Michael Mosoeu Moerane was a pioneering composer in South Africa. A new book gives him back a place in history.

A composer and educator, Michael Moerane is known today for a few successful choral works, including Della and Sylvia, which are still sung today by choirs across South Africa. And, of course, for his orchestral piece FatŠe laHeso (My Country), which had the distinction of being recorded by British and South African public broadcasters at a time when the white minority did not even admit the existence of Black classical musicians.

But today, a book, The Times Do Not Permit, written by Christine Lucia, an author and specialist of South African music, redefines the legacy of this mysterious musician.

Moerane stood up against the system, while benefiting from the supervision of white universities. He was consulted by white ethnomusicologists during his lifetime. Yet he was stereotyped and confined by the rules of apartheid.

Christine Lucia’s book is important because it helps us begin to map the unknown continent of Black classical music under this regime. The book’s roughly 300 pages offer a detailed account of Moerane’s life, based on research and conversations with his family and contemporaries still living.

Lucia introduces us in turn to the musician’s different roles, as student, teacher, choir member and so on. She also analyses his compositions and the themes they address, from spirituality to tradition, love and loss.

But who was Michael Moerane?

Born in the Eastern Cape province and educated there as well as in neighbouring Basutoland (now Lesotho), Michael Moerane had a career as a music teacher that played out between the two countries.

His own radical Africanist politics, the activism of members of his family, his marriage across the ethnic barriers defined by apartheid (he was Sotho, his wife Xhosa) and the simple fact of being a Black composer exploring unconventional music meant he was often in the sights of the repressive authorities of both countries. His best protection was to change school or place of residence from time to time.

Some of his letters express a real fear that all these moves would lead to the loss or scattering of his written compositions. In spite of all this and of segregation, Michael Moerane managed to keep a family together, to establish musical ensembles and a reputation, and to earn a music degree from the University of South Africa in 1941, at a time when it was practically impossible for Black South Africans to receive a university education. Through a unique arrangement, he was able to benefit from the supervision of Rhodes University College, an entirely white institution located in his home province.

A book resurrects the legend.

Lucia’s account of how Moerane got there, and of the many compositions and long career as a music teacher that followed, is made even clearer by a rich variety of material. It includes geographical, historical and musical maps, extracts from his manuscripts, evocative photographs of people and places, and probably the most complete catalogue of Moerane’s works to date.

This catalogue was compiled from archive documents and fragments of scores kept in the family piano stool, where they were stored. In a South Africa torn apart by apartheid, the majority of the country’s Black families found themselves unable to keep family memorabilia. Moerane’s scores therefore painfully remind us that the mere fact that they still exist today is a true miracle.

The domination of the white minority limited not only where Black South Africans could live and work, but also how they could learn music. Courses given to Black music students were limited to writing in tonic sol-fa notation. Excluded from the notation used in classical music, the composers and performers who might have occupied concert stages were confined to community choirs and brass bands. This too is part of Moerane’s story.

South African music under apartheid is often presented as the “soundtrack” of history. Or history is often seen as a mere “backdrop” to music. But Moerane’s music was not a soundtrack to history: it was part of history. His era was not a backdrop to his music, it was an ingredient of it. This is less because of the work than because of what he chose to be – and what he could not be.

The title of the book, The Times Do Not Permit, is taken from a letter written in 1966 by Moerane to the academic Percival Kirby, as a polite reply to a request for detailed information about his life:

Lucia’s book thus lets us step into the life of a composer who fought against the circumstances of his time and rejoice that such a full life was led, but it also forces us to lament the opportunities lost to Moerane and to the researchers who looked at his life before. 

How many other Black South African musicians have seen their lives and legacies obscured as Michael Mosoeu Moerane’s was?