Ayo Bankole’s FESTAC Cantata: A Paradigm for Intercultural Composition

Godwin Sadoh

Godwin Sadoh is a Nigerian organist-composer, pianist, choral conductor, African ethnomusicologist, and scholar. He is presently professor of music and LEADS Scholar at the National Universities Commission, Abuja, Nigeria.

The arrival of the Christian faith in Nigeria in the mid-nineteenth century dramatically changed the musical landscape in the West African nation through the exploits of the missionaries from Europe and southern United States, as well as the imperial colonial administration from England. The church teachings, curriculum of the mission schools, and the colonial policies exposed the new Nigerian converts to Western classical music repertoire and musical instruments such as the harmonium, piano, and organ. In this thriving musical culture and environment, Nigerian composers began writing compositions of their own from around 1910. Many of their compositions at this time were fashioned after the European baroque and classical styles. However, from the 1960s, Nigerian composers began experimenting with new techniques in their works, such as atonality and twelve-tone rows. The then young composers, fired up by the new twentieth-century compositional devices they had acquired at schools of music in London and the United States, partially abandoned the tonal system of the preceding era. This essay is specially written to commemorate the eightieth birthday of one of Nigeria’s most prolific organist-composers, Ayo Bankole. 

 

A short biography

Ayo Bankole was born on May 17, 1935, at Jos, in Plateau State of Nigeria. Bankole spent the first five years of his life with his father, the late Theophilus Abiodun Bankole, who was the organist and choirmaster at St. Luke’s Anglican Church, Jos, at the time. His mother was also an active musician. She was a music instructor for several years at Queen’s School, Ede, Osun State, a Federal Government high school. Bankole’s father noticed the gift of music in his son at an early age; hence, in 1941 he moved the young Bankole to live with his grandfather, Akinje George, in Lagos; George was then organist and choirmaster at the First Baptist Church, Lagos. Bankole received his first lessons in piano and harmonium from his grandfather, who introduced him to various types of musical styles, and, from the time the boy was seven, would often ask Bankole to play for his friends, thereby showing off the innate genius of his grandson.

While in Lagos, Bankole’s father encouraged his son to join the renowned Cathedral Church of Christ Choir, Lagos, as a boy soprano and private organ pupil of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips (1884–1969), who was then organist and master of the music at the cathedral. At this time, Ayo Bankole’s father had moved from Jos to Lagos, and was now organist and choirmaster at St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Faji, Lagos, a walking distance from the cathedral church. It is not surprising that his father enrolled the young Bankole at the Cathedral Choir and not at the church where he worked. The Cathedral Church of Christ Choir was a model for all churches in Nigeria, and it was the most prestigious church choir at the time. The Cathedral Choir boys were highly talented children who came from musical, upper-middle-class homes and affluent families that were the cream of the Nigerian high-class society. Ekundayo Phillips was the most advanced and the only professionally trained organist and church musician at the time in Nigeria. The Cathedral Choir was the best environment for a talent such as Ayo Bankole to have the right exposure to nurture and develop his musical gifts.

At the age of ten in 1945, Bankole enrolled at the Baptist Academy, Lagos, which was one of the leading high schools in the state. He became more active as a musician at his high school by becoming the pianist and organist of the school. It was at this school that Bankole began to show interest in choral conducting by organizing small groups to perform at special events. Within the span of five years at the Baptist Academy, Bankole participated in several music competitions and concerts organized by the Nigerian Festival of the Arts. This festival was unique because it was one of the few avenues for budding talents in music to earn national recognition. Most of the professionally trained Nigerian musicians participated in this festival at some point during their formative years.

After graduating from the Baptist Academy, Bankole was appointed as a clerical officer at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1954. During this period, he came in contact with notable musicians such as Christopher Oyesiku, who became a colleague and close friend to whom Bankole dedicated several solo songs; Thomas Ekundayo Phillips; Tom Chalmers, the first Director General of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation; Arthur Langford; Leslie Perron, Controller of Music at N. B. C.; and Fela Sowande. Bankole had great admiration for Sowande and was able to receive advanced lessons in organ playing from him. Between 1954 and 1957, Bankole was already very active as organist in Lagos churches. For instance, he was assistant organist at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, under the leadership of Ekundayo Phillips. It was about 1957 that Bankole began composing his first major works, Ya Orule and Nigerian Suite, both for piano solo.

In August 1957, Bankole left Lagos on a Federal Government scholarship to study music at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. On his arrival at Guildhall, he was appointed to the position of organist and choirmaster at St. James-the-Less. Bankole remained in this position until his graduation in 1961. At Guildhall, he studied piano, composition, organ, harmony, and counterpoint. Some of his teachers included Alan Brown (organ), Harold Dexter (organ), and Guy Eldridge (composition). During his time at Guildhall School of Music, Bankole was exposed to a variety of musical styles from diverse European epochs. His works from this period show the influence of the various contemporary European composers he was studying at the time. He experimented with twentieth-century compositional devices as exemplified in his Three Yoruba Songs for voice and piano (1959) and the Toccata and Fugue for organ (1960). This period marked the genesis of Bankole’s creative career that was to lead to a very personal style of intercultural composition—the synthesis of Nigerian and Western idioms. The works in this period include Sonata No. 1 (Christmas) for piano; Cantata No. 1 (Baba Se Wa Lomo Rere [Father, Make Us Good Children]) (1959); several part songs for female chorus; Sonata No. 2—The Passion, for piano (1959); and Variations, op. 10, no. 1 (1959), based on a Yoruba Christian tune, Ohun a f’Owo Se (also known as Ise Oluwa).

In spite of the hectic program at Guildhall, Bankole found time to sit for external examinations and obtained a series of professional diplomas and certifications such as Associate of the Royal College of Music (piano), Licentiate of the Trinity College of Music (piano), Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music (Teacher’s Diploma), Associate of the Royal College of Organists, and Graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GGSM). After four years of study at Guildhall School of Music, Bankole proceeded to Clare College, University of Cambridge, London, where he obtained his first degree, the Bachelor of Arts in Music, in 1964. As was the practice at Cambridge, a Bachelor of Arts degree (Cantab) automatically becomes a Master of Arts (Cantab) three years after graduation. On July 15, 1964, while at Cambridge as an organ scholar, Bankole sat for the external examination and obtained the prestigious Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO), thus becoming the second and the last Nigerian to receive the British highest diploma in organ playing. Fela Sowande was the first Nigerian and indeed, the first African to earn the FRCO diploma in 1943. During Bankole’s stay in England, he wrote music that he himself could perform. A tremendous amount of music was composed for piano and organ since he was a pianist and organist himself. He also wrote some choral and orchestral works that are technically oriented towards European audiences and performers. The works from this period include Sonata No. 4 (English Winter Birds) for piano, Variations Liturgical (Theme and Nine Variations) for piano, Three Toccatas for organ, Fugal Dance for piano, Organ Symphonia No. 2 for organ, drums, trumpet, and trombone, and a number of choral works such as Art Thou Come (1964), Little Jesus (1964), Canon for Christmas (1964), and Four Yoruba Songs (1964).

After the completion of his bachelor’s degree at Cambridge in 1964, Bankole received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to study ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. At UCLA, Bankole’s composition teacher was Roy Travis, who was then America’s foremost composer experimenting with African music resources in his creative works. Bankole developed a keen interest in the music from other cultures. His training at UCLA enabled him to evolve a personal style that was founded on African traditional music principles. He went further by composing intercultural works that use non-African resources, such as his Ethnophony. This work is a summation of Bankole’s experience in ethnomusicology and an archetype of the conjoining of creative principles with ethnomusicological procedures.

Ayo Bankole returned to Nigeria in 1966 and was appointed to the position of Senior Producer in Music at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (now Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria), Lagos. He remained in this position until 1969, when he accepted the position of lecturer in music at the Department of Music, University of Lagos, where he continued his research into Nigerian indigenous music. While at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Bankole pioneered what would later become a common trend among Nigerian professional musicians, that is, the art of embracing all arms of music discipline. Consequently, at UNILAG, Bankole was a music educator, composer, performer, and ethnomusicologist. He was constantly involved in training and encouraged budding serious musicians by giving them private lessons in singing and piano playing. It was also during this time that Bankole intensified his interest in organizing and training independent choral groups. He wrote extensively for these groups and also exposed them to European classical music. Prominent among the choral groups he founded were the Choir of Angels, comprising students from three major high schools in Lagos (Reagan Memorial, Lagos Anglican Girls Grammar School, and the Methodist Girls High School); the Lagos University Musical Society; the Nigerian National Musico-Cultural Society; and the Chapel of the Healing Cross Choir, all situated in Lagos. 

Although Bankole contributed immensely to the development of modern music in Nigeria, he was not able to live long enough to witness and reap the fruit of his labor. In the early hours of November 6, 1976, at the tender age of forty-one, Ayo Bankole and his wife, Toro Bankole, were both brutally murdered by his half brother while sleeping in their own home. Although Bankole is no longer alive, he is still greatly admired by Nigerian musicians for his outstanding contributions to the study of modern Nigerian music as a composer, music educator, ethnomusicologist, organist, pianist, and choral conductor. Bankole was an extremely gifted man who was not able to develop his gifts to full potential.

Wherever modern Nigerian art music is mentioned, verbally or in writing, the name of Ayo Bankole always stands out prominently. Scholarly articles, theses, and books have been written and published about him. His compositions are neatly catalogued in several archival centers around the world, including Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth, Germany; Center for Intercultural Music Arts (CIMA), London; and the Center for Black Music Research, Chicago, Illinois. To immortalize his name at home in Nigeria, his son, Ayo Bankole, Jr., built a world-class arena in his honor, the Ayo Bankole Music Center for Arts and Cultural Expression (ABC), in Lagos. The center was established primarily as an arts center with the aim of promoting music in particular and the arts in general and to be a vehicle for influencing youths and society positively. The ABC accordingly aims to promote the various aspects of musical endeavor that the late Ayo Bankole excelled in during his lifetime. It is a multi-purpose hall with the necessary infrastructure to make it suitable for a range of performances, workshops, and exhibitions. The ABC runs a mid-week jazz event on Wednesdays. Every Friday the ABC stages a cabaret gig that involves singing different genres of music. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays are karaoke days. The last Sunday of each month, the ABC hosts a concert termed “Jazz and Old School with Ayo Bankole and Friends,” where several bands and solo acts (singers, comedians, etc.) are featured. The ABC intends in the near future to introduce a highlife night and also a monthly dramatic production.

 

Three Toccatas

We cannot close an essay about this organist-composer without discussing one of his most mature works for the King of all Western instruments. The Three Toccatas for organ were composed between 1962 and 1964 while Bankole was at the University of Cambridge—a period that marked the second phase of his experimental stage, with works influenced by early twentieth-century compositional procedures as exemplified in these toccatas. These three pieces are infused with various twentieth-century devices that the composer was exposed to while studying in England. It is quite apparent that he was writing these pieces particularly for European virtuoso organists and audiences, but definitely not for African performers. In the 1960s, the only Nigerian organist who would have been able to tackle Bankole’s toccatas was Fela Sowande. Incidentally, Sowande had already immigrated to the United States by the late 1960s, and he was more focused on research, teaching, and musicology at this stage of his career. To date, the author is aware of only two American organists—the late Eugene Wilson Hancock (1929–1994) and Mickey Thomas Terry—who have played through or performed Toccata III in the United States. In fact, Hancock recorded Toccata III on a special audio cassette, captioned A Sampling of Organ Music by Black Composers, produced by the Committee on Educational Resources of the American Guild of Organists in 1992. 

Toccata I is a tonal work in G major and is in three-part form. The first section (measures 1–26) is characterized by fast-moving eighth notes in the right hand, while the left hand and pedal supply the harmonic framework. (See Example 1.) The piece is based on a theme by Bankole’s father and it is in the right hand of the first section (measures 15–18). The homophonic middle section (measures 27–39) comprises a continuous tremolo highlighting open thirds and fourths in the right hand with chordal accompaniment in the left hand. The final section (measures 39–72) is a restatement of the first section with rapid eighth notes, the theme harmonized in the right hand, and pedal ostinato. The piece is generally characterized by chromatic passages, ostinato on the manual and pedal, repetition, and bitonality. 

The second toccata is not as exciting as the first. It is more pianistic and may work better on piano than on organ. (See Example 2.) The most prominent pianistic features in the piece are the excessive use of Alberti bass and arpeggios that pervade the entire piece on the manuals. The second toccata is also based on an original theme by Bankole’s father. It is a sectional work in which the first two phrases of the principal theme are in the pedal (measures 2–17). The concluding two phrases of the theme are placed in the left hand on the manual (measures 32–35). Following this is a brief section in which the composer plays with the third phrase of the theme in both the right hand and the left hand (measures 40–53). A fairly long homophonic section (measures 54–86) on the manuals precedes the final section (measures 87–105), where the pedal returns triumphantly playing a tuneful, mostly pentatonic melody. The piece closes with this melody in the pedal and polytonal chords on the manuals. 

Toccata III is slightly longer than the second. It is interesting to note the increase in length among these three pieces: Toccata I is 72 measures long, Toccata II is 105 measures, and Toccata III is 135 measures. Bankole elongates each toccata by about thirty measures as he writes them. Toccata III is the only one conceived in pure atonality even though it closes with a B chord in the last two measures. Structurally, it is in three-part form with a short fanfare and Adagio as introduction (measures 1–18). The first A section is atonal but closes with a fairly long chromatic chord passage (measures 19–48). The middle B section (measures 49–112) is characterized by frequent meter changes that eventually culminate in rapidly moving arpeggios and scale passages (measures 99–110). The piece finally finds repose with the return of the opening A section from measures 116 to 135. It closes with a bravura section of massive chromatic chords in the manuals (see Example 3). Other interesting features in Toccata I–III are the pedal points and the ostinato patterns.

 

Conclusion

Ayo Bankole’s musical odyssey exemplifies typical experiences of modern Nigerian-trained musicians defined by three cultural phenomena: Nigerian/African, European, and American. His musical language and style are vividly influenced by the incorporation of resources from the triune cultures, a co-existence of the old and the new in one pot. Bankole’s religious background and convictions in the Christian faith significantly influenced his creative output. Many of his instrumental and vocal compositions are sacred. 

