, Nunes evokes lightweight Viennese classicism, but he is unique in his ability to quickly and constantly assimilate musical novelties, introducing to his catalog paradigmatic changes at the rate of once per decade. His output changed from simpler music similar to the “school of Minas Gerais,” to several stages of selective reception of Haydn, Mozart, and Rossini, to his monumental Missa de Santa Cecília (1826), his lengthy symphonic “last composition.”

This permanent flight forward places him outside of expectations and separates him from the myriad chapel masters who based predictable careers on a single style. His approach to composition breaks down any illusion we may have of Nunes as a unified subject, hence it is also ripe with significance and worthy of exploration. For a musician whose public persona reportedly was religious, kind, and obedient, periodically embracing musical novelties was a way to best serve God and the king. For a torn colonial subject who is looked down upon, incorporating new European fashions meant demonstrating technical excellence and aesthetic modernity. But for a twice subaltern colonial subject who permanently faced discrimination due to his race, constant style change also was a way of challenging established boundaries, questioning the statu quo, and reclaiming individuality and legitimacy.

However ethereal his music might seem, Nunes’s perpetual stylistic forging ahead was a positive way of confronting negativity and repositioning his subjectivity in the best possible cultural place. His worldly and cosmopolitan persona enabled attempts to whiten him, but he tactically developed his career as a consequence of his racial diversity.