By John Njovu
Lately, Lusaka has been enjoying a spate of music shows by international musicians. Most of them have been musicians who play the pub popular types of dance music. Scantily dressed young women, gyrating waists and behinds, and open belly wriggling flash in your minds. Pictures you would not want your children to be in. The music is high volume and fast paced. I guess we Africans are physical and even in the churches; we have thrown away the Latin and Germanic hymns for the modern Afro-rhumba and Euro-pop gospel. Probably sex is on our minds not much different from our ancestors vigorously raking out a foot behind and imitating the mating moves of a rooster during those bright moon nights. That was music and dances when a Mbalule (lead) drum would sharply portray what is done in the dark. That Afro traditional rhythmic beat has cropped up into modern music. I watched a surprising European type of ballet in Niamey by a Maghreb dance troupe at one time and could swear that the drumming was Nsenga from the eastern province of Zambia. A Ghanaian friend explained that the drumming was common with Bantus on the Eastern side of Ghana and West of Niger. The ballet style was copied though from the French. [pullquote]I guess we Africans are physical and even in the churches; we have thrown away the Latin and Germanic hymns for the modern Afro-rhumba and Euro-pop gospel. Probably sex is on our minds not much different from our ancestors vigorously raking out a foot behind and imitating the mating moves of a rooster during those bright moon nights[/pullquote]
Could it also be that the stresses of trying to cross into another day, for most of us in Zambia or Africa, probably justify our listening and dancing to music that we shake, gyrate, wriggle and sweat to, to wriggle out the stresses?
The subdued genres of music concentrating on dynamics of sounds, harmony and melody may therefore, generally, not appeal to most of us.
Therefore, it was a rare treat for those who love baroque and classical music to be entertained by the Pegasos Ensemble. This is a group of four accomplished musicians led by Theo Bross who plays the violoncello (cello). The others are Jennie McMullen who plays piano and is a soprano singer. Julia Galic is a violinist. Christa Jardine plays the viola. The violin, viola, cello, double bass and Octobass belong to the violin family (the viola da braccio family) of musical instruments. These are played using a bow drawn over the strings. A finger of the free hand plucks and hammers on the strings to produce a range of pitches.
The ensemble was formed in 1991. They performed at Gerritz Restaurant in Rhodes Park on Sunday 15th August. It was their second time in Zambia. They were in Zambia thanks to the Goethe Institute and German Embassy.
The ensemble showed their mastery of musical instruments; Jennie’s magic fingers on the piano, sweet fiddling Julia and Christa and audience humoring Theo on their string instruments. Their repertoire was rich and conveyed in me flashes of colours and scenes of 1500s to 2000s. I was ported through the ensemble’s musical window into enchanted castles of big banquets and bejeweled and overdressed royalty, snow blanketed villages, mushroom littered forests and rivers of mermaids of old Europe. The wonderful pieces of Jean Marie Lecrair, Franz Shubert and Antonio Vivaldi were played so marvelously that old Europe came alive in the yard of Gerritz.
In my mind eyes I galloped through the palaces of Victorian families of Europe through Slavic states, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy and Spain. I saw and heard Gypsy fanfare and horseplay come galloping through Gerritz Restaurant as the ensemble played Czardas by Vittorio Monti. I saw Blondie hair flying low in a three star Germanic coupe on an American highway as Leonard Bernstein’s pieces were tweaked and sprayed into the air. I stopped in Spain to see slender and tall women in long skirts dance and see bull fights as I stepped out of the musical window of the ensemble as Manuel de Falla’s pieces came alive. Though missing Andalusian flamenco guitars, the string instruments brought the dances of Spain into Rhodes Park.
One wished the recital could go on and on. However, all things good have an end. We can only wish that the ensemble will return again to Lusaka one day. I also wish that some of our own from the Lusaka Music Society would enchant us as well during the next visit of the ensemble.
chachine sana mukwai we dance like a swinging pendulum just take a chance this friday and see the moves, just as if people are in bed mating or having a food in between.
Should not make generalisations about African music. Some of it can be contemplative and is not just about rhythms and dancing which in itself is not a bad thing. Also, there are no bantu speaking peoples north of the Nigeria and Cameroon border which there are no bantu speaking peoples in Ghana or Niger.
Upupuba ba Njovu!!! Ati we Africans? If your mind is filthy every time you see someone dancing does not mean all of us. And when you say we Africans, do you mean white people don’t do sinister things? What about their elicit movies and their swinging clubs? Travel before you write such nonsense!!!
John Njovu said – ”I saw Blondie hair flying low in a three star Germanic coupe on an American highway as Leonard Bernstein’s pieces were tweaked and sprayed into the air. I stopped in Spain to see slender and tall women in long skirts dance and see bull fights as I stepped out of the musical window of the ensemble as Manuel de Falla’s pieces came alive”.
Man do you smoke reefer or you are one of those foolish Mandingos that dream of being white? You are disgusting! Black people will always be black, just go to black churches in America or see the African influence in Brazil!!
We love our music and it has got nothing to do with the Darwinism you have been pumped with by the racists!!
Unworried Bachelor — i hear you and you made me laugh so much, but you seem too angry, lighten up! its only an opinion piece and no need to be so hard on Mr Njovu. His article, dreamy like (especially in the lines you quote) was a good read and had some good points.