As a prolific composer, Ayo Bankole contributed extensively to modern art music in Nigeria through his vocal and instrumental works. He represents the forerunners of avant-garde composition in the country through the use of diverse twentieth-century tonal schemes and creative techniques. Bankole is also well respected among Nigerian musicologists as a scholar for his research and documentation of Nigerian music. Even though he departed this world almost four decades ago, his music lives on after his death as a doyen of modern Nigerian art music.

 

Ayo Bankole’s compositions

Most of Bankole’s works are unpublished, since in his day, there was not a single publishing firm in Nigeria to put his works into print, and black composers had serious problems at that time publishing their compositions in Europe and the United States. (Most of the works of other composers of Bankole’s generation—such as Akin Euba, Samuel Akpabot, Lazarus Ekwueme, Meki Nzewi, and Joshua Uzoigwe—are also unpublished.)

All works listed here are unpublished except as noted.

 

Organ Works

Organ Symphonia Nos. 1 and 2, for organ, drums, trumpet, and trombone (1961–64)

Fantasia for organ (1961–64) 

Three Toccatas for organ (1962–64) 

Fugue for organ (1967) 

Toccata and Fugue for Organ (Ile-Ife: University of Ife Press, 1978)

 

Solo Art Songs

The Lord is My Shepherd, for female voice and organ (1959) 

Ten Yoruba Songs, for voice and piano (1959–66) 

Adura fun Alafia (Prayer for Peace), for voice and piano (1969) 

Three Songs for Diana, for voice and piano (1971–72) 

Three Yoruba Songs for Baritone and Piano (Ile-Ife: University of Ife Press, 1977).

 

Christmas Works

Kristi, Ma Wole (Christ, We Greet You), for voice and piano (1958) 

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (1959)

Ni Owuro Ojo Keresimesi (Christmas Day) for voice and piano (1959) 

Keresimesi Odun De (Christmas is Here), for voice and piano (1960)

And Art Thou Come, for voice and piano (1964) 

Little Jesus, Gentle Jesus, for voice and piano (1964) 

Canon for Christmas, Eyo, Eyo, Odun De O (Rejoice, Rejoice, Christmas is Here), for chorus and piano (1964) 

Salzburg Carol, for eight-part chorus and piano (1964) 

 

Choral Works

Cantata No. 1 in Yoruba, Baba Se Wa l’Omo Rere (Father Make Us Good Children), for female chorus and chamber orchestra (1958) 

Requiem, for chorus and organ (1961) 

The Children of the Sun (1961) 

Choral Fugue (1962) 

Cantata No. 3 in Yoruba, Jona, for soprano solo, speaker in English, drum, piano, tambura, and orchestra
(1964) 

Eru O B’Omo Aje (A Child of a Witch is Fearless) 1964 

Be Prepared, for female chorus (Girl Guide’s Jubilee Song), 1966 

Ore-Ofe Jesu Kristi (The Grace of Jesus Christ), for unaccompanied chorus (1967)

Salve Christe (1968)

Opera: Night of Miracles, for chorus, soloists, and orchestra, including Nigerian traditional instruments (1969)

Cantata: Ona Ara, for full chorus, soloists, organ, and Yoruba musical instruments (1970) 

Fun Mi N’Ibeji Part I and II, for unaccompanied chorus (1970) 

Death Be No More: A Dramatic Cantata on a Poem by Cosmo Pieterse, for soprano soloist, chorus, and ethnophonic instruments (1972) 

Love Everlasting (1972) 

Mighty Africa Games (1973) 

Cantata No. 4: FESTAC, for soloists, chorus and orchestra of Western and traditional Nigerian instruments (1974) 

Lullaby (1966)

God Rest You Merry (1966) 

Angels from the Realms (1966) 

Keresimesi Tun Ma De O (Christmas Is Here Again), for chorus and piano (1968) 

Christus Natus, for chorus and piano (1968) 

Grand Little One (Words by Meki Nzewi) 

Three-Part Songs for Female Choir (Ile-Ife: University of Ife Press, 1975)

Gbogbo Aiye, Eyo, E Ho (Let All the World, Rejoice and Shout) 

 

References

Alaja-Browne, Afolabi. “Ayo Bankole: His Life and Work.” M.A. thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1981, pp. 15–28.

__________. “A History of Intercultural Music in Nigeria.” In Intercultural Music vol. 1, eds. Cynthia Tse Kimberlin and Akin Euba. Bayreuth African Studies Series, No. 29, 1995.

Floyd, Jr., Samuel. International Dictionary of Black Composers. Chicago, Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999.

Nketia, Kwabena. “Developing Contemporary Idioms Out of Traditional Music.” Studia Musicologica Hungaricae 24 (1982): 81–96.

Omibiyi-Obidike, Mosunmola. “The Process of Education and the Search for Identity in Contemporary African Music.” In African Musicology: Current Trends, vol. 2, eds. Jacqueline Codgell DjeDje and William Carter. Atlanta, GA: Crossroads Press, 1989.

Sadoh, Godwin. “A Profile of Nigerian Organist-Composers.” The Diapason Vol. 94, No. 8 (August 2003): 20–23.

__________. “Hybrid Composition: An Introduction to the Age of Atonality in Nigeria.” The Diapason Vol. 97, No. 11 (November 2006): 22–25.

__________. “Twentieth Century Nigerian Composers.” Choral Journal 47, No. 10 (April 2007): 33–39.

__________. Intercultural Dimensions in Ayo Bankole’s Music. New York: iUniverse, 2007.

__________. “Ayo Bankole’s FESTAC Cantata: A Paradigm for Intercultural Composition.” The Diapason, Vol. 102, No. 7 (July 2011): 25–27.

Southern, Eileen. Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians. London: Greenwood Press, 1982.

Uzoigwe, Joshua. “Nigerian Composers and Their Works.” Daily Times, August 25 and September 1, 1990.

 

Other articles of interest:

 

A history of organs of the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, Nigeria

 

The centennial of the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir, Lagos, Nigeria

 

Ayo Bankole

 

Godwin Sadoh

Godwin Sadoh is a Nigerian organist-composer, pianist, choral conductor, and ethnomusicologist. His latest book, Intercultural Dimensions in Ayo Bankole’s Music, will be published by Wayne Leupold Editions. Sadoh is presently Assistant Professor of Music and Coordinator of the Sacred Music program at LeMoyne-Owen College, Memphis, Tennessee.

Musical practice in 21st-century Nigeria can be broadly divided into four major genres: 1) traditional music, 2) popular dance music, 3) church music, and 4) modern African art music. Traditional music can be traced back to the historical roots of the society. It is the music that defines and identifies the people of Nigeria and their culture. The whole gamut of Nigerian culture is embedded in the traditional music, be it cultural, social, political, or religious, historiography, as well as world-view. The music permeates every aspect of Nigerian life. However, the middle of the 19th century witnessed events that transformed the entire cultural landscape of Nigeria. These events were manifested in the form of political governance through the British colonial administration, and through the efforts of Christian missionaries from America and England.
These two domineering forces introduced Western classical music to the main stream of Nigerian socio/cultural life around 1840s.1 Through the colonial and mission schools, as well as churches established by the missionaries, talented Nigerians were introduced to Western music notation, European songs, and musical instruments. It was at these institutions that Nigerians first learned to sing Western songs such as nursery rhymes, folk songs and selected excerpts from major classical works such as Handel’s Messiah and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. In addition, talented Nigerians received private lessons in piano, harmonium, and organ at these schools and churches. All these endeavors consequently led to the emergence of art music composers in Nigeria.

The Golden Age of Church Music (1900–1950)

The first generation of Nigerian composers comprised mainly church organists and choirmasters. They concentrated on writing sacred music for worship in the newly founded churches. Compositions include church hymns, canticles (responsorial prayer songs for soloist and congregation),2 chants for singing Psalms, choral anthems, and cantatas. Their works represent the first attempts by indigenous Nigerians in writing Western classical music. Hence, most of these compositions are very simple, short, and tonal. The harmonization is severely functional following baroque and classical conventions. The music was written for Western musical instruments such as piano, harmonium or organ, and the form, harmony, and style follow European standards.
Nigerian traditional musical instruments were not incorporated into these compositions during this era because they were blatantly prohibited from being used for worship by the early foreign missionaries. In other words, the only instruments that early Nigerian composers could write for were European. However, in spite of the embargo on traditional instruments, it was in this period that we began to witness musical synthesis of European and African idioms. The experiment of conjoining Western elements with traditional African music actually began in the early church. This took the form of employing indigenous languages for texts and using indigenous songs as melodic themes for compositions. Notable composers from the first generation include Rev. Canon J. J. Ransome-Kuti, Rev. T. A. Olude, Akin George, Ikoli Harcourt-Whyte, Emmanuel Sowande (Fela Sowande’s father), Okechukwu Ndubuisi, and Thomas Ekundayo Phillips (Organist and Master of the Music, Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, 1914–1962). Thomas Ekundayo Phillips was the first Nigerian to receive professional training in music at Trinity College of Music, London, from 1911 to 1914.

The Age of Concert Music (1950–1960)

This era was represented by the most celebrated Nigerian musician, Fela Sowande (1905–1987). Sowande continued to compose sacred music for divine services in the church, yet he transformed art music in Nigeria from a sacred entity and elevated it to the concert platform in public auditoriums, institutions of higher learning, and radio stations. He introduced solo art songs with piano or organ accompaniment, organ solo pieces, chamber music, and orchestral works to the Nigerian art music repertoire. Although Thomas Ekundayo Phillips wrote two short pieces for organ solo, it was Sowande who composed several large works for organ employing traditional folk songs and indigenous church hymn tunes. No other Nigerian composer has written such a large body of solo pieces for organ as Sowande.
Prior to this era, musical activities were confined to the churches during festive occasions such as Christmas and Easter seasons. With the introduction of vocal solos, chamber music and orchestral works, the venue of musical activities shifted from the church to public auditoriums where secular works could be performed without any inhibitions. In terms of tonality, Sowande introduced chromaticism into the musical vocabulary of Nigerian compositions. He refused to align himself with the atonal school of composers, then in vogue in Europe and America. He chose to move his Nigerian audience gradually from the tonal convention of the baroque/classical era to romantic chromaticism. Sowande must have felt that jumping from the traditional tonal system to atonality would have been too wide a leap and too radical for the Nigerian audience to appreciate. Although chromatic passages are prevalent in his organ works, Sowande left the idea of atonality for the next generation of Nigerian composers.
The second generation of Nigerian musical experience also ushered in a new form of musical integration known as pan-Africanism. Sowande, unlike his predecessors, went beyond employing Nigerian folk songs in his works; rather, he included popular tunes from other African countries into his compositions. Hence, one would hear indigenous songs from Nigeria and other African societies in his works. For instance, he borrowed a Ghanaian folk song in his African Suite for String Orchestra.3 In addition, this era introduced the concept of global interculturalism into Nigerian music language. We must give credit to Sowande for being the first Nigerian composer to go so far as to borrow spiritual tunes from the African-American culture. He uses spirituals in his solo art songs and choral anthems, as well as organ pieces.

The Age of Atonality (1960 to present)

The third generation of modern Nigerian composers consists of highly talented musicians, both composers and scholars, who received intensive training in the European tradition in several British Royal Schools of Music, as well as training in ethnomusicology in American universities. Thus, it would be correct to refer to these musicians as composer-ethnomusicologists. From the 1960s, foreign-trained Nigerian composers embarked on intensive research into the traditional music of their society to enhance a better understanding of its component materials, structure, stylistic principles, tonality, function and meaning in the society, the instrumental resources, organization of ensembles, rhythmic basis of instrumental music, organization and techniques of vocal music, melody and polyphony in vocal as well as instrumental ensemble, speech and melody, theoretical framework, and interrelatedness of music and dance. The focal point has been cultural renaissance and the search for nationalistic identity, that is, how to combine the new art music with the African roots.
It is from this period that we witness for the first time compositions involving both traditional African and Western musical instruments. Prior to this era, music notation specified only Western instruments. African instruments were not included in the scores of the early composers but rather used for supportive purposes and to create spontaneous improvised rhythmic background for vocal songs. Such instrumental rhythmic patterns were never notated until the era of the composer-ethnomusicologists. In fact, there are works from this period composed exclusively for traditional instruments such as Akin Euba’s Abiku No. 1 for Nigerian Instruments (1965). This work was composed for a dance drama, Iya Abiku, choreographed by Segun Olusola and videotaped by the Nigerian Television Authority for presentation at the International Music Center Congress on “Dance, Ballet and Pantomime in Film and Television,” in Salzburg, Austria, 1965.4 The third generation composers aim to make the music more appealing to their local audience. In other words, the Africanisms in the music are meant to captivate and draw the larger society to the works.
In terms of tonal organization, this group of Nigerian composers was tutored in the theoretical principles of the early 20th century such as the twelve-tone system, atonality, and octatonic scales. Pioneers of atonal compositions in Nigeria employed these methods in two ways. First, some of the compositions are written strictly in Western idiom following the styles of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern. Works in this category are practically European without any interjection of African traditional music. Their form, texture, instrumentation, rhythmic organization, and tonality are Western. The second category of 20th-century compositions in Nigeria incorporated some Africanisms. These compositions are partly Western and partly African. They are best described as syncretic or intercultural compositions—the amalgamation of European and African musical resources. Prominent composers of atonal music in Nigeria are Akin Euba (1935–), Ayo Bankole (1935–1976), Joshua Uzoigwe (1946–2005), and Godwin Sadoh (1965–).

Akin Euba

Akin Euba is a Yoruba composer. He studied piano performance and composition at the Trinity College of Music, London, in the 1950s. In 1966, he received a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Ghana in 1974. Most of his piano compositions were written in the 1960s. Interestingly, these piano pieces are all based on Western atonality and twelve-tone row. Examples of these works include Impressions from an Akwete Cloth (1964), Saturday Night at Caban Bamboo (1964), Tortoise and the Speaking Cloth (1964), Four Pieces from Oyo Calabashes (1964), and Scenes from Traditional Life (1970).5
Euba’s compositional technique in his piano pieces is on two levels: 1) He first creates traditional rhythmic patterns on the score, and then 2) assigns melodies, which are atonal or twelve-tone, over the rhythms. In this way, the clashing dissonances are not easily perceived by Nigerian audiences. The listeners are more immersed in the irresistible rhythms emanating from the pieces, which move them to dance and easily eradicate the contemplative aspect of the musical performance. In terms of rhythmic drive, Euba’s piano works imitate dundun drum music, one of the most popular traditional ensembles among the Yoruba of southwest Nigeria.6 Another way that Euba deploys atonality in his compositions is through the use of ostinati. His approach directly imitates the traditional African technique in which the ostinato accompaniment harmonically is not in consonance with the melodic line, but rather, the ostinato is merely supplying a melo-rhythmic accompaniment. Euba uses the atonal texture to create dissonant percussive sounds as found in traditional drumming among the Yoruba. The dissonant lines help to simulate and reinforce the indigenous sonority in the music and make the piano sound like African traditional drums.

