The first extended overview of the life, times, and music of Michael Mosoeu Moerane (1904-1980) that explores the political changes and social conditions of the African choral composer's life. Lucia describes his ancestry, upbringing, education and teaching career and analyses his symphonic poem and four choral pieces.

The Times Do Not Permit is the first extended overview of the life, times, and music of Michael Mosoeu Moerane (1904-1980), an African composer brought up in rural South Africa in the early twentieth century, one of many mission-trained musicians who wrote short a cappella choral works for churches and schools.

It explores the political changes and social conditions that made life for Moerane both possible and impossible as a composer. He was the first black South African to qualify with a BMus degree in 1941. However, this caused difficulties for him both within the African choral circuit, where his advanced modernist style was considered strange and difficult, and within white concert life, from which he was largely excluded.

Lucia describes his ancestry, upbringing, education and teaching career, and offers an analysis of his music: his famous symphonic poem, 'Fatšo La Heso', and four of his choral pieces, grouped to reflect the major themes he expressed. The Times Do Not Permit is supplemented with interviews with those who knew Moerane and ends with a coda of professional letters to, from, and about him that gives his voice a presence in the absence of much personal documentation.