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MARGARET BONDS
The Montgomery Variations (1963–65)

When we hear “Margaret Bonds,” she’s often preceded or followed by “Florence Price.” Which makes sense; they collaborated frequently; both were members of the Chicago Music Association, a branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM); and Bonds studied piano and composition with Price.

But Bonds is more than this association. For nearly three decades, she worked in New York City (1939–67), writing for shows at the Apollo Theater and performing classical and popular tunes locally and nationally as part of a two-piano duo. She embraced the creases and edges of performance practices from blues and jazz, and used old genres like the cantata to explore creative questions and comment on major events of her time. 

The Montgomery Variations, written between 1963 and 1965, is such a composition. Bonds was inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and the horrendous deaths of Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Robertson in the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. She dedicated the work to Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Montgomery Variations is divided into seven movements. The decision, Bonds explained in a programmatic note, was to “suggest the manner in which Bach constructed his partitas—a bold statement of the theme, followed by variations of the theme in the same key—major and minor.” She also gave each movement a description, charting the journey from the bus boycott to the uncertainty of equality in the face of violence (included below in italics). Like in her cantata, The Ballad of the Brown King (1954, 1960), Bonds used a sacred classical form to equate the achievement of equal rights with spiritual salvation.

“Under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr and SCLC, Negroes in Montgomery decided to boycott the bus company and to fight for their rights as citizens.”

The Montgomery Variations is built upon the spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me.” The first movement, “Decision,” begins with rolling drums and a noble brass choir, flowing into a polyphonic texture as the theme is passed around the ensemble.

“Trut [sic] to custom prayer meetings precedes their action. Prayer meetings start quietly with humble petitions to God. During the course of the meeting, members seized with religious fervor shout and dance. Oblivious to their fellow worshippers they exhibit their love of God and their Faith in Deliverance by gesticulation, clapping and beating their feet.”

The second movement, “Prayer Meeting,” is more subdued; Bonds uses the strings to create a rich, earthy sound. A lone, muted trombone conjures the imagery of an ecstatic prayer meeting; interjections from percussion, woodwinds, and brass hint to something uncertain and ominous. 

The spirit of the Nazarene marching with them, the Negroes of Montgomery walked to their work rather than be segregated on the buses. The entire world, symbolically with them, marches.

“March,” the third movement, is a conversational exchange between strings, bassoon, oboe, and the orchestra. Bonds draws upon the character of American military bands by centering the brass and setting the theme in martial rhythms. This is a fight, war, minus the formal trappings on the side of those demanding equality.

Dixie, the home of Camelias known as “pink perfection,” magnolias, jasmine and Spanish moss, awakened to the fact that something new was happening in the South.

The fourth movement, “Dawn in Dixie,” is lush and pastoral. The theme is most clearly transformed as it passes between flute, oboe, bassoon, and clarinet in a waltz that goes from lazy to focused and full of purpose. Here is the South moving from something old and familiar to something new and transformative.

Children were in Sunday School learning about Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Southern “die-hards” planted a bomb and several children were killed.

“One Sunday in the South,” the fifth movement, is painfully gorgeous. The theme is spun into a warm ray of sunshine, glinting off the patent leather Mary Janes and pressed suits as children head to church. They jostle, chase, remember to keep their clothes clean and not kick up the dust. Braids are pulled, heads bopped, laughter swallowed as they sit down, trying to be serious and solemn. A ticking, a boom. Then dust and darkness.

The world was shaken by the cruelty of the Sunday School bombing. Negroes, as usual leaned on their Jesus to carry them through this crisis of grief and humiliation.

The description above is placed beneath the fifth movement, but in content it most likely belongs to the sixth, “Lament.” The elegiac setting is heartbreaking; angry; bereft in the search for comfort. How to go on when even children’s lives aren’t spared?

A benign God, Father and Mother to all people, pours forth Love to His children—the good and the bad alike.

The final movement, “Benediction,” fragments the theme in a lyrical texture, leaning between lament and cautious hope. A sudden shift in character suggests an angry, sorrowful determination, the strings and brass pulling forth an epic, expressive sound. Moments of gentle consonance indicate that what we are fighting for is not lost, because there are people still marching, fighting to make the world better for those still to come and to honor those we’ve lost.

