Page 13 - NovemberDecember25

lowed by the choir taking up the idea. More subtle, palatable.
however, is how the urgent desire for racial equality In Credo, Bonds adopts a similar strategy, blending
expressed in the first movement is mirrored by the text elements of the classical tradition with Black vernacu-
in the seventh movement, which counsels patience as lar musical traditions. Sometimes they are starkly jux-
the world works toward that goal. Tonally, they are taposed, while at other times they are more blended.
linked; both are in A minor. As John Michael Cooper Just as DuBois framed his radical, forceful, occasion-
has pointed out, these are also the only two movements ally angry argument in a language familiar to White
that mention the word “God.” 9 readers, Bonds also found ways to combine, juxtapose,
The second and sixth movements each introduce and synthesize White and Black musical traditions. In
one of the work’s soloists; tonally, they are in closely re- doing so, she presented the work’s uncompromising de-
lated major keys: A and D, respectively. Textually, both mands for racial equality in a musical language with
movements are warm and celebratory—the second in which Whites could understand and empathize.
celebrating the beauty of African American culture, Conductors interpreting this work should constantly
the sixth in its vision of a world free of racism. be aware of this dialogue, whether juxtaposed or syn-
The third and fifth movements pair upper and lower thesized, as it is a crucial part of its expressive fabric.
voices, featuring tenors and basses in the former and Indeed, a significant part of the joy of rehearsing and
sopranos and altos in the latter. They are linked tonally performing Credo lies in identifying the Western Euro-
via the relationship of the relative major and minor (D pean and African American musical traditions in the
minor and F major). Finally, they are textually connect- score and discovering how they interact. Bonds finds a
ed, as both deal with barriers to racial equality—the satisfying balance between the Western classical tech-
law forbidding interracial marriage in movement three niques she studied at Northwestern and the African
and the horrors of imperialist war in movement five. American vernacular musical traditions she grew up
The darkness of these two movements fittingly sur- hearing.
rounds the fourth movement, the bleakest of the entire
work, and at its exact center. Fittingly, the text also sits
at the center of DuBois’s “Credo.” Here Bonds’s char- First Movement
acteristic Romantic piano flourishes are gone, replaced The opening movement begins symphonically, with
by a bare-bones unison D in the left hand, with snare- a timpani-like gesture in the left hand and a grand ges-
drum rolls in the right. The choral writing, so often ture in the chorus on the words “I believe in God.” The
tonal and lush, is reduced to diminished seventh chords gesture’s brusque, syncopated outbursts recall Beetho-
in parallel motion. The text is uncompromisingly an- ven, a composer symbolic of the grand Western Eu-
gry and threatening, lacking the sense of optimism and ropean tradition. However, the lowered seventh scale
hope that permeates much of the work. degree (the G ), the parallel fifths, and the unexpected

syncopations in measure nine, with the emphasis on the
unstressed word “made of one blood” (emphasis added)
Bonds’s Music subtly reference vernacular, African American musics
DuBois’s rhetorical strategy in his “Credo” is worth (Figure 1 on the next page).
considering because Bonds seeks a similar approach The work’s opening gesture thus recalls both ele-
in her musical setting. By starting each section of his ments of the Western European canon and the Black
poem with “I believe,” thereby casting his argument vernacular tradition, synthesized into one passage, set-
in the form of the Christian creed, it seems as though ting out the work’s artistic strategy at the outset.
DuBois believed that he could convince skeptical reli- The next passage moves from the vernacular to the
gious White people by couching his language in a com- learned style, with a fugato on the words “I believe that
fortable, familiar format. Structuring such a radical all men” (mm. 14–23), before a charmingly bluesy set-
document in a format they would recognize from text ting of “black and brown and white are brothers” (mm.
they recited each Sunday morning would make it more 29–30). Here, rather than synthesized styles, we again

CHORAL JOURNAL November/December 2025 Volume 66 Number 4 11