Joshua Uzoigwe

Joshua Uzoigwe belongs to the Igbo ethnic group in Eastern Nigeria. He studied piano and composition at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, from 1973 to 1977. He later studied ethnomusicology under John Blacking at Queen’s University, Belfast, Ireland, from 1977, and subsequently received the Ph.D. degree in 1981. Uzoigwe uses various types of pitch collections in his compositions, ranging from tetratonic, pentatonic, hexatonic, heptatonic, octatonic, diatonic scales, atonality, and the twelve-tone method. He uses these scale systems to evoke melodic and harmonic nuances of Igbo music7 in his compositions. For instance, he uses the twelve-tone row in Oja for wind quartet. Uzoigwe began to use dodecaphony while studying at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Often, he breaks the row into minute ‘cells’ and then shuffles them around to create a very interesting work. The pitch collections are organized into basic sets to create musical form through permutation, repetition, variation, and improvisation. In addition, Uzoigwe uses twelve-tone technique and atonality in a unique way by combining melo-rhythmic patterns drawn from Nigerian musical culture with specific tone colors. Meki Nzewi defines melo-rhythm, his own term, as “a rhythmic organization that is melodically conceived and melodically born.”8
Uzoigwe’s conception of the twelve-tone method differs from Arnold Schoenberg’s. Uzoigwe defines a tone row as an “ordered set of tones which is derived from an ordered set of drums and musically deployed in certain specific procedures and its basic root is in Igbo musical system.”9 Indeed, tonal organization in Uzoigwe’s music is deeply embedded in his traditional musical practice, and his works are based on its theoretical framework. This ‘cultural-tone row’10 method is exemplified in his Ritual Procession for European and African orchestra and the Talking Drum for piano. One of the movements of the Talking Drum is based on a row of ten tones, which is associated with ukom music.11

Ayo Bankole

Ayo Bankole was born on May 17, 1935, at Jos, in Plateau State of Nigeria. He belongs to the Yoruba ethnic group. In August 1957, Bankole left Nigeria on a Federal Government Scholarship to study music at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London. He concentrated on piano, composition, organ, harmony, and counterpoint studies. While at Guildhall, Bankole experimented12 with simple works and compositions based on 20th-century tonality. After four years of intense studies at Guildhall, Bankole proceeded to Claire College, University of Cambridge, London, where he obtained his first degree, the Bachelor of Arts in Music, 1964. While at Cambridge as an Organ Scholar (1961–64), Bankole earned the prestigious Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO), making him the second and last Nigerian to receive the highest diploma in organ playing given in Great Britain. At the end of his studies at Cambridge University in 1964, Bankole received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to study ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1969, he was appointed Lecturer in Music at the University of Lagos, Nigeria, where he embarked on an in-depth research on Nigerian traditional music and presented scholarly papers at conferences. At the University of Lagos, he combined the role of music educator, composer, performer, and musicologist.13 In addition to his academic pursuits, Bankole founded several choral groups in Lagos and was very active as an organist in several churches, including the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos (the headquarters of the Anglican Communion Nigeria, and the seat of the Anglican Archbishop) and St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Lagos.

Bankole: Toccata and Fugue

Nigerian composers began experimenting with new tonal resources in their works from the 1960s. This era can be regarded as radical and avant-garde in the history of musical composition in the country. The then young composers, fired up by the new 20th-century compositional devices they were exposed to at the schools of music in London, partially abandoned the tonal system of the preceding era. I am very careful to choose the word ‘partially’ because some of the compositions in this period are also tonal. In 1960, Bankole wrote his first composition for organ entitled Toccata and Fugue.14 In his notes to the music, Bankole informs us that this work represents one of his first attempts in the world of atonality. Being his first product in this musical language, the work is more of a blending of several musical styles of the European epochs. At this early stage, while trying to break away from the ‘old order’ of tonality, the Toccata and Fugue is more of a transitional musical work between the 19th and 20th centuries. The young composer had not yet arrived in the world of atonal writing. According to him, this piece maintains structural allegiance to the king of baroque, J. S. Bach. However, while the overall structure and the process of thematic development are in strict accord with the baroque tradition, the melodic style is not. This is because, although there is no serial line to dictate melodic progression, freedom of tonality has been achieved through the preponderant use of severe neo-impressionistic chromaticism. Apart from these points, the music belongs to several ages of musical experience, absorbing Beethoven’s surprise build-up and “power-cut,” Brahms’ dark orchestration, Bach’s virtuosity (especially his powerful cadenzas) and chord clusters suggesting certain moments of Max Reger.
The composer emphatically states that, “no conscious effort is made to inject African traditional styles (or for that matter any of the styles mentioned above) into the work, and if these are felt, their roles should not be exaggerated.”15 Hence, a discussion of this piece will strictly be in Western theoretical style.
The Toccata is built on several short chromatic figures, which are later employed as themes for the Fugue. Generally, the chromatic figures consist of ascending and descending melodic cells as well as ‘jumping’ intervals. The melodic cells appear in various forms: simple eighth notes, rapid-moving sixteenth notes, and triplets. Structurally, the toccata is in three-part form. The A section introduces the main melodic cells in the manuals and the pedal. Following the introduction are various manipulations of the thematic materials (measures 1 to 35). Example 1 shows the A section of the toccata. The B section commences from measure 36 and ends in measure 47. Here the left and right hands are filled with massive chords, while the pedal is occupied with descending sequential passages. The pedal part comprises virtuosic fast-moving intervals of 4ths, 5ths, diminished 5ths, and inversion of wide leap intervals from the A section. The A section returns in measures 48 to 69. In the final section, the pedal is occupied with sequential repetition of the descending chromatic figure. Example 2 shows the B section of the Toccata.
Bankole’s choice of chords in this toccata includes open 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, octaves, diminished 5ths, minor 7ths, and tone clusters. He deliberately avoids functional harmony and conventional cadential resolutions. Some of his cadential resolution techniques include 1) octave descent in the pedal (mm. 16–17); 2) ostinato in the pedal to distillate tonal resolution; 3) sequential repetition in pedal; and 4) pedal point. With these four methods, Bankole was able to confine this composition within a contemporary milieu. Although it is not easy to pinpoint the exact key of the toccata, the piece opens with a pedal point on E and it closes with the third inversion of F-sharp chord resolving finally on E (mm. 68–69).
The Fugue has two main themes; hence, it is a double fugue. The fugal themes are derived from the ascending and descending chromatic figures (m. 9 R.H. and mm. 11–12 L.H.) as well as “jumping” intervals (m. 9 in the pedal) from the Toccata. It opens with the first theme in the left hand (mm. 1–4) and a real answer in the right hand (mm. 5–8). Following is an introduction of the second theme group in m. 11. The first and second theme groups are supported by counter subjects. The exposition closes with a reappearance of the first theme group in the pedal while the manual accompanies with the counter subject. Example 3 shows the two theme groups in the exposition.
The episode (mm. 17–75) presents the two ideas in diverse varied forms: diminution (m. 32 R.H.), augmentation (mm. 33–40 pedal), short fragments (mm. 26–27 L.H.), pedal sequence (mm. 45–49), and an alternation of modified versions of first theme and second theme groups in the pedal, while the manual accompanies with thick chords, diminished 5ths, and tone clusters (mm. 64–75). The final entry of the first and second themes appear in the pedal from measures 76 to 87. Example 4 shows an episode of the Fugue. Bankole closes the fugue with a virtuosic pedal cadenza derived from the two theme groups (mm. 88 to the end). This wonderful piece ends with an unusual dominant seventh chord resolving on C in m. 97. Bankole did his best to avoid functional harmony in this masterpiece; however, he found it very difficult to evade the sonorous nuance of dominant seventh resolution.16 Example 5 shows the pedal cadenza in the finale of the fugue.

Conclusion

Modern Nigerian composers have produced a large repertoire of art music from their introduction to European classical music in their home country and abroad. A critical study of these compositions reveals dynamic growth of musical language from the established tonality of the baroque/classical era and the romanticism of the 19th century, to the early 20th-century atonality and twelve-tone method. Indeed, the musical language of contemporary composition in Nigeria has been dynamic. At this point, it is important to stress that the third generation of Nigerian composers did not rely exclusively on atonal writing; some of their solo songs, choral anthems, piano and organ pieces, chamber music, and orchestra works are based on other types of pitch collections such as diatonic, octatonic, and pentatonic scales. Nigerian audiences appreciate the interjection of well-known songs in classical pieces, and these songs are mostly in tetratonic and pentatonic modes. Furthermore, Ayo Bankole’s Toccata and Fugue (for Organ) is one of the few exceptions in terms of thematic usages. Pan-Africanism and global interculturalism became more pronounced in the works of the third generation of Nigerian composers. Popular folk tunes, traditional songs, indigenous Christian hymn tunes, and dance band themes from different ethnic groups within Nigeria and other parts of the African continent are incorporated into art music compositions. Some of the composers even went as far as the Middle East, India, and America to incorporate musical resources into their works. Prominent features of African-American music in Nigerian art compositions include spirituals, gospel, and jazz idiom. Musical creativity in Nigeria today is nationalistic, Pan-African, and globally intercultural.

Godwin Sadoh

Godwin Sadoh is currently writing his doctoral dissertation on the organ works of Fela Sowande at Louisiana State University.
An earlier version of this article was originally published in the February issue of "The Organ."

Nigeria has been blessed with very few, but seasoned organist-composers
since the arrival of Christianity around 1842. The schools and churches built
by the missionaries had a great impact on the emergence of the Nigerian
"organ school." The incentive to become professional organists and
composers was further propelled and inspired through the private lessons given
to talented Nigerian church musicians at an early age. All the musicians in
question had their formative periods at the mission schools, in church choirs,
and under organ playing apprenticeships.

The genealogy of Nigerian organist-composers is confined to
four generations from around the 1880s to the present. These are professional
organists trained at various schools of music in Great Britain and America.
Interestingly, each generation has produced only one musician: Thomas Ekundayo
Phillips (1884-1969), Fela Sowande (1905-1987), Ayo Bankole (1935-1976), and
Godwin Sadoh (1965-).

First Generation

Thomas Ekundayo Phillips is the pioneer and grandfather of the Nigerian school of
organist-composers, and he paved the way for the younger generations that were
to come after him. Born in 1884, he attended the Church Missionary Society
(CMS) Grammar School in Lagos. He received his first organ lessons from his
uncle, the Reverend Johnson, and at the age of eighteen he was appointed
organist of St. Paul's Anglican Church, Breadfruit, Lagos. Phillips served at
St. Paul's for nine years. In 1911, he proceeded to the Trinity College of
Music, London, to study piano, organ and violin. Thus, he became the second Nigerian
(after Rev. Robert Coker who studied in Germany in 1871) to study music at a
professional level. After returning from England in 1914, he was appointed
Organist and Master of the Music at Christ Church, now Cathedral Church of
Christ, Lagos (the headquarters of the Nigerian Anglican Communion). Phillips
held this position until his retirement in 1962--a total time span of
forty-eight years of outstanding accomplishments.

In 1964, Phillips was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music
degree by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, for his contribution to the
development of church music in Nigeria. One of Phillips' most important
achievements was his training of many prominent modern Nigerian composers such
as Fela Sowande and Ayo Bankole. These were some of the leading and prolific
composers in Africa, and they constitute the next generation of professionally
trained organists.1

Ekundayo Phillips wrote only two major works for organ solo:
Passacaglia on an African Folksong, and Variations on an African Folksong.
These pieces are based on his postulations in his book, Yoruba Music, a
treatise on the compositional style of early Nigerian church music. In the
book, Phillips demonstrated various techniques in traditional Nigerian musical
processes that could be utilized to create new forms of church music which
indigenes could easily assimilate.2 His compositional style is simple and
conservative.

Second Generation

Fela Sowande
represents the second generation of Nigerian organist-composers. He can be
regarded as the father of the Nigerian "organ school." It was he who
propelled the musical genre to an unprecedented height through his extensive
compositions and publications for the King of Instruments. Up to the time of
writing this essay, no one else has written such a great number of works for
organ in Nigeria. Interestingly, Sowande composed for other media such as
orchestra and voice, but his works for organ outnumbered the rest.
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Sowande was born at Lagos, in 1905, into a musical family.
His father, Emmanuel Sowande, was a minister of the Gospel and one of the
pioneers of church music in Nigeria. Sowande received his first lessons in
music from his father. Another influence on his early musical training was
Thomas Ekundayo Phillips. Under the tutelage of Phillips, as a chorister at the
Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, Sowande was exposed to European sacred music
and indigenous church music. He received private lessons in organ from Phillips
while singing in the Cathedral Choir. Sowande asserts that Phillips' organ
playing, the choir training, and the organ lessons he received had a major
impact on his aspiration of becoming an organist-composer.

At age 27, Sowande decided to become a civil engineer and
went to London to study in 1935. After six months, he changed his mind and
decided to study music. He played jazz in London nightclubs to support himself.
Sowande enrolled as an external candidate at the University of London and
received private lessons in organ from George Oldroyd and George Cunningham. He
became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists with credit in 1943--the
highest British qualification for organ playing. He happens to be the first
Nigerian and perhaps the first African to receive the prestigious British FRCO
diploma. Sowande was awarded the Harding Prize for organ playing, the Limpus
Prize for theoretical work and the Read Prize for the highest aggregate marks
in the fellowship examination. Sowande also obtained the Bachelor of Music
degree from the University of London and became a Fellow of the Trinity College
of Music.

