{"id":17200,"date":"2021-01-15T17:25:20","date_gmt":"2021-01-15T17:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/?p=17200"},"modified":"2021-01-17T17:28:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T17:28:11","slug":"no-man-has-seen-his-face-margaret-bonds-research-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/no-man-has-seen-his-face-margaret-bonds-research-paper\/","title":{"rendered":"No Man Has Seen His Face – Margaret Bonds Research Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Music researcher and professor Dr. Michael Cooper shared a paper about Margaret Bonds composition\u00a0<\/span>NO MAN HAS SEEN HIS FACE<\/strong><\/p>\n

FOREWORD<\/strong><\/p>\n

About the Composer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-72) stands as one of the more remarkable composers in twentieth-century music \u2013 woman or man, Black or White.\u00a0[1]\u00a0\u00a0Her mother was a musician who studied at Chicago Musical College; her father, a doctor who also authored one of the first published books for Black children and the lexicon\u00a0Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities<\/em>\u00a0(Jackson, Tennessee, 1893). She grew up in a home that, while on the segregated Black south side of Chicago, was relatively affluent and a cultural mecca for musicians and other artists of color. By the age of eight she had been taking piano lessons for several years and written her first composition, and by the time she entered Northwestern University in 1929 she had studied piano and perhaps composition with Theodore Taylor of the Coleridge-Taylor Music School, as well as Florence Price. She earned her Bachelor\u2019s and Master\u2019s degrees from Northwestern University, where she had to study in the basement of the library because of her race. She earned a reputation for her social-justice activities on behalf of African Americans, and her later interviews also emphasize the deeply sexist nature of her world. In a 1964 interview with\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>, she proclaimed: \u201cI am a musician and a humanitarian. . . . People don\u2019t really think a woman can compete in this field [of concert music]. . . . Women are expected to be wives, mothers and do all the nasty things in the community (Oh, I do them), and if a woman is cursed with talent, too, then she keeps apologizing for it.\u201d[2]<\/sup>\u00a0 By 1967 her renown was so great that Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley proclaimed January 31 of that year as the city\u2019s official Margaret Bonds Day. Having traveled between New York City and \u00a0Los Angeles for many years for her career, she decided to relocate to Los Angeles after the death of her longtime friend and collaborator Langston Hughes in 1967. She remained based there, composing, collaborating, and concertizing, until her death in 1972.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

About the Work<\/strong><\/p>\n

No Man Has Seen His Face\u00a0<\/em>is one of two short sacred choruses and two sacred songs on the same texts that Bonds composed in March, 1968. The words were written by Janice Lovoos (1903 \u2013 2007), herself a multifaceted artist, critic, and librettist, and a frequent collaborator of Bonds. The autograph for the choral version of\u00a0No Man Has Seen His Face\u00a0<\/em>is dated March 21, 1968, and on that same day Bonds also wrote two versions of the work for solo voice with piano (high key and medium key).[3]\u00a0Like\u00a0Touch the Hem of His Garment\u00a0<\/em>(<give catalog number>), this work reflects Bonds\u2019s lifelong involvement with church singers and church choirs, offering high-quality music that does not exceed the technical abilities of proficient amateurs. It is also a consciously simple profession of abiding faith \u2013 an admonition and reminder that God\u2019s presence is everywhere, and that because believers see that presence they must never doubt His existence or, more importantly, His love. Bonds\u2019s music is largely diatonic, with plentiful major-seventh chords that reflect the influence of popular song of the 1960s. Its unaffected style cohabitates with other features that subtly bespeak her talents in the concert-music traditions \u2013 for example, the treatment of the end of the\u00a0B\u00a0<\/em>section as an intensification of throbbing repeated chords that resolves with the return to the tonic in m. 31, and the return of this heightened emotion at the mention of divine mercy freely given (mm. 40ff). This combination of musical quality with technical accessibility explains the respect Bonds commanded in the musical world \u2013 despite her sex and her race \u2013from the late 1930s until her death.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the Edition<\/strong><\/p>\n

This edition generally presents Bonds\u2019s music as she wrote it, differentiating between authorial and editorial information. Editorial slurs are perforated, and editorial dynamics, expressive markings, and tempos are presented in Roman font with brackets. Editorial extensions of dynamic and expressive markings are perforated and hooked at each end.<\/p>\n

Four sources for\u00a0No Man Has Seen His Face\u00a0<\/em>survive, all in the James Weldon Johnson Collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University (shelfmark JWJ