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Especially Do I Believe: A Conductor’s Guide to Margaret Bonds’s Credo

goal. This movement’s close is the entire work’s emo- Structure
tional climax. DuBois’s and Bonds’s dream of a future Like many sacred works in the European tradition,
“uncursed by color” is finally achieved with soaring, the structure of Credo is elegantly symmetrical, and any
wordless angel choruses. performance ought to keep this in mind to maximize
The final movement (“I Believe in Patience”) brings its expressive potential. Bonds arranges DuBois’s poem
back thematic material from the opening movement. into seven movements in a way that echos the chiastic
Yet the unfettered joy of the previous movement is structures of Bach and Brahms. (It is unknown wheth-
somewhat tempered. DuBois’s text counsels patience er Bonds had in mind the “Credo” movement of J. S.
as we await the coming of a more just world. Bonds’s Bach’s B Minor Mass, which has the same structure,
angsty, urgent setting—with the return of Beethove- but the comparison is fascinating.) In other words, the
nian poundings from the opening movement, urgent first and last movements share similar musical and the-
Handelian hammerstrokes on the final pronouncement matic content, as do the second and sixth and the third
of “Patience,” and stark open fifths on the opening and and fifth. At the heart of the work, the middle fourth
closing choral sonorities—confirms that we are not movement stands alone (see Table 1).
quite there yet. Bonds sends us out into the world with The musical connection between the first and sev-
a vision of what could be but reminds us there is signif- enth movements is easily heard: each starts with the
icant work yet to be done. same syncopated open-fifth figure in the piano, fol-

Table 1. Chiastic Structure in Margaret Bonds’s Credo

Movement Key Forces Theme(s)

1. I Believe in God A minor SATB, Piano Call for racial unity

2. Especially Do I Believe in the Negro Race A major Soprano solo, SATB, Piano Beauty of the African American race

3. I Believe in Pride of Race D minor TTBB, Piano Legal obstacles to racial harmony

4. I Believe in the Devil and His Angels D minor SATB, Piano Evil of the devil as a metaphor for
evils of racism

5. I Believe in the Prince of Peace F major SSAA, Piano Condemnation of war as evil,
barrier to racial harmony

6. I Believe in Liberty D major Baritone solo, SATB, Piano The beauty of a future free of racism

7. I Believe in Patience A minor SATB Piano Call for racial unity, counseling
patience

10 CHORAL JOURNAL November/December 2025 Volume 66 Number 4