Anton Hartman
Anton Carlisle Hartman | |
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South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and head of music at the University of the Witwatersrand . He became a central figure in art music in South Africa during the mid 20th century.
Early lifeAnton Hartman was the third of six children of a poor family, born at Geduld near Johannesburg in South Africa on 26 October 1918. His father Stephanus Lionel Hartman, a champion marathon runner, was a mine worker, and his mother, Maria Barbara Van Amstel, née Van Ryneveld, a piano teacher. She also played piano accompaniments to the silent movies in the 1920s. Hartman first received piano lessons from his mother when he was about seven years old. He made good progress and was soon playing solo piano works and Lieder accompaniments. His elder sisters were also able singers. The family was keen on their long playing records, the predecessors of CDs, listening again and again to a vast collection of music. As a child and teenager Anton Hartman was a loyal member of the Voortrekkers movement which was to become a feature in Afrikaans cultural society. He became a leader in his commando. Their structured activities suited his personality type, one that was also moulded by financial hardship and a fervent will to advance in life. This organisation still exists, focusing as it did on Christian ethics, self-realisation and community service. Hartman obtained the Performer's Licentiate in Piano of the University of South Africa (Unisa) and a BMus degree at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in 1939,[1] Adolph Hallis being his teacher. Aged 21, Hartman started his career at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in December 1939 and his first position was that of programme compiler of classical music for the Afrikaans service.[2] AchievementsThe SABC environment provided many opportunities to acquaint himself with its symphony orchestra: rehearsals, recordings and concerts, many of which were broadcast live and which were the order of the day. Hartman began to realise that, most of all, he wanted to become a conductor. While temporarily transferred to Pieter Dirk Uys).[3]
In 1948 he was appointed part-time conductor of the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra and the West Rand Municipal Orchestra of Krugersdorp, both of which were amateur orchestras.[2] In 1944 he married Josina Wilhelmina (Jossie) Boshoff, a singer whom he first met as a secretary at the SABC. Hartman was awarded the Melanie Pollak Scholarship and Union Post Graduate Scholarship which enabled him to study abroad. Upon his return to South Africa late in 1951 Hartman was appointed assistant conductor at the SABC, alongside Jeremy Schulman and Edgar Cree.[2] His first live broadcast with the SABC Orchestra was on 15 November 1951, Beethoven's Third Symphony (the Eroica) being presented as the main work on the programme. Renowned visiting American pianist Andor Foldes performed with the SABC under his baton in 1953.[5] Hartman added his voice to the plea for a bigger symphony orchestra which could perform and broadcast a wider range of music. This became a reality in 1954 when the orchestra amalgamated with the Johannesburg City Orchestra.[2] CareerThe Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (FAK), translated Federation of Afrikaans cultural societies, was founded in 1929. Hartman had already served on the dynamic music committee of the FAK since 1944. In 1955 he was appointed head of this committee,[6] a position he retained until 1981. Over the following decades Hartman and his committee made significant strides in producing popular Afrikaans song books, presenting courses for school music, arranging competitions for choirs and awarding bursaries for deserving musicians.[7] In 1960 Hartman was appointed head of music at the SABC, a newly created position. Classical musicians who accepted invitations by the SABC to perform or conduct in South Africa in the sixties and seventies included Radu Aldulescu, Andre Navarra, Rafael Orozco, Franco Patone, Gyorgy Pauk, Edith Peinemann, John Pritchard, Ruggiero Ricci, Witold Rowicki, Malcolm Sargent, Bela Siki, Constantin Silvestri, Abbey Simon, Ruth Slenczynska, Maria Stader, Janos Starker, Daniel Sternefeld, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Igor Stravinsky, Henryk Szering, Bryden Thomas, Sergio Varella-Cid, Tibor Varga, Tamas Vasàry, Heinz Wallberg, Ernst Wallfisch, Daniel Wayenberg, Kurt Wöss, Narciso Yepes [10] (Concert programmes).