Sowande had a rounded musical experience in England. He was
a solo pianist in a performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in 1936, and was
appointed organist and choir director at the West London Mission of the
Methodist Church (1945 to 1952). It was during this period that he began
composing for organ. The influence of his participation in and exposure to
church music during his formative years could be seen in the abundance of works
written for organ. His organ compositions at this time included Kyrie,
Obangiji, K'a Mura, Jesu Olugbala, Go Down Moses, Joshua Fit the Battle of
Jericho, and Yoruba Lament.3 

These pieces are based on borrowed themes from Nigeria's
Yoruba culture and African-American spirituals. Indig-enous songs are employed
in Sowande's music for three reasons: 1) as a symbol and mark of national
identity; 2) to classify the works under the umbrella of modern Nigerian art
music; and 3) to arouse the interest of Nigerian/African audiences in
performing, studying and analyzing the music. Apart from rhythm, the indigenous
songs are the elements of Nigerian culture most audible to the audiences and
performers. Hearing those songs enabled them to categorize the works as
Nigerian musical heritage.

During the war, Sowande enlisted with the Royal Air Force,
but was released at the request of the Ministry of Information to go to the
Colonial Film Unit as a Musical Adviser of the British Ministry of Information
in London. He was designated to provide background music for a series of
educational films geared towards Africa. Sowande also presented several
lectures titled West African Music and the Possibilities of its Development for
the BBC's Africa Service. He collected a substantial amount of indigenous
folksongs during this period. The songs were later to be employed in creating
large works such as African Suite and the Folk Symphony. The Folk Symphony was
commissioned by the Nigerian government in 1960 to mark the nation's
independence. Although the work was not accepted, the New York Philharmonic
Orchestra in Carnegie Hall eventually premiered it in 1962.

In 1944, Sowande was invited to conduct the BBC Symphony
Orchestra in the performance of his tone poem Africana, a work for orchestra
based on a Nigerian melody. In 1952, his African Suite for strings and a
selection of his original compositions for organ were recorded by the Decca
Records Company (London Records, U.S.) under the title "The Negro in
Sacred Idiom." Sowande received two outstanding positions on his return to
Nigeria in 1953. He was appointed as the Musical Director to the Nigerian
Broadcasting Corporation in Lagos and as honorary organist at the Cathedral
Church of Christ, Lagos.

Among his numerous awards are Member of the British Empire
(MBE) from Queen Elizabeth II for distinguished services in the cause of music
(1956); the Member of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (MFN) in 1956; the
Traditional Chieftaincy award, the "Bagbile of Lagos" in recognition
of his research in Yoruba folklore (1968); and an honorary doctorate from the
University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in 1972. Sowande also
received partial grants from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.4

Sowande first came to the United States in 1957, playing
organ recitals sponsored by the U. S. Department of State. He also toured as a
guest conductor of symphony orchestras and as a guest lecturer. He later came
back to take up permanent residency in 1968. His teaching career included
tenures at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, Howard University in
Washington, D.C., the University of Pittsburgh, and Kent State University,
Ohio. Sowande died on Friday, March 13, 1987, at a nursing home in Ravenna,
Ohio.

Sowande composed sixteen major works for organ:

K'a Mura, 1945 (Chappell, London)

Obangiji, 1955 (Chappell, London)

Kyrie, 1955 (Chappell, London)

Yoruba Lament, 1955 (Chappell,

London)

Jesu Olugbala, 1955 (Chappell,

London)

Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho, 1955 (Chappell, London)

Go Down Moses, 1955 (Chappell,

London)

Oyigiyigi, 1958 (Ricordi, New York)

Gloria, 1958 (Ricordi, New York)

Prayer (Oba A Ba Ke), 1958 (Ricordi, New York)

Sacred Idioms of the Negro

Pastourelle

K'a mo Rokoso

Plainsong

Fantasia in D

Festival March

Sowande's sixteen pieces for organ are all based on Yoruba
Christian or folksongs from Nigeria, with the exception of Joshua Fit de Battle
of Jericho, Go Down Moses and Bury Me Eas' or Wis' (from the Sacred Idioms of
the Negro) which are based on African-American spirituals. The structures of
these pieces range from simple three-part forms to continuous development
types, fugues, and theme and variations. To create contrast in the music he
uses bicinium, tricinium, homophony, and contrapuntal textures between the
pedal and manuals. Sowande has a predilection for a continuous tonal shifting
within a work. He sometimes begins a piece in one key and ends in another, such
as Go Down Moses which begins in F and closes in D major. He uses a wide
variety of tonal resources ranging from diatonicism, pentatonality and
chromaticism. The pedal part is generally simple and sparse, but explores
extremes of range. Pedalpoints are used to tonicize specific tonal centers and
to create climax.

Third Generation

Ayo Bankole alone
represents the third generation of Nigerian organist-composers. A prolific
composer, Bankole had the makings of a genius. He had a special skill for
composition and a talent for presenting his material in an eclectic and
personal way that made him stand as a master composer and performer in his own
right. Bankole continued from where Fela Sowande left off, a generation before
him.

Ayo Bankole was born on May 17, 1935, at Jos, in the plateau
State of Nigeria. He belongs to the Yoruba ethnic group. Bankole spent the
first five years of his life with his father, the late Mr. Theophilus Abiodun
Bankole (M.B.E.), who was then organist and choirmaster at St. Luke's Church,
Jos. During those early years in Jos, Bankole began to show great promise for
music, since he was from a musical family. The composer's biography was
exclusively obtained from Afolabi Alaja-Browne's M.A. thesis.5

In 1941, Bankole came down to Lagos with his father and
began living with his grandfather, the late Mr. Akinje George, who exposed him
to various types of musical styles. In 1945, at the age of 10, Bankole went to
school at the Baptist Academy, Lagos. He played piano and through his activity
in organizing small groups to perform, he began one aspect of his life-long
contributions to music--choral conducting. Bankole was appointed as a clerical
officer at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1954. During this period,
he came in contact with notable Nigerian musicians such as Dr. Thomas Ekundayo
Phillips and Professor Fela Sowande. Bankole had great admiration for Fela
Sowande, and a few years later he was to come under his influence both as
organist and composer.

Between 1954 and 1957, Bankole was already very active as
organist in Lagos churches. For instance, he was assistant organist at the
Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, under the leadership of late Ekundayo
Phillips. It was about 1956 when he began composing his first major work,
Sonata No. 2 (The Passion), for piano.

In August 1957, Bankole left Lagos on a Federal Government
Scholarship to study music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in
London. He was enrolled in the graduate program (GGSM), a three-year teacher's
diploma, and studied piano, composition, organ, harmony, and counterpoint. Some
of his teachers included Alan Brown (organ), Harold Dexter (organ), and Guy
Eldridge (composition). During his time at the Guildhall School of Music,
Bankole was exposed to a variety of musical styles. His works from this period
show the influence of these various styles. He experimented, progressing from
works that were tonally simple, to works in which he explored diverse
twentieth-century compositional devices as exemplified in the Three Yoruba
Songs for voice and piano (1959) and the Toccata and Fugue for organ (1960). In
spite of the intensity of the program at Guildhall, Bankole found time to sit
for and obtain a series of professional diplomas: Associate of the Royal
College of Music (piano), Licentiate of the Trinity College (piano), Licentiate
of the Royal Academy of Music (Teacher's Diploma), Associate of the Royal College
of Organists, and the Graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
(GGSM).

In addition to his activities as organist-composer, Bankole
was able to organize and train a special mixed choir, comprising fellow
students, which gave performances of his compositions, many of them in the
Yoruba language and musical idiom. Members of his choir and the audiences were
captivated by the Nigerian melodies and rhythms. This type of creative
procedure led to the synthesis of Yoruba and Western musical elements in his
works. Some of the works in this category are Sonata No. 1, Christmas (1958),
Cantata No. 1 in Yoruba, Baba Se wa l'Omo Rere (Father, make us good children)
(1959), Sonata No. 2, Passion (1959), and the variations Op. 10, No. 1 (1959),
based on a Yoruba folktune, Ise Oluwa. 

After spending four years at the Guildhall School of Music,
Bankole moved to Claire College, Cambridge University, London, where he
obtained his first degree, the Bachelor of Arts in Music, at the end of 1964.
While at Cambridge as an organ scholar (1961-64), Bankole obtained the
prestigious Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO), thus becoming
the second and the last Nigerian to receive this British highest diploma in
organ playing.

During Bankole's stay in England, he wrote music that he
himself could perform. A tremendous amount of music was composed for piano and
organ. He also wrote some choral and orchestral works that are technically
oriented towards European performers. The works of this period include Sonata
No. 4, English Winter Birds for piano, Variations Liturgical (theme and nine
variations for piano), Three Toccatas for organ, Fugal Dance for piano, Second
Organ Symphonia (with drums, trumpets and trombones), and a number of choral
works such as Art Thou Come (1964), Little Jesus, Gentle Jesus (1964), Canon
for Christmas (1964), and Four Yoruba Songs (1964). 

After completing his bachelor's degree at Cambridge
University in 1964, Bankole received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to
study ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Works
produced at UCLA include Ethnophony and Jona. Jona is a cantata in Yoruba for
mixed media comprising a narrator, singers, a dancer and an unusual combination
of musical instruments, including the Indian tambura.

In 1966, Ayo Bankole returned to Nigeria, and was appointed
to the post of Senior Producer in Music at the Nigerian Broadcasting
Corporation (N.B.C.). He remained in this position until 1969, when he was appointed
Lecturer in Music, School of African and Asian Studies, University of Lagos.
His job as a senior producer at the N.B.C. brought him into contact with
various Nigerian musical genres. This contact was to become useful to him both
creatively as well as in his development as a scholar. Two works were written
as a result of his experiences at this time--Fun mi Ni'beji (Give me twins),
parts 1 and 2 for unaccompanied chorus (1967), and the opera Night of Miracles
for chorus, soloists, and Nigerian instruments (1969).

While at the radio station, Bankole had a series of
programs, which he designed to educate the Nigerian public and to present
indigenous African music to the world at large. Some of his works were
performed and recorded under a project initiated by Fela Sowande and jointly
sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Information, Lagos, and the Nigerian
Broadcasting Corporation. Some of the works from this period are Ore Ofe (The
Grace) for unaccompanied chorus (1967) and Adura fun Alafia (Prayer for Peace)
for voice and piano (1969).

In 1969, he was appointed  Lecturer in Music at the University of Lagos, where he
continued his research into Nigerian indigenous music and presented scholarly
papers. From 1970 onwards, as a result of his research efforts, Bankole began
to employ more traditional materials in his compositions. A work which marks
the beginning of this phase is the Cantata No. 4, Festac, completed in 1974 and
scored for soloists, chorus, organ and orchestral accompaniment consisting of woodwinds,
brass, and some Nigerian traditional instruments. Ona Ara is scored for
soloists, chorus, organ, and Yoruba musical instruments.

Between 1971 and 1974, Bankole spent a lot of time on
special assignments, both within and outside Nigeria. For instance, he was
External Examiner to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1971. Between 1971
and 1972, he was Visiting Lecturer at Ohio State University. In 1973, he
received a Federal Government Commission to compose the anthem for the Second
All-African Games. Between July and August 1974, he was director of a music
seminar, organized by the Rivers State Center for Arts and Culture, and in
April 1974, he was Nigerian Composer-Elect to the Fifth Congress of Soviet
Composers, held in Moscow.

From 1974, Bankole began studying diverse musical practices
of the various ethnic groups in Nigeria. The result of these studies gave birth
to three major projects: 1) Dictionary of Musical Instruments of Nigeria; 2)
The Music of the Rivers' People of Nigeria; and 3) a special study of the Edo
musical instruments.

At the University of Lagos, Bankole combined the roles of
music educator, composer, performer and musicologist. As a music educator, he
was especially concerned with promoting the cause of music at the grassroots. He
achieved this by training young talents, teaching them to read music and also
giving voice and piano lessons. Furthermore, he organized and trained several
choral groups. He composed regularly for these groups and exposed them to
various indigenous and foreign musical works. Among the groups he founded and
trained were The Choir of Angels, comprising students from three secondary
schools in the Lagos area; The Lagos University Musical Society; The Nigerian
National Musico-Cultural Society; and The Choir of the Healing Cross.

Although Bankole contributed immensely to the development of
modern art music in Nigeria, he did not live long to witness the fruits of his
efforts. For on November 6, 1976, at the age of forty-one, Ayo Bankole and his
wife, Toro Bankole, were killed in very tragic circumstances. Today he is still
greatly admired by Nigerian musicians for his magnificent contributions to
Nigerian music as a composer, music teacher, musicologist, organist, pianist,
conductor, and choral director--an extremely gifted man who was not able to
develop his God-given gifts to full potential. Bankole composed five major
works for organ solo:

Toccata and Fugue (1960), published by the University of Ife
Press, Ile-Ife, 1978

Three Toccatas, published under Operation Music One, 1967

Fugue, published under Operation Music One, 1967

Organ Symphonia Nos. 1 & 2, for organ, drums, trumpet
and trombone, unpublished, 1961-64

Fantasia (1961-64), unpublished.

Fourth Generation

Godwin Sadoh
represents the fourth and present generation of Nigerian organist-composers.
Interestingly, like his predecessors, he is the only one in this category, and
his musical training, contribution, experience and expertise are eclectic and
extremely diverse. He is a Nigerian ethnomusicologist, African musicologist,
teacher, composer, pianist, scholar, organist/choir director and an ordained
minister of the Gospel.

Sadoh was born on March 28, 1965, at Lagos, Nigeria, to a
middle-class family. Unlike his predecessors, he was not fortunate to have musicians
in his family. The only musical exposure he had during childhood was the
rendition of folksongs by his late mother and older sisters. His mother
enrolled him in one of the local church choirs, St. Paul's Anglican Church,
Idi-Oro, Lagos, in 1979. It was at this choir that Sadoh was first introduced
to European church music. 

Sadoh attended Eko Boys' High School, Lagos, from 1977 to
1982, where he received private lessons in music theory and piano from Mr.
Ebenezer Omole, the school's music teacher. Omole quickly noticed Sadoh's
talents and interests in music and got him appointed as one of his assistants
in conducting and accompanying the school's choir at the piano. It was Omole
who prepared him for the theory examinations of the Associated Board of the
Royal Schools of Music, London. When Omole was transferred to another
institution, the school's principal and the teaching staff unanimously
appointed Sadoh to the position of organist and choir director of Eko Boys'
High School in 1981 at the age of sixteen. During his tenure, he coordinated
musical activities for the school and directed a Festival of Nine Lessons and
Carols in December, 1981.

