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

Fourth Movement Fifth Movement
“I Believe in the Devil and His Angels” is in the After the terrors of the fourth movement, Bonds
middle of the work’s seven-movement structure. This provides a balm for our ears—but as we shall see, it
movement is shockingly different from the rest of an does not last. In the introduction to the fifth movement,
essentially optimistic and hopeful work. Gone is Bonds’s “I Believe in the Prince of Peace,” the piano clearly
richly layered, virtuosic piano part found in all the oth- quotes “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” but with added
er movements. In its place are precisely two simple, chromatic jazz harmonies (Figure 5 on page 16). Fur-
stripped-down gestures: thumping unison Ds in the left thermore, whereas “Hark” falls back on itself after the
hand and menacing drum rolls in the right. opening two bars, Bonds sends it soaring in the best gos-
The chorus does the heavy lifting here, with dimin- pel style.
ished seventh chords in parallel motion (Figure 4 on the Whereas much of the interplay between Western
next page). This is the only movement with no trace European and African American music so far in Cre-
of the African American vernacular musical tradition, do involved juxtaposing them against one another, here
which makes sense given the text’s focus on the Devil as they are synthesized into one musical phrase. As with
a metaphor for the evils of White racism. This is also DuBois, Bonds appears to be saying, by quoting Men-
the most challenging movement for the full chorus; lock- delssohn’s carol, “Here is something my White brothers
ing in the choral parts both horizontally and vertically and sisters can understand. Now, let the lesson begin.”
is very difficult. Locating and pairing off the parts that When the choir comes in, it is a three-part homopho-
move in parallel octaves, then adding the thirds, fifths, nic treble chorus in first inversion—a gesture strongly
and finally sevenths, is an effective rehearsal strategy. reminiscent of gospel choir textures, which tend to be

14 CHORAL JOURNAL November/December 2025 Volume 66 Number 4