Hartman was also committed to presenting South African musicians in SABC broadcasts. Instrumentalists and vocalists were traced through auditions and offered contracts.[2] South African composers were commissioned to compose for broadcasting and be 'discovered'.[11] Stefans Grové, Arnold van Wyk, Hubert du Plessis, Roelof Temmingh and Peter Klatzow featured in this group. His passionate desire to involve the youth in art music flowered into the founding of the South African National Youth Orchestra, in association with the South African Society of Music Teachers.[2] The SABC also had its own Junior Orchestra. The inception in 1970 of the SABC Music Prize for young local performers who wished to pursue a solo career was another brain-child of Hartman's.[2] As a result of Hartman's establishing of the Opera Society of South Africa (OPSA) in 1957, opera productions in Afrikaans increased and local singers performed and shone in their roles. Operas and oratorios were translated into Afrikaans by Hartman himself [2] together with his colleagues. The SABC Orchestra visited local cities, rural towns and neighbouring countries, Mozambique and South West Africa (today Namibia) to introduce audiences to the genre. Orchestras in Salisbury (today Harare) and Bulawayo in Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe) were conducted by Hartman in 1971, 1973 and 1976.[12] During the 70th anniversary celebrations of the city of Johannesburg in 1956 the London Symphony Orchestra visited the 'City of Gold' and Hartman conducted one of the performances.[4] Hartman was invited to conduct in Europe, in many instances being the first South African to do so. In 1953 he conducted the orchestra at the opening concert at the International Summer Academy in Salzburg. A performance with the radio symphony orchestra of Vienna followed in 1955, as well as with the radio symphony orchestra of the North West German radio in Hamburg in the same year. A recording of works by South Africans John Joubert and Arnold van Wyk was made by the latter orchestra. In 1964 he conducted three concerts in Brussels, Belgium, that were recorded and later broadcast. In August 1966 Hartman was on the outdoor podium with the orchestra of Santa Cecilia in the Forum Romanum in Rome, Italy.[4] More invitations to Italy followed when Hartman was selected as jury member for the Radio Italia Prix in 1969, 1972, and 1976.[13] AcademicIn 1944 Hartman obtained BMus Hons and in 1947 MMus, both with distinction, from the University of the Witwatersrand. The M-thesis is titled 'A Survey of European Music in South Africa, 1652 – 1800'. In 1968 he served on the board of the newly established Rand Afrikaans University (today the University of Johannesburg). The University of Stellenbosch awarded Hartman an honorary degree DMus in 1968[2] and his alma mater awarded Hartman an honorary degree DMus in 1975.[14] The commendation in the brochure for the occasion read.[15]
In 1968 Hartman was appointed a full faculty member of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns.[16] In 1978 Hartman left the SABC to take up the post of head of music at the University of the Witwatersrand.[14] Anton Nel was the top piano student there at the time and later pursued an international career as pedagogue and concert pianist.[17] Hartman sought insight into the running of academic music departments and drawing up syllabi. For this purpose he visited eleven institutions in the US, including the Dorothy Delay . Delay accepted the invitation to visit South Africa the following year to present master classes. New music courses were subsequently introduced at Wits.
Throughout the years numerous articles by Hartman were published in books and journals, including 'History of the music of the Afrikaner'.[18]
The South African State Theatre in Pretoria was inaugurated in May 1981. Hartman conducted one of the gala concerts with soloists Mimi Coertse, Evelyn Dalberg, Bernard de Clerk and Deon Van der Walt.[4]
Hartman was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in that year and died on 3 February 1982.
The cultural agenda of Afrikaner nationalismBritish imperialism in South Africa. It originated in the late 19th century and reached its zenith by about 1975.[19] Afrikaans , the young language of a very diverse group of people, was the primary (but not exclusive) asset of Afrikaner nationalism. Tangible until at least the mid 20th century, British imperialism evaporated as Afrikaner nationalism and black nationalism took over.
Afrikaner nationalism flourished in the organisations that sprouted from it. The FW de Klerk, and Piet Meyer.[22] Meyer was appointed director-general of the SABC in 1959, the same year that he became chairperson of the AB.[23]
According to his diary Hartman, aged 33, was invited to join the AB on 29 February 1952. As a mother tongue Afrikaans speaker and deeply aware of his fellow Afrikaners’ perceived or real educational, cultural and economic inferiority he accepted this invitation. When he was a young employee at the SABC carefully selecting records to play on the air, he was already harnessing the uplifting that beautiful music could bring to very ordinary people in the remote rural areas of the expansive sub continent. By the time he was head of music or the principal conductor of the SABC he could build the biggest philharmonic orchestra south of the Sahara to a formidable entity. He also insisted on exposing South African audiences to art music of the 20th century. Like many of his ilk, Hartman summoned his own developing sophistication to serve a valid cause, albeit as a member of the AB.
Awards bestowed on Anton Hartman1962: Honorary Medal for Music, by the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns 1972: Honorary Member of the South African Society of Music Teachers (SASMT) 1977: Artes Award, SABC 1979: Half Century Memorial Award, by the FAK 1979: Honorary Membership of the Johannesburg Jewish Guild 1982: (Posthumous): A golden Medal of Honour, Erepenning vir Volksdiens by the FAK 1982: (Posthumous): Honorary Medal for the Promotion of Music, by the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns South African composers whose works were conducted by Anton HartmanW.H. Bell, Richard Cherry, Pieter de Villiers, Hubert du Plessis, David Earl, Gideon Fagan, Johannes Fagan, Blanche Gerstman, Stefans Grové, John Joubert, Pierre Malan, P.R. Kirby, Peter Klatzow, P.J. Lemmer, Rosa Nepgen, Graham Newcater, Stephen O’Reilly, Charles Oxtoby, Priaulx Rainier, Hans Roosenschoon, Henk Temmingh, Roelof Temmingh, Arnold van Wyk, Arthur Wegelin, Theo Wendt.[24] Bibliography
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