In 1980, Sadoh joined the renowned Cathedral Church of
Christ Choir, Lagos, to sing tenor under the leadership of Mr. Obayomi Phillips
(son and successor of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips), who was then the organist and
master of the music. Worthy of mention is the fact that all the Nigerian
organist-composers passed through the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, and
were directly or indirectly trained by Ekundayo Phillips. Obayomi Phillips, who
gave Sadoh private organ lessons, was trained by his father, Ekundayo Phillips.
Obayomi Phillips took keen interest in Sadoh's talents and dedication to
advance his skills and aptitudes in music. Phillips soon appointed Sadoh as the
assisting organist to accompany the choir practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays
and to play for the 7:15 am communion services on Sundays. Phillips also gave
Sadoh private lessons in piano, organ and general musicianship (aural skills),
and he prepared Sadoh for all the piano examinations of the Associated Board of
the Royal Schools of Music, London, from grade 3 through grade 7.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

During his fourteen years at the Cathedral Church, Sadoh was
privileged to meet prominent Nigerian trained musicians such as Yinka Sowande,
substitute organist at Cathedral Church and brother of Fela Sowande; Mrs. Tolu
Obajimi, a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music, London, and music
teacher; Kehinde Okusanya, a concert pianist and Director of the Music
Department of Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, Lagos; Professor Lazarus
Ekwueme, a Nigerian musicologist, singer, choral conductor, and Professor of
Music at the Department of Music, University of Lagos; Kayode Oni, a graduate
of Trinity College of Music, London, and one of the notable concert organists
in Lagos; and Christopher Oyesiku, a bass singer and choral conductor. Obayomi
Phillips gave Sadoh a personal scholarship from his own purse to study music at
the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) from 1984 to 1988.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

Between 1982 and 1984, Sadoh founded and directed several
choral groups in Lagos. He accompanied and directed most of the groups by
himself at rehearsals and concerts. It was during this period that Sadoh
discovered his gifts in composition. Among his creative works at this early
stage are Oluwa Gbo Adura Mi (Lord Hear My Prayer) for tenor and piano, Oluwa
mi (My Lord) for two voices and piano, Ale ti le (Night has Fallen) for
baritone and piano, Gbo Ohun Awon Angeli (Hear the Voices of Angels) for SATB
and piano, and several other works. He wrote mainly vocal music during this
period.

In 1984, Sadoh was accepted to the Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife, to study piano performance and composition. Between 1985
and 1986, he was appointed as the director of the Unife Joint Christian Mission
Choir (over 250 voices). He was formally introduced to traditional African
music at the Obafemi Awolowo University. It was there that he became more
conscious of his existence as an African musician and the component elements of
the music. Sadoh's interest in African music was invigorated through his
exposure to diverse musical cultures of the world. He took courses such as
music in African culture, survey of world music, black music in the Americas,
music in the Middle East and India. As time went on he acquired deeper
theoretical knowledge of African music. Sadoh's musical studies at Ile-Ife
paved the way for his growing interest in incorporating indigenous Nigerian
elements and the creative procedures in his musical compositions. Hence, he
began to employ distinct Nigerian rhythmic patterns, harmony, tonal
organization, and scale systems in his works. Sadoh's creative output during
this period includes Memoirs of Childhood for piano, Moonlight Dances for
piano, Akoi Wata Geri for SATB and piano, and Akoi Wata Geri for tenor and
piano. Sadoh completed his Bachelor of Arts degree with a Second Class
Upper-Division in 1988. He was retained to teach in the same Department of
Music from 1988 to 1994 as a result of his diligence and academic excellence.
While teaching at the Obafemi Awolowo University, he founded and directed two
major choral groups, the Ile-Ife Choral Society and the Ile-Ife Junior Choral
Society. With these two groups, he directed several public concerts of choral,
vocal solos, and instrumental music within and outside Ile-Ife. Sadoh also
played piano solo recitals on the university campus and other regions in
Nigeria.

In 1994, Sadoh was accepted to the graduate program in
ethnomusicology and African music at the University of Pittsburgh where he
obtained an M.A. degree in 1998. As a teaching assistant at the institution, he
taught several courses including world music, class voice, and class piano. During
this period, he was apointed as a guest/visiting lecturer at GoldenWest
College, California, in 1995, and at Thiel College from 1995 to 1998. Sadoh
studied organ with Dr. Robert Sutherland Lord at the University of Pittsburgh
for three years. While in Pittsburgh, he also served as organist and choir
director at St.  Stephen's
Episcopal Church, Wilkinsburg, from 1996 to 1998.

Sadoh continued his musical training in organ performance
and church music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 1998 to 2000. His
teachers were Dr. George Ritchie and Dr. Quentin Faulkner. Sadoh was often
called upon to present several guest lectures on African and world music at the
School of Music, University of Nebraska. In fact, he created the curriculum of
the African music program and taught the course from 1998 to 2000. During his
two-year sojourn in Nebraska, he served as organist at Christ Lutheran Church,
Grace Lutheran Church, and as associate director of music ministries at the
First United Methodist Church. Sadoh obtained the M.Mus. degree in May of 2000
after playing two Master's organ recitals in one academic year--November 1999
and April 2000. He published his first scholarly article "Music at the
Anglican Youth Fellowship: An Intercultural Experience" in the HYMN
journal, in January 2001. This was a paper he wrote for twentieth-century
church music class, and it was Dr. Faulkner, the instructor, who encouraged him
to get the paper published.

In 2000, Sadoh was accepted to the Doctor of Musical Arts
degree program in organ performance and composition at the Louisiana State
University, Baton Rouge. With this admission, he became the first African to
study organ at doctoral level. He has been studying with Dr. Herndon Spillman
(organ) and Dr. Dinos Constantinides (composition). At LSU, he wrote mostly
instrumental and chamber works at the instigation of his composition teacher.
His major works at this time include Three Dances for piano, Three Pieces for
flute solo, Illusion for violin and piano, Potpourri for trombone, flute, oboe,
clarinet in B-flat, and string quartet, A Folk Dance for percussion ensemble of
four players, Yoruba Wedding Dance for brass quintet, Badagry for woodwind
quartet, A Suite of Nigerian Folksongs for string quartet, Tribute to Homeland
for chamber orchestra, Harmattan Overture for symphony orchestra and Nigerian
instruments, Summer Evening at Ile-Ife for wind quintet, and Three Wedding
Songs for soprano and piano. Sadoh wrote his first major works for organ in the
summer of 2002: 1) Folk Dance, 2) Ore Ofe Jesu, and 3) Nigerian Toccata.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

The Folk Dance was composed on August 13, 2002. The thematic
material was derived from a Nigerian folksong "Owo o, Omo o, ma m'omo se
ire" (money and children are both desired and I will embrace both and revere
them). It is divided into three sections. The first introduces the main theme
on the Great with an ostinato in the Pedal. The second section is the
development of the theme in D-flat, while the third section returns back to the
home key (F) and ushers in the principal theme triumphantly in the Pedal with
full organ. Nigerian Toccata was influenced by nineteenth and twentieth-century
French toccatas. Composed on August 14, 2002, it is a virtuoso piece that calls
for all the resources of the organ from the smallest pianissimo to the loudest
fortissimo. The four thematic materials are original. Structurally, it is in a
quasi-sonata allegro form without a development. The harmonic framework and
sonority are purely modern. The work is characterized by diatonicism,
chromaticism, pentatonicism and sequences. Ore Ofe Jesu (The grace of Jesus)
was composed on August 15, 2002. It is a quiet and meditative piece most
suitable for offertory, communion or any other contemplative aspect of a divine
service, and is in three sections. It opens with a prelude in duple meter and
moves into the second section in triple meter. This section is based on a
Yoruba church hymn "Idahun re l'a nreti" (We are waiting to receive
your answer). It closes quietly with the first four measures of the prelude.
These three pieces were published by Wayne Leupold Editions in April 2003 as
one major work titled Nigerian Suite No. 1 for organ solo.

In 2002, Sadoh wrote and published two articles: "A
Centennial Epitome of the Organs at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos,
Nigeria," published in The Organ (London), and "The Creative Process
in Nigerian Hymn-Based Compositions," published in The Diapason (August,
pp. 15-17). Several scholarly articles by him are to be published in 2003.
"Creativity and Dance in Joshua Uzoigwe's Music," will be published
in ComposerUSA, "Organ Building in Nigeria" and "A History of
South Africa's Organ Builders" will be published in the Organ
Encyclopedia. In May 2003, Sadoh was nominated by members of the faculty at LSU
for membership in the Beta Lambda Chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda, for his academic
and musical accomplishments.

It is interesting to note that an organist-composer is born
in Nigeria every thirty years. Sowande was born in 1905, Bankole in 1935 and
Sadoh in 1965. Hypothetically, the composer-organist for the fifth generation
must have been born in 1995 somewhere in Nigeria.

Others

The following are organists only.

Kayode Oni studied
organ at the Trinity College of Music in London. He came back to Nigeria in the
1970s and was subsequently appointed Honorary Organist at the Cathedral Church
of Christ, Lagos. He was also organist and choir director in several Anglican
churches in Ogun and Lagos States. He taught several budding organists in
Lagos, including Deji Osun.

Deji Osun studied
organ privately with Kayode Oni for several years in Lagos. He sat for the
theory, piano, and organ examinations of the Associated Board of the Royal
Schools of Music, London, while studying with Kayode Oni. He served as organist
in various churches in Lagos and Ogun States before leaving for the Trinity
College of Music, London, to continue his studies in organ in early 1980s. He
has completed his training and currently resides in England.

Merriman Johnson was
the organist at the Tinubu Methodist Church, Lagos, for several years. He went
to study organ in one of the British schools of music in the early 1980s. He
has finished his training and is currently residing in England.

Godwin Sadoh

<p>Godwin Sadoh is a Nigerian church musician, composer,
pianist, organist/choral conductor and ethnomusicologist. He received his
Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance and composition from
Louisiana State University in May 2004, making him the first African to earn
the DMA degree in organ performance from any institution. His extensive
research on Nigerian church music, organ building, composers, African art
music, and intercultural musicology is published in The Diapason, The Hymn, The
Organ, Composer-USA, Living Music, Africa, Organ Encyclopedia, and Contemporary
Africa Database. His organ and choral works, as well as hymn book, E Korin
S'Oluwa: Fifty Indigenous Church Hymns from Nigeria, are published by Wayne
Leupold Editions. Sadoh's book, The Organ Works of Fela Sowande: Cultural
Perspectives (New York: Zimbel Press, 2005), will be in print in spring 2006.</p>

 

Fela Sowande's (1905-1987) centenary is being celebrated all around the
world with various types of music festivals in 2005. He was born one hundred
years ago into a musical family in Lagos, Nigeria. Although Sowande belongs to
the second generation of Nigerian composers, he can be regarded as the father
of modern African art music. The first generation of Nigerian composers comprised
mainly church musicians who wrote mostly hymns and choral pieces for worship.
It was Sowande who expanded Nigerian art music from the church arena to public
concert auditorium. He introduced art songs for voice and piano, sacred and
secular choral pieces as well as orchestra works to the repertoire of Nigerian
modern art music.

Sowande is also the father of the 'Nigerian organ school' because he
propelled the musical genre to an unprecedented height through his extensive
compositions and publications for the organ. There has never been any Nigerian
composer who has written such a significant body of organ works as Sowande. His
compositions for organ outnumbered his works for other genres. Today, Sowande
is the most celebrated Nigerian musician of international repute with his
career covering areas of music education, composition, performance, research,
broadcasting, as well as traditional religious practices.

Compositions

Fela Sowande composed for almost all the music media: voices and piano/organ
accompaniment, organ, and orchestra. He wrote three major works for orchestra:
Four Sketches for full orchestra (1953), African
Suite for string orchestra (1955), and the Folk
Symphony for full orchestra (1960). The
three works utilize Western conventional harmony, tonality, form, and
instrumentation. Elements of African traditional music in these pieces are
limited to the use of indigenous folksongs, ostinati, and selected Yoruba
rhythmic patterns. The Folk Symphony
is based on Yoruba melodies from Nigeria, while the African Suite is based on
melodies from both Nigeria and Ghana.

Sowande wrote several choral pieces of which the most popular in Nigeria are
Oh Render Thanks for SATB and organ,
Roll De Ol’ Chariot for SATBB and piano, Wheel,
Oh Wheel 
style='font-style:normal'>for SATB, and The Wedding Song
style='font-style:normal'> for SSA and piano. Oh Render Thanks
style='font-style:normal'>is a hymn anthem whose texts are derived from hymns
552 and 554 of the British Hymnal Companion. Sowande composed an original
melody for the combined five verses, which are clearly separated with organ
interludes. The first and the last verses are in full unison, while the second
and fourth verses are in four-part harmony. Verse three is a duet for double
tenor and double bass voices. Roll De Ol’ Chariot
style='font-style:normal'>and Wheel, Oh Wheel
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  are
both based on African-American spirituals. Wheel, Oh Wheel
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  is
a cappella and characterized by highly syncopated rhythms. The Wedding Song is
written for two sopranos, alto and piano accompaniment. The melody is borrowed
from a popular Yoruba wedding song with syncopated rhythms. The piano part
supplies a dance rhythm accompaniment to the vocal line. Structurally, the song
is divided into two parts. The opening section is a solo by the bride bragging
about the good qualities of the man of her dream. The second section is a
chorus for three vocal parts (SSA) in which the friends of the bride sing a
song of joy, adoration, and encouragement on her wedding day. Sowande's choral
works are generally characterized by vibrant lively tempos.

Sowande composed seventeen major works for organ. These pieces may be
broadly divided into three main categories for functional purposes in the
church: liturgical pieces, preludes and postludes, and concert pieces. Some of
these works could be placed in more than one group due to their stylistic
characteristics. Fantasia in D, Festival March, Plainsong
style='font-style:normal'>, and Choral Preludes on Yoruba Sacred
Melodies are not included in this
classification because the scores were not available to me at the time of
writing this essay.

Liturgical Pieces

There are nine organ works that are suitable for divine services, either for
the offertory, communion or any meditative aspect of worship. The contemplative
elements in these pieces include slow tempo, short duration, and simplicity.
The thematic materials of these works are mainly borrowed indigenous hymn tunes
from Nigeria and African-American spirituals; this aspect makes them more
appropriate for playing within worship.