—A. Kori Hill

MARGARET BONDS
The Montgomery Variations (1963–65)

When we hear “Margaret Bonds,” she’s often preceded or followed by “Florence Price.” Which makes sense; they collaborated frequently; both were members of the Chicago Music Association, a branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM); and Bonds studied piano and composition with Price.

But Bonds is more than this association. For nearly three decades, she worked in New York City (1939–67), writing for shows at the Apollo Theater and performing classical and popular tunes locally and nationally as part of a two-piano duo. She embraced the creases and edges of performance practices from blues and jazz, and used old genres like the cantata to explore creative questions and comment on major events of her time. 

The Montgomery Variations, written between 1963 and 1965, is such a composition. Bonds was inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and the horrendous deaths of Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Robertson in the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. She dedicated the work to Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Montgomery Variations is divided into seven movements. The decision, Bonds explained in a programmatic note, was to “suggest the manner in which Bach constructed his partitas—a bold statement of the theme, followed by variations of the theme in the same key—major and minor.” She also gave each movement a description, charting the journey from the bus boycott to the uncertainty of equality in the face of violence (included below in italics). Like in her cantata, The Ballad of the Brown King (1954, 1960), Bonds used a sacred classical form to equate the achievement of equal rights with spiritual salvation.

“Under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr and SCLC, Negroes in Montgomery decided to boycott the bus company and to fight for their rights as citizens.”

The Montgomery Variations is built upon the spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me.” The first movement, “Decision,” begins with rolling drums and a noble brass choir, flowing into a polyphonic texture as the theme is passed around the ensemble.

“Trut [sic] to custom prayer meetings precedes their action. Prayer meetings start quietly with humble petitions to God. During the course of the meeting, members seized with religious fervor shout and dance. Oblivious to their fellow worshippers they exhibit their love of God and their Faith in Deliverance by gesticulation, clapping and beating their feet.”

The second movement, “Prayer Meeting,” is more subdued; Bonds uses the strings to create a rich, earthy sound. A lone, muted trombone conjures the imagery of an ecstatic prayer meeting; interjections from percussion, woodwinds, and brass hint to something uncertain and ominous. 

The spirit of the Nazarene marching with them, the Negroes of Montgomery walked to their work rather than be segregated on the buses. The entire world, symbolically with them, marches.

“March,” the third movement, is a conversational exchange between strings, bassoon, oboe, and the orchestra. Bonds draws upon the character of American military bands by centering the brass and setting the theme in martial rhythms. This is a fight, war, minus the formal trappings on the side of those demanding equality.

Dixie, the home of Camelias known as “pink perfection,” magnolias, jasmine and Spanish moss, awakened to the fact that something new was happening in the South.

The fourth movement, “Dawn in Dixie,” is lush and pastoral. The theme is most clearly transformed as it passes between flute, oboe, bassoon, and clarinet in a waltz that goes from lazy to focused and full of purpose. Here is the South moving from something old and familiar to something new and transformative.

Children were in Sunday School learning about Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Southern “die-hards” planted a bomb and several children were killed.

“One Sunday in the South,” the fifth movement, is painfully gorgeous. The theme is spun into a warm ray of sunshine, glinting off the patent leather Mary Janes and pressed suits as children head to church. They jostle, chase, remember to keep their clothes clean and not kick up the dust. Braids are pulled, heads bopped, laughter swallowed as they sit down, trying to be serious and solemn. A ticking, a boom. Then dust and darkness.

The world was shaken by the cruelty of the Sunday School bombing. Negroes, as usual leaned on their Jesus to carry them through this crisis of grief and humiliation.

The description above is placed beneath the fifth movement, but in content it most likely belongs to the sixth, “Lament.” The elegiac setting is heartbreaking; angry; bereft in the search for comfort. How to go on when even children’s lives aren’t spared?

A benign God, Father and Mother to all people, pours forth Love to His children—the good and the bad alike.

The final movement, “Benediction,” fragments the theme in a lyrical texture, leaning between lament and cautious hope. A sudden shift in character suggests an angry, sorrowful determination, the strings and brass pulling forth an epic, expressive sound. Moments of gentle consonance indicate that what we are fighting for is not lost, because there are people still marching, fighting to make the world better for those still to come and to honor those we’ve lost.

—A. Kori Hill