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organized to keep the harmonized melody in the up- of drama, strength, and volume (Figure 6 on page 17).
permost voice. The text speaks of the coming of the This climactic moment is undercut by a marvelous
Prince of Peace, set with consonant, triadic harmonies bit of dramatic irony. The “strength” mentioned in the
that portray a sense of stability and peacefulness. text is, of course, not actual strength, but the false, hol-
This peace, however, is not to last. In the movement’s low strength of rich White nations, who are for DuBois
middle section, DuBois’s angry condemnation of war inevitably doomed to failure as the world moves inexo-
as a vehicle for White oppression changes the music rably toward racial and social justice. Bonds then crafts
without warning. With a sudden turn to D minor—the the choral harmony on the word “strength” with em-
key of the previous movement—Bonds shifts into per- phases on root and fifth; only the tenors sing the third,
haps the work’s most dramatic passage, spurred by the undercut by the second sopranos and piano sounding
entrance of the tenors in a stark descending major third the second against it. This creates an open, eerily hol-
on the words, “I believe that war is murder.” The mu- low sound—powerful but ultimately empty—perfectly
sic builds in drama, dynamics, and tempo, climaxing representing the hollow, false strength in the text. It is
with the last word of the phrase: “the wicked conquest a triumph, but it is a false one, and directors will want
of weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and to keep this in mind as they execute this passage, as it
stronger but foreshadows the death of (their) strength.” has implications for the balance and color of the chord.
This is a moment to really let the choir soar in terms The following piano passage, Debussyian in its parallel-

CHORAL JOURNAL November/December 2025 Volume 66 Number 4 15