The pieces are:

1. K'a Mura. London: Chappell, 1945.

2. Pastourelle. London: Chappell, 1952.

3. Yoruba Lament. London: Chappell, 1955.

4. Kyrie. London: Chappell, 1955.

5. K'a Mo Rokoso (unpublished score).

6. Supplication (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

7. Via Dolorosa (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

8. Bury Me Eas' or Wes' (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the
Negro).

9. Vesper (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

Preludes and Postludes

Six pieces fall within this category and are generally characterized by
moderate or lively tempos, and are of moderate difficulty. These pieces are
loud, moderate in length, sectional, and are mostly based on sacred themes from
the Yoruba church hymns and folksongs, as well as African-American spirituals.
They include:

1. Yoruba Lament. London: Chappell, 1955.

2. Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho. London: Chappell, 1955.

3. Obangiji. London: Chappell, 1955.

4. Prayer (Oba A Ba Ke). New York: Ricordi, 1958.

5. Supplication (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

6. Jubilate (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

Concert Pieces

Sowande wrote most of his organ works for concert performances. Ten pieces
are in this category. These pieces are vividly distinct from others because of
the high level of difficulty, and they are virtuosic, showing the technical
ability of the performer. These are large multi-sectional works, loud and
lively. The thematic materials are derived from Nigerian folksongs,
African-American spirituals and also hymn tunes composed by local organists and
choirmasters. Some compositional forms include fugue, three-part form, and
theme and variations. The titles are listed below:

1. Jesu Olugbala. London: Novello, 1955.

2. Kyrie. London: Chappell, 1955.

3. Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho. London: Chappell, 1955.

4. Obangiji. London: Chappell, 1955.

5. Go Down Moses. London: Chappell, 1955.

6. Oyigiyigi: Introduction, Theme and Variations. New York: Ricordi, 1958.

7. Gloria. New York: Ricordi, 1958.

8. Prayer (Oba A Ba Ke). New York: Ricordi, 1958.

9. Laudamus Te (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>).

10. Jubilate (unpublished score from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'>). 

Yoruba Culture

Fela Sowande belongs to the Yoruba ethnic group of southwest Nigeria;
therefore, it should not be surprising to see elements of Yoruba music permeate
his compositions. Most of Sowande's works are based on melodies borrowed either
from Yoruba indigenous Christian songs or Yoruba folksongs. Some of the songs
are quoted verbatim, while others are slightly modified or varied. In any case,
his Yoruba audience in Nigeria has always been able to identify and relate to
the borrowed songs during concert performances. Indigenous rhythms featured in
Sowande's music are either ostinati or selected Yoruba rhythmic patterns such
as the popular konkonkolo rhythm (also
known as the West African time line) as exemplified in Laudamus Te
style='font-style:normal'> (from Sacred Idioms of the Negro
style='font-style:normal'> for organ). Most of the melodies employed in
Sowande's music are based on the five-note pentatonic scale commonly found in
Yoruba traditional songs.

The titles given to Sowande's compositions express symbolic and imaginary
ideas. The titles of his music have been influenced by the titles of the Yoruba
folksongs and indigenous hymn tunes employed in creating the music. His
experience in Yoruba folklore and mythology enhanced the shaping of the form
and character of the pieces. For instance, Obangiji, the title of one of his
organ works, is festive music meant to praise God the Almighty. Both the title
of the organ work and the original melody convey the same message--singing the
praise of God. Hence, the title informed the nature and character of the music.
In Via Dolorosa, from Sacred Idioms of the Negro, the composer paints the picture of the suffering and death of Christ
on Good Friday. The piece is based on a Yoruba Christian hymn normally sung on
Good Friday services at Yoruba churches in Nigeria. Sowande captures the
painful death of Christ with the expression mark at the beginning of the piece,
Lento con dolore, and the use of excessive chromatic passages on the manuals
and pedals.

Interculturalism

Three cultural groups played a major role in the life and music of Fela
Sowande: [1] the African/Yoruba cultural heritage from Nigeria, [2] European,
and [3] African-American cultures. Sowande was nurtured and brought up in these
cultures. He began his musical training in Nigeria as a choir boy and organist
apprentice at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, under the tutelage of
Thomas Ekundayo Phillips, and later went on to Great Britain to study music. He
was more of a university professor, performer and researcher in the United
States of America, where he spent the last thirty years of his life. Moreover,
Sowande was raised in a bicultural environment in Nigeria, where the Yoruba
traditional culture and English cultural values coexisted. Therefore, it should
not be surprising to witness the influence of indigenous African and foreign
cultures on Sowande's music.

It is interesting to observe that Sowande gives bilingual titles to some of
his compositions in English and Yoruba languages. For instance, Prayer (Oba
A Ba Ke) and Oyigiyigi:
Introduction, Theme and Variations on a Yoruba Folk Theme
style='font-style:normal'> for organ are representative of works in this
category. For those pieces based on Yoruba songs, Sowande often writes out the
Yoruba text of the song with its English translation in the composer's notes to
the music. In these compositions, we see the interactions of two major
languages. Another source of interculturalism in Sowande's music is the idea of
borrowing preexisting melodies from Yoruba culture in Nigeria, from Ghanaian
music, and from African-American spirituals. Melodies from Nigeria are present
in all his compositional genres, while a Ghanaian song is incorporated into his
African Suite. African-American
spirituals are employed mainly in his solo art songs, choral pieces and organ
works. Elements of Western classical music are vividly manifest in his choice
of tonality, 19th-century chromaticism, form, and instrumentation.

Nationalism

The wave of nationalism or cultural renaissance in Nigeria began in the mid
1940s and lasted until the independence of the nation from colonial governance
in 1960. This was a period in which the Nigerian elite united to revive the
traditional values and culture of Nigeria over the European imperialism that
was prevalent at the time. Indigenous playwrights, poets, dramatists, theater
artists, sculptors, fine artists, as well as musicians all embarked on a
massive campaign and incorporation of materials from their indigenous culture
into their works.

Hubert Ogunde, popularly known as the father of Nigerian 'Contemporary
Yoruba Theatre' wrote several operas and plays based on Nigerian legends,
myths, politics, socio/cultural life, dances, rituals, festivals, and
traditional musical styles. It is of interest to note that Fela Sowande started
composing major musical works around this period even though he did not return
to Nigeria until the early 1950s. Sowande's contribution to the Nationalist
Movement could be observed in his use of Yoruba traditional songs (either
sacred or secular), rhythms, and the titles given to his music. He was
commissioned by the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation to compose the Folk
Symphony for the 1960 Independence Day
Anniversary, although it was not accepted for performance. The work was later
premiered by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1962. This
was also the period in which Sowande embarked on intensive research on Nigerian
traditional music as well as Yoruba folklore for the purpose of dissemination
through the radio system, documentation in books and archives for further use,
and as source materials for his compositions. He used the resulting materials
from his field research to enlighten the Nigerian populace about their own
culture that was being aggressively eroded by Western traditions and values.

Music Scholarship

Fela Sowande contributed immensely to the field of music scholarship through
several documented presentations at international conferences and academic
institutions about Yoruba folklore, Odu Ifa (Ifa divination), the theory and
practice of African music in general, music education in Nigeria, modern
African art music and its composers, as well as the Africanization of Black
Studies in the United States of America. For instance, Sowande presented a
paper, "Nigerian Traditional Music," at the University of Ibadan in
1962. In 1963, he presented a lecture titled, "The Teaching of Music in
Nigerian Schools," at the meeting of the Association of Church Musicians
at Methodist Boys' High School, Lagos. On May 5, 1965, Sowande delivered
another lecture, "The Development of a National Tradition of Music,"
at a seminar under the auspices of the Department of Music, University of
Nigeria, Nsukka. Five years after his erudite presentation at Nsukka, Sowande
read a paper titled, "The Role of Music in Traditional African
Society," at an international conference sponsored by UNESCO in Yaounde,
Cameroon, in February 1970. Sowande wrote and published short essays in
Composer, Africa, World of Music, and African American Affairs. Some of his
unpublished manuscripts include Oruko A Mu T'Orun Wa, The Yoruba Talking
Drum, Children of the Gods among the Yorubas, The Mind of a Nation: The Yoruba
Child, Aspects of Nigerian Music, The African Child in Nigeria,
style='font-style:normal'>and Black Folklore
style='font-style:normal'>.

Fela Sowande is highly respected by the entire caucus of art musicians in
Nigeria. Hardly any professionally trained musician from Nigeria can write or
talk about art music from that part of the world without giving due credit and
respect to Sowande, either by quoting from his literary writings or his
compositions. He laid a solid foundation for modern African art music upon
which subsequent generations are now building. Although in the third
generation, Ayo Bankole (1935-1976) deviated from the traditional conventions
and nationalistic campaign of Sowande, he certainly relied on Sowande's works
as a guide to set him on the right track. Bankole uses mostly 20th-century compositional
devices and tonalities such as 12-tone method and atonality in his organ
works. 

In the fourth generation, I came onto the scene of the 'Nigerian organ
school' to turn the clock back to Sowande's model. Before I started composing
for solo organ, I invested a considerable amount of time studying Fela
Sowande's organ works in order to develop my own personal style. All my
published compositions for organ (Wayne Leupold Editions unless noted
otherwise)--Nigerian Suite No. 1 for Organ Solo, Nigerian Suite No. 2 for
Organ Solo, Impressions from an African Moonlight, Twenty-Five Preludes on
Yoruba Church Hymns--as well as
The Misfortune of a Wise Tortoise for Organ and Narrator
style='font-style:normal'>and Jesu Oba for Trumpet and Organ
style='font-style:normal'> (Florida: Wehr's Music House, 2005), were all
influenced by Sowande's organ works.

Sowande's centenary is widely celebrated all around the world, in the United
States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Nigeria. The Grand
Festival took place in June 2005, in Lagos, Nigeria, where Fela Sowande was
born one hundred years ago. The festival featured presentations of scholarly
papers on the life, contributions, and music of the foremost Nigerian composer
as well as performances of his compositions.

by Godwin Sadoh

Godwin Sadoh is a Nigerian composer, ethnomusicologist, organist and choir director with degrees in piano performance, organ performance, and ethnomusicology. He is currently a doctoral student in organ performance and composition at the Louisiana State University. His recent publications include "Music at the Anglican Youth Fellowship, Ile-Ife, Nigeria: An Intercultural Experience" published in The Hymn, in January 2001, and "A Centennial Epitome of the Organs at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, Nigeria" published in The Organ, in May 2002.

Historical Background

The history of Nigerian hymn-based compositions consists of several related experiences in which European and American missionary efforts played a major role. The establishment of the Christian church in the 19th century by the missionaries is a turning point of Western musical influence in Nigeria. However, other institutions such as the Christian mission schools, institutions of higher learning, and the modern Nigerian elite also contributed to the development of hymn-based works in the country.1

Through the church, the missionaries introduced hymns to Nigerians, and before long Nigerian congregations became familiar not only with European hymns, chants, and canticles, but with anthems, cantatas, oratorios, and organ works by European composers. Prominent among these works are variations on the Blue Bells of Scotland, George Frideric Handel's Messiah, Joseph Haydn's Creation, John Stainer's Daughter of Jairus, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha, Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah, and the organ works of Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Stanley, Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Max Reger.

In the mission schools, Nigerians were taught to use European notation as well as play harmonium and piano. In fact, it is the introduction of Western musical exegesis that led to the rise of modern Nigerian composers. As Bode Omojola notes, from the advent of the missionaries around 1850 until the end of the 19th century, musical activities among elitist groups and churches in the Western and Eastern parts of Nigeria were mostly European.2

Rev. Robert A. Coker (the first Nigerian to study music abroad to a professional level) is reported to have trained a large number of Nigerian women in the performance of Western classical music between 1880 and 1890. In addition, he organized a number of public concerts known as the Coker concerts, which became the center of social life in Lagos.3 Rev. Coker was the first organist and choirmaster at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos (the present headquarters of the Anglican communion in Nigeria and the seat of the Archbishop). Dr. Thomas Ekundayo Phillips (the second Nigerian musician trained in Europe), who later became the organist and Master of the Music at the Cathedral Church, concentrated on oratorios and organ music for the churches in the southwestern region of Nigeria. A Passacaglia on an African Folksong for organ, Variations on an African Folksong for organ, and Samuel, a cantata for SATB, voice solos and organ accompaniment, are some of the compositions by Ekundayo Phillips.

After the nation gained its independence from Great Britain in 1960, the quest for a national identity was the paramount objective of art and church music composers in Nigeria. Experimental works by pioneering church organists and choirmasters produced compositions neither entirely Nigerian nor entirely Western. These works could be best described as a synthesis of Nigerian and Western musical idioms. The synthesis of the two musical idioms actually began in the church. Fela Sowande, an organist and composer and the foremost representative of the second generation of modern Nigerian composers, employed several folktunes as the basis of his work. Examples of such works are African Suite for string orchestra, and Folk Symphony for orchestra. Among his famous organ works are Oyigiyigi, Obangiji, Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho, Prayer, K'a Mura, Yoruba Lament, and Sacred Idioms of the Negro.

Hymn-Based Compositions

Sacred Idioms of the Negro is a six-movement work out of which five are based on Yoruba Christian hymns and one on the African-American spiritual "Bury Me Eas' or Wes'." Laudamus Te is based on a Yoruba hymn and it bubbles with rhythmic energy. The composer did not specify the title of the hymn. The thematic material of Supplication is derived from a Yoruba hymn of prayer in which the Yoruba Christian beseeches God to accept the gifts of their hands, so that when it is time to die, the Christian may wake up in Heaven. It is built on a local hymn tune composed by a Yoruba Methodist minister, The Rev. A.T. Ola Olude. The text of the hymn tune may be translated as "The day is gone, darkness draws near, soon every creature will sleep, May God watch us through the dark night, and may we not find ourselves out of the hands of Sleep into the hands of Death while we sleep." Via Dolorosa supplies a classic example of Yoruba melodies in speech rhythm. Here the Yoruba Christian ponders on the first Good Friday, and reminds us of the tragic event of that terrible day, when Christ was crucified on the cross. Bury Me Eas' or Wes' is based on an African-American spiritual, which has the same words for its title according to the composer. See Example 1 for the themes of each movement of Sacred Idioms of the Negro.4

The last movement of the work Jubilate is based on the tune of a Yoruba Christian hymn "Oyigiyigi, ota omi" (The sea pebble is immortal). Jubilate is a song of joy on the organ, the title deriving from Psalm 100, Jubilate Deo omnis terra (O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands). The rhythmic disposition of the work consists of syncopations, constant and variable rhythmic patterns, and an ostinato in the pedal. The texture is homophonic following 19th-century convention, while the harmony is triadic and functional. Its form is expanded ternary with a fanfare as introduction, a contrasting middle section with the principal theme over a pedal ostinato and a recapitulation of the principal section. See Example 2 for the middle section of Jubilate.

Another work based on a preexisting hymn is Sowande's Oh Render Thanks, a hymn anthem for SATB and organ accompaniment. The texts are derived from hymns 552 and 554 of the British Hymnal Companion. Sowande composed an original tune for the combined five verses, which are clearly separated with organ interludes. The first and last verses are in full unison, while the second and fourth verses are in four parts (SATB). Verse three is a duet for double tenor and double bass voices. It is very practicable to engage the congregation in singing this anthem with the choir. I do recall the congregation at my home church, the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, singing verses one and five with the choir since they are in unison. The choir sang verses two, three, and four. This creates an interesting alternatim. The anthem closes with a long Amen in imitative style. Example 3 shows the arrangement of the first verse of the anthem.

Ayo Bankole's Sonata No. 2 in C for piano (The Passion) is another example of hymn-based work. Bankole provided  an excellent structural analysis of the music in the composer's notes to the work. The three-movement composition is a programmatic piece depicting the passion and crucifixion of Christ. The first movement subtitled "And They Sought About for to Kill Him" is in conventional sonata form. The ticking of the seconds, the throbbing of the heart, the stillness of the night, the mischievous searchers and similar sinister concepts are realized by a subtle mixture of polytonality, wholetonality, and pentatonality. The exposition, which begins without an introduction, has two contrasting themes. The first, which is realized over a pedal C, is a rhythmic, pentatonic motive on the notes G-flat, A-flat, and B-flat. The second theme is a melodic setting of the hymn "Jesu, Jesu mo ki o o" (Jesus, Jesus I greet thee) over an implied ostinato. Note that this hymn is based on a pentatonic scale as shown in Example 4.

The development section pursues the searching motive and begins and ends with the passion song "Jesu Kristi, Igi Oro" (Jesus Christ, O painful Cross), by the late Rev. Canon J. J. Ransome-Kuti, one of the pioneering organists and choirmasters in Nigeria. The song vividly describes the agony and suffering of Christ.

The second movement, titled "And He Was Crucified," is in ternary form and begins with a slow, somber, chord progression in the minor key which blossoms into a broad, pentatonic melody suggesting the esoteric and mystical joy of the crucifixion. It depicts the hammering and nailing by the executioners, the sympathizers and the abandonment of Christ's body by his spirit.  The major chord at the end of this movement affirms that Christ's death was a triumphant achievement for the whole world as it guarantees salvation for all believers.

The final movement of this well crafted masterpiece is a rondo, subtitled "The Song of Mary." The few Africanisms in the work as a whole are found in the borrowed themes composed by local choirmasters and the use of pentatonic scale. Western musical elements predominate: 19th-century programmatic features, dynamic markings, polytonality and wholetone scale, form, instrument (piano), and several pianistic devices not found in indigenous Nigerian music.

Joshua Uzoigwe's Nigerian Dances is a collection of four pieces for piano. Dance No. 2 is a derivation of a popular Yoruba Christian hymn called "Ise Oluwa" (The Work of God). The piece is structured in three parts: an introduction, principal theme section with a development portion, and a conclusion. The principal section figures the hymn tune Ise Oluwa in the right hand with a chromatic accompaniment in the left hand. The coda is derived from the first two and last measures of the main tune. See Example 5 for an excerpt of the principal section of Nigerian Dances No. 2.

The last work for discussion is my own O Trinity Most Blessed Light, a hymn anthem for SATB and organ accompaniment. The text is taken from hymn 15 of the British Hymns Ancient and Modern. I arranged the three verses for choir only, however, the congregation may sing along with the choir in verse two which is in unison. The first verse is in strict homophonic four-part texture with accompaniment ad libitum. The first two measures of verse two are arranged for male voices (tenor and bass), while the last two are for female voices in unison with the sopranos singing the descant. The last verse marked Maestoso con mosso is a triumphant and brilliant ending in contrapuntal imitation of all the voices accompanied with full organ. The piece closes with a final Amen. See Example 6 for the arrangement of the second verse of O Trinity Most Blessed Light.

Summary

In conclusion, one may ask why the use of hymn tunes or texts as the basis of new compositions? The answers are not far-fetched. In the first place, 99.9% of the composers and audiences of these works are predominantly Christians. All the aforementioned composers received their early musical training from various churches. Most of them began their musical careers as choristers and later became organists in several denominations in Nigeria. Second, the borrowed hymn tunes and words are familiar to the audiences since they must have sung them during worship. The hymns then become an instrument of attraction to draw interested persons to the concert hall. Third, using hymns in classical music helps to distillate the social stigma of secularization attached to concert music. The sacred texts and tunes enhance the creation of a serene environment similar to worship. Fourth, all the works are suitable for divine services in churches. For instance, church choirs could sing Fela Sowande's Oh Render Thanks and my own O Trinity Most Blessed Light. Ayo Bankole's Passion Sonata is appropriate for prelude or offertory music on Good Friday, while Sowande's Sacred Idioms of the Negro is very suitable for preludes and postludes at divine services. Finally, creating new works from preexisting melodies is a good exercise for artistic stimulus and creativity. It enhances the development of the intuitive and creative imagination of the composers.

Godwin Sadoh

Godwin Sadoh is a Nigerian organist-composer, church musician, pianist, choral conductor, and ethnomusicologist. He is the author of several books, including The Organ Works of Fela Sowande: Cultural Perspectives (2007), Intercultural Dimensions in Ayo Bankole’s Music (2007), and Joshua Uzoigwe: Memoirs of a Nigerian Composer-Ethnomusicologist (2007). Sadoh is presently Professor of Music at Talladega College, Alabama.

The arrival of the Christian faith in Nigeria around the mid-19th century introduced not only the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but also church music to one of the most populous African countries. At the turn of the 20th century, indigenous church musicians began to develop a repertoire of music for worship. The music included church hymns, chants for singing Psalms, versicles and responses, and choral anthems, as well as organ pieces. The pioneers of church music composition endeavored to write music that would be close to the cultural roots of the congregations through the incorporation of traditional music resources. Foremost among the first generation of composers was Thomas King Ekundayo Phillips (1884–1969), popularly referred to among Nigerian musicologists as the “father of Nigerian church music,” for his immense contributions to the development, growth, and stabilization of Christian music.

Short biography of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips

Thomas King Ekundayo Phillips was born in 1884 and he attended the Church Missionary Society Grammar School (CMS), Lagos. Phillips received his first organ lesson from his uncle, Johnson, who was an Anglican priest. At the age of eighteen he was appointed organist of St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Breadfruit, Lagos, and served in this capacity for nine years. In 1911 he proceeded to the Trinity College of Music, London, to study piano, organ, and violin, becoming the second Nigerian to receive professional training in music abroad and the first Nigerian to formally study organ in a school of music (Robert Coker was the first Nigerian to study European music abroad in Germany in 1871).1
Upon his return to Nigeria in 1914, Phillips was appointed to the position of organist and master of the music at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos.2 Phillips’ tenure marked a great transition and a period unparalled in the history of Nigerian church music. His accomplishments far outshone those of all his predecessors at the church. He led the Cathedral Choir to great heights within a short period of time, since the choir was established to be a model for other churches. The choir sets the musical standard for choral performance in the country. In this way, Phillips succeeded in revolutionizing church music in Lagos and in Nigeria as a whole.
Phillips embarked on a massive campaign to educate Nigerian congregations in the latest repertoire. First, he concentrated on an intensive training of his choir on sight reading, vocal production and blend, and modern techniques of chanting the Psalms. Second, Phillips established a musical journal of which he was the editor-in-chief. He used the journal to disseminate cogent information about sacred music to the Yoruba congregations in southwest Nigeria, including its role in worship and its relationship to the culture of the people. Third, Phillips wrote a treatise on the compositional devices of early Nigerian church music entitled Yoruba Music.3 In this monumental book, Phillips described methods that composers could use to create new forms of music that employ Nigerian indigenous music resources—such as melodies, scale, and rhythms—to which congregations could relate. Nigerian congregations tend to embrace and appreciate hymns, anthems, and instrumental works based on indigenous popular melodies and rhythms. According to Bode Omojola, Phillips’ views in his Yoruba Music are summed up in three salient points: 1) Yoruba music is often based on the pentatonic scale; 2) harmony rarely exists in Yoruba music; and 3) Yoruba music, like all other musical traditions, is undergoing an evolutionary process.4 Phillips’ book represents the first musicological research and documentation of African traditional music by a professionally trained native. His postulations and research findings were circulated among church musicians through public presentations such as lectures, conferences, and symposia. His Passacaglia on an African Folk Song for Organ and Variations on an African Folk Song for Organ are representative works based on the ideas from his Yoruba Music. Fourth, Phillips founded the Conference of Church Organists and other musical organizations such as the Association of Diocesan Organists, which was a forum for church musicians to interact and exchange ideas on various aspects of sacred music from congregational singing to choral training to organ playing.
Phillips frequently gave lectures, addresses, and demonstrations for the improvement of musical taste and development in the church. He wrote numerous articles on harmonium and organ playing as well as on the maintenance of these instruments. At his instigation, some of the sermons at the Cathedral Church of Christ during this period were directed towards enlightening the congregation on devotional and reverential singing. The historical background of some of the hymns was also incorporated into the sermons. All these efforts led to a tremendous growth in the musical standard of the choir and the congregation in Lagos State and other parts of the country. The Cathedral Choir rendered settings of canticles, responses, anthems, hymns, and diverse choral works by famous European and indigenous Nigerian composers.
When the church was to be elevated to cathedral status in 1923,5 the congregation decided to buy a bigger pipe organ. Phillips embarked on several concert tours at home as well as in London to seek funds for the instrument, and he was able to raise over half of the budgeted amount. Works performed by the choir during these tours included Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah, John Stainer’s Daughter of Jairus, and the Yoruba songs composed by Phillips. The money was used to purchase a three-manual pipe organ built by Abbot & Smith Co. in 1932.6 In 1964 Phillips was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, for his contributions to the development of church music in Nigeria. Phillips also trained most of the prominent and internationally famous Nigerian musicians, such as Fela Sowande (organist-composer, 1905–1987), Ayo Bankole (organist-composer, 1935–1976), his son, Charles Oluwole Obayomi Phillips (organist and choir director, 1919–2007), and Christopher Oyesiku (singer, choral conductor, and broadcaster, 1925–).7 Thomas Ekundayo Phillips directed the music ministry at the Cathedral Church of Christ for 48 years (Trinity Sunday 1914 to Trinity Sunday 1962). He was succeeded by his son, Charles Oluwole Obayomi Phillips, who served as organist and master of the music from Trinity Sunday 1962 to Trinity Sunday 1992.8

