Margaret Bonds: The Montgomery Variations and Du Bois Credo

Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-1-009-05457-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 180 Seiten, Format (B × H): 216 mm x 138 mm, Gewicht: 252 g

Reihe: New Cambridge Music Handbooks

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cooper, John Michael

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Geschichte der Musik Geschichte der Musik: Klassische Musik des 20./21. Jahrhunderts

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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.

Über Autor(innen)

Cooper, John Michael
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.