Margaret Bonds: The Montgomery Variations and Du Bois Credo

by John Michael Cooper

Overview

In her lifetime, African American composer Margaret Bonds was classical music's most intrepid social-justice activist. Furthermore, her Montgomery Variations (1964) and setting of W.E.B. Du Bois's iconic Civil Rights Credo (1965-67) were the musical summits of her activism. These works fell into obscurity after Bonds's death, but were recovered and published in 2020. Since widely performed, they are finally gaining a recognition long denied. This incisive book situates The Montgomery Variations and Credo in their political and biographical contexts, providing an interdisciplinary exploration that brings notables including Harry Burleigh, W.E.B. and Shirley Graham Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abbie Mitchell, Ned Rorem, and – especially – Langston Hughes into the works' collective ambit. The resulting brief, but instructive, appraisal introduces readers to two masterworks whose recovery is a modern musical milestone – and reveals their message to be one that, though born in the mid-twentieth century, speaks directly to our own time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009062664
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/30/2023
Series:	New Cambridge Music Handbooks
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

John Michael Cooper is Professor of Music at Southwestern University. He is the author of the first book-length biography of Margaret Bonds (forthcoming), the Historical Dictionary of Romantic Music (2nd ed. 2023), and three books on Felix Mendelssohn, as well as editor of numerous compositions by Bonds and Florence Price.

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Margaret Bonds's societal mission and the Montgomery variations; 2. Hope, divine benevolence, and the Montgomery variations; 3. The text and music of the credo; 4. Interpreting the credo in context.