Issues in Nigerian hymn composition

The art of hymn composition in Nigeria is confronted with several related problems. The first issue to be tackled by a hymn writer is that of ethnic diversity—who is your audience or which of the ethnic groups is your primary target? Nigeria as a nation is made up of three major ethnic groups: Yoruba in the southwest, Igbo in the southeast, and Hausa to the north. In addition to this powerful tripartite caucus, there is a large body of minority groups including the Edo, Urhobo, Isoko, Ishekiri, Kwale, Efik, Tiv, Ijaw, Ibibio, and Fulani. All these groups speak different languages and hundreds of dialects. When you move from one small town to another, you might neither be able to understand nor speak the language there, even though you are a Nigerian.
For illustration, I am a Nigerian born to a Yoruba mother, but my father is from Edo State in the midwest region of the country.9 As a result of being raised in Lagos, I am very fluent in the Yoruba language; however, I can neither speak nor understand the local dialect of my father’s ethnicity. Each time I go to Edo State, I communicate in English, a language common to all or most Nigerians.
It follows, then, that a hymn composer in Nigeria must always have a targeted congregation in mind when writing a new song for worship. If the composer wants his/her songs to be sung in the southwest region, the hymn must be in Yoruba. And if the primary congregation is situated in the southeast, the hymn must be in Igbo. Alternately, a wise composer who wishes to reach a larger body of Christ that cuts across ethnic barriers, would write the hymns in English. With this approach, all the ethnic groups within the nation may be able to understand the message of the hymns.
Ironically, this procedure may even create a greater problem because there are some churches that have adamantly adhered to conducting services in their indigenous language and would not accommodate songs in any other language. Among these churches, there are some educated people who could communicate well in English, and there are also those who cannot read nor write the English language.
For instance, there are several Igbo Anglican (Episcopal) churches in Lagos, a Yoruba community. The Igbo Anglican churches were founded by Igbo priests who were confronted with fierce oppositions in convincing ministers in Yoruba churches to create English services to accommodate non-Yoruba speaking natives. The Igbo priests made this move to prevent further loss of Igbo Anglicans to other denominations.10
The only places where English hymns thrive are the newly founded evangelical churches, chapels on college and university campuses, and a few denominational churches such as the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, where services are conducted mainly in English. These congregations have a larger population compared to small parish churches because they are pan-ethnic and globally intercultural in their modes of worship. In most of the evangelical churches, you will find Igbo and Yoruba as well as other minority ethnic groups worshiping together. On college and university campuses, English is the official language of instruction; accordingly, services are conducted in English at all worship centers including student fellowship meetings.
The second problem a hymn writer may have to grapple with is the translation of hymn texts. This may be in the form of translating English hymns to any of the indigenous languages or the translation of a particular local dialect to another within the country. In the first situation, the composer may find it difficult to translate certain English words that do not exist in Nigerian culture. For instance, we do not have snow, winter, hail, or ginger bread in the Nigerian cultural experience. Therefore, the hymn composer will experience difficulty in translating these words into an indigenous language and choosing descriptive words that can best convey the exact meaning to Nigerian congregations. In another instance, when words are translated from one language to the other, there may be too many syllables to be inserted into a single note, or there may be too many words within a phrase that would not fit into the melodic phrase.
The hymn writer is then confronted with the problem of choice: which words are more important to retain and which are less important, to be deleted. A Yoruba Christian song, Kokoro Ayo lowo Mi, when literally translated into English becomes “The Key of Joy in My Hands.” There are several problems with this translation. The Yoruba text has eight syllables and melodic notes to go with it, while the English translation has only seven syllables. The composer will have to create an additional English word to complete the sentence or she/he may try to force two notes into a single syllable of the text. The other problem with this translation is that of positioning the important English words under the strong accents such as the first or third beats of each measure. In other instances, after creating a literal translation of the hymn text, the composer still has to rearrange the words.
The third obstacle to be addressed in composing hymns in Nigeria is the issue of melodic choice. The composer will need to choose between pre-existing tunes such as folk songs, traditional songs that belong to specific cults, popular dance tunes, or original melodies. Folk songs are generally acceptable because their texts deal with simple social life experiences, whereas traditional songs that are devoted to specific deities or divinities may be difficult to persuade Nigerian congregations to sing. The church members were taught by the early foreign missionaries to believe that such cultic songs belong to the devil, and, because of this, they should refrain from incorporating them into Christian worship. These songs are well known to the people; engaging in the singing of those songs may bring back to their consciousness the images of traditional gods and goddesses that they have disowned for the true God of the Christian faith.
Popular band songs on the other hand are perceived to be too “worldly” and mundane for true worship in the church. The argument here is that juxtaposing such melodies with sacred texts may bring back memories of “worldly” experiences that do not bring glory to God and Jesus Christ. In Nigeria, there has been a long controversy and debate on the issue of employing popular band tunes played at night clubs to accompany sacred texts. The Christian community has vehemently opposed this practice at every seminar, symposium, and conference. An alternative available to the composer is to write original melodies that align with new text or pre-existing words.
The fourth major problem confronting a hymn composer in Nigeria is melodic construction. After overcoming the issues of ethnic and language diversity, translation barrier as well as choice of melody, the hymn writer will still have to contend with the issue of tonal aspects of indigenous languages. Because all languages and regional dialects have tonal inflections, the composer must be mindful of the melodic shape of each note assigned to every syllable. Any discrepancies between the melodic contours and indigenous language can adversely dislocate the intended meaning to be conveyed to the congregation.
Most Nigerian dialects normally have three to four tonal inflections. Yoruba language has three main tone patterns on its words: the low, middle, and high tones. Consequently, if the tonal inflection of a word is high, the melodic contour must correspond to it by rising; if the inflection is low or middle on the word, the melodic contour has to move in that direction. In other words, the melodic shape of words in Nigeria has to run parallel with the rising and falling pitches of the local dialects.
Among the Yoruba, the word Ade means crown, and its tonal inflections are middle and high. Hence, the appropriate notes for the two syllables can be re–mi, mi–so, la–do, or so–la. If the hymn writer chooses a melody in the opposite direction, the meaning of the text will change and it will not make sense to the Yoruba congregation. By choosing different tonal pitches, this word can mean ade (crown), ade (to cover), ade (to tighten), or Ade (the name of a person from a royal lineage). The composer of indigenous Nigerian church hymns will have to take into account this problem in order to write meaningful and logical songs for Nigerian congregations.
The fifth problem a Nigerian hymn writer faces is that of harmonic organization. Nigerian traditional music has a concept of polyphony. Indigenous harmonic usages can be observed in both traditional vocal songs and instrumental music. While there is a predilection for thirds, fourths, fifths, and parallel harmonies in the musical repertoire of traditional music, one can also hear the clashing of seconds in tone clusters among the Ijesha and Ekiti from southwest Nigeria. Interestingly, the concept of harmony is more pronounced in the southern regions of Nigeria, such as the Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, Ijaw, Efik, etc. The northern Hausa-Fulani sings mostly in unison or what Kwabena Nketia calls “polarity,”11 which is a very strong influence from the Arabic culture. The reason for this might be twofold: 1) the southerners have a long history of harmonic singing in their traditional culture, in particular, the Igbo and Midwestern regions; and 2) the church music introduced by the early missionaries from America and England was restricted mainly to the south. Consequently, the foreign hymns in four-part harmony simply reinforced the concept of polyphony among the southern peoples. As one may recall, the colonial policy encouraged the northern Muslims to continue in their Islamic faith, while the southerners fully embraced the newly found Christian faith.12
The final problem confronting hymn composition and congregational singing in Nigeria is that of instrumental accompaniment. During the early stages of Christian worship in Nigeria, especially in the 19th century, congregational hymns were accompanied mainly with organ, harmonium, or piano in most churches. Unfortunately, native worshipers could not easily relate to nor embrace singing songs without movement. They were used to dancing, hand clapping, and all manner of bodily movements in their traditional culture. The singing of European or indigenous hymns with the exclusion of the dance experience created a major hindrance and stumbling block to congregational singing. This impasse created schisms and eventually led to the fragmentation of the early church in Nigeria into various factions and denominations. From this fragmentation evolved indigenous independent churches such as the Aladura (Prayer) Church in early 20th century, where traditional musical instruments were fully utilized to accompany congregational singing of hymns.
In Nigeria today, traditional musical instruments are employed in accompanying congregational singing at various indigenous churches and established traditional churches such as Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist. Even European or American hymns are accompanied with indigenous drums, iron bells, sekere (shaking idiophone), and hand clapping. The only exception to this practice is to be found at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, where hymns are still accompanied only with the pipe organ and piano. The Cathedral Church is the only church in the country that strictly kept intact the European worship traditions in post-colonial Nigeria. The worship experience in the church is comparable to any of the British cathedrals such as St. Paul’s or Westminster Abbey. In addition to instrumental accompaniment, services have been conducted exclusively in English, from the inception of the Cathedral Church of Christ in 1867 to the present. The only occasions when other types of musical instruments and indigenous language is tolerated are during special services dedicated to the youth of the church or during diocesan events. Even in these specialized services, Western musical instruments such as trap drum set, electric guitar, and electric keyboard are mostly used in accompanying contemporary praise choruses from America and Nigeria. These instruments are used to play music that the youth of the church would like to hear and sing. The Standing Committee of the Cathedral Church approved the use of foreign instruments in order to keep their youth in the church and perhaps attract more young men and women to their congregation. Prior to this era, which began in late 1990s, the Cathedral Church was losing a lot of their young people to the newly founded contemporary churches where those instruments were being used to accompany modern praise choruses.
Therefore, a hymn writer in Nigeria needs to recognize the important issue of movement in worship. The composer is compelled to write songs that can align with percussion instruments and inevitably move the congregation to dance. In Nigeria, dance is visualized as an act of worship to God. We may ask at this juncture: how did Thomas Ekundayo Phillips solve the aforementioned problems in the hymns he wrote, and how did the congregations react to his compositions?

Selected indigenous hymns
Thomas Ekundayo Phillips wrote several songs of worship for the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, and other smaller parish congregations. His hymns are in both English and Yoruba languages. Although services were conducted mainly in English at the Cathedral Church, Phillips’ compositions in Yoruba language were permitted for rendition during special occasions such as choir concerts, synod services, diocesan events, and ordination of a bishop or archbishop in the church. Such events attracted people from various backgrounds, both the well-educated and the less-educated. As the church was located in a Yoruba state, the majority of the guests from other parishes were Yoruba; therefore, they felt more at home singing songs in their own language. Phillips’ music represents the first generation of Nigerian composers. Works in this era are quite simple, short, and tonal.
Phillips’ Versicles and Responses (Awon Adura Kukuru ati Idahun Won)13 was specifically written for worship in the smaller Yoruba parish churches in southwest Nigeria. It is a canticle of prayer sung in morning and evening worship. The performance technique of the song is the African “call and response,” with simple organ accompaniment. The priest (Alufa) sings the solo while the congregation (Ijo) responds in unison. The organist plays the first note of the opening solo and the priest sings his line a cappella, but the organ accompanies the congregational response. Since the Versicles and Responses is in Yoruba language, it cannot be sung at worship in other regions of the country. The melody is original and in five-note pentatonic scale (do–re–mi–so–la), which is commonly found in Yoruba folk songs. The vocal compass of the song is nearly an octave, making it easy for the members of the congregation to sing without straining their voices. While the melodic line employs a pentatonic scale, the organ accompaniment uses a free diatonic harmony with occasional tonicization of the dominant. The melodic contour mirrors the tonal patterns of the Yoruba text throughout the music. The translation of the first page of the Responses is as follows:

Priest: Oluwa, Iwo si wa l’e te (Lord open our lips)
Congregation: Enu wa yio si ma fi iyin Re han (Our mouths shall sing forth Thy praise)
Priest: Olorun, sise ki o gba wa la (Lord make haste to save us).
Example 1 shows the first page of Phillips’ Versicles and Responses.
Phillips wrote a very short Yoruba Vesper hymn for the closing of evening service, entitled Baba a f’ara Wa (Father, we surrender ourselves). This hymn is usually sung at the end of evening worship before the recessional hymn is sung. The organist plays the first chord as written in the score, then the congregation sings the entire song as quietly as possible. Apart from one sub-dominant note, the melody is in five-note pentatonic scale (do–re–mi–so–la), and its range is a seventh. The melodic shape of the hymn strictly mirrors the tonal inflections of the Yoruba text, and it is an original hymn. Consequently, by observing the compositional rules, Phillips was able to retain the intended meaning of the Yoruba words. The congregation sings in unison, but the organ accompanies with conventional four-part harmony and closes with a plagal cadence. The song is a prayer for God’s protection at night. Below is a translation of the Yoruba text:

Baba a f’ara wa
Si iso re l’ale yi
Dabobo wa ko pawa mo
Titi ‘le o fi mo, Amin.

Father we surrender ourselves
Under your care tonight
Protect and keep us safe
Until tomorrow morning, Amen.

See Example 2 for Phillips’ Vesper Hymn.
Yoruba Magnificat in C (The Song of Mary) is another evening hymn composed by Ekundayo Phillips. The text of this hymn is derived from Luke 1:46–55 in the King James Bible. It is a Yoruba hymn-anthem for four-part choir, congregation, and organ accompaniment. The hymn is commonly sung during a synodical or any other diocesan service that involves the Cathedral Church of Christ and other parishes in the community. Compositional technique combines monophony, polyphony, and contrapuntal devices. Structurally, the hymn-anthem is in three-parts: A) the congregation sings with organ accompaniment in C major; B) alternation of solo passages with full chorus in the key of G major; and A) full chorus with organ. Phillips maintains strict observance of parallel motion between the melodic shape and the Yoruba text. The original melody mirrors the contours of the inflection of the words. As regards tonality, Phillips uses the conventional diatonic scale for the melody, while the organ has more notes. Harmonically, there is a preponderance of thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, and unison in the vocal lines. In addition, he uses all types of dynamics—mf, f, ff, cresc., dim., as well as rallentando, allargando, etc. Example 3 shows an excerpt from the Yoruba Magnificat in C.
Phillips wrote several Antiphons to Psalms with organ accompaniment. These short songs are all in Yoruba language and they are meant to be sung in unison before, during, and at the end of the Psalms. The melodies use tetratonic and pentatonic scales, and they are generally within the range of an octave. The melodic contours strictly imitate the inflections of the Yoruba words. The organ accompaniment is simple and often closes with either a plagal or perfect authentic cadence. The composer gives clear instructions on performance technique and at which points the antiphons are to be sung in the Psalms. Example 4 shows the opening page of the Antiphons to Psalms.
From Glory to Glory is a four-verse English hymn by Ekundayo Phillips, written in four-part harmony with short organ interludes inserted between all the verses except the final. This hymn is frequently sung at evening services and festive occasions at the Cathedral Church of Christ. In this hymn, Phillips keeps the melodic construction simple and the harmonization diatonic. He is not compelled to observe the Nigerian indigenous creative principles because of the English text. In fact, the harmony briefly tonicizes C in the third and fourth measures. However, the singing alternates between monophonic and polyphonic phrases. Phillips’ Yoruba hymns were well received and are still popular today in most Anglican churches in southwest Nigeria, especially Lagos. In fact, the current Cathedral Church of Christ Choir recorded some of Phillips’ hymns and anthems in 2006 to celebrate his musical legacy. From Glory to Glory is shown in Example 5.

Conclusion
Thomas Ekundayo Phillips indeed is the father of Nigerian church hymn composition. He laid a solid foundation for the composition of indigenous hymns through his numerous compositions and his book, Yoruba Music. He continually strove to encapsulate the theoretical framework of Yoruba traditional music in his compositions for the Christian church in Nigeria. In the area of tonality, he uses the popular five-note pentatonic scale, occasionally deviating from this method in songs such as From Glory to Glory, which is in English. Therefore, it would not be wrong to admit that Phillips adheres strictly to pentatonality in his Yoruba hymns, but uses the diatonic scale freely in composing English hymns. Phillips solved some of the problems in composing indigenous hymns by writing original texts and melodies. This procedure enabled him to successfully juxtapose the two entities in which the melodic contours consistently mirror the tonal patterns of Yoruba text in order to convey the intended meaning to his Yoruba congregations.
A large number of Phillips’ compositions are in Yoruba language, meaning that his targeted audience was the Yoruba congregations in southwest Nigeria. This corroborates the prevalent ethnic diversity among the Christian congregations in post-colonial Nigeria. Subsequent generations of composers rely on his research from well-documented field work on Yoruba music found in his book and his compositions. However, some modern Nigerian composers are making efforts to alleviate the issue of ethnic conflicts by writing songs in diverse indigenous languages as well as borrowing folk and popular songs from various ethnic groups in the country in their works. My new hymn book, E Korin S’Oluwa,14 is a major contribution towards uniting the vast ethnic groups in Nigeria. The indigenous texts are in Yoruba, Igbo, as well as English language, and pre-existing songs are borrowed from all the major ethnic groups in the country. I am but one of a growing number of Nigerians who have been touched by Thomas King Ekundayo Phillips, and so his efforts to build the musical life of the Nigerian church continue after his death.

 

Other articles of interest:

History of the organs of the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, Nigeria

Centennial of the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir, Lagos, Nigeria

Fela Sowande: Nigerian Musician Legend

Thomas Ekundayo Phillips: Nigerian composer

Thomas King Ekundayo Phillips