ClassicsOnline.com, the music download service of the Naxos music label, is now offering a download of Fatse la heso (My Country), slightly more than 11 minutes in length, for $2.99 US. The CD is South African Music, National Symphony Orchestra of the S.A.B.C.; Peter Marchbank, conductor; Marco Polo 8.223709 (1994). The complete recording (65:14) can be downloaded for $9.99 US.
Michael Mosoeu Moerane (1909-1981), who is profiled at AfriClassical.com, was the first Black Music graduate of a South African university. The Southern African Music Rights Organization explains in its biography how he came to compose Fatse la heso, which he wrote during the period of White minority rule: “Moerane was required to present a composition exercise in order to complete his degree, and so composed the symphonic poem, Fatse la heso (My Country), which he completed in 1941, graduating that same year. Three years later, in November 1944, the work was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in two separate studio performances under the baton of Clifford Curzon, one broadcast by the BBC's Home Service, and the other by its African Service. Fatse la heso was subsequently championed in New York and Paris by the pioneering black American conductor, Dean Dixon.”
South African Composer
Fatse la heso (My Country)
Marco Polo 8.223709
ClassicsOnline.com download service
First SA Black Music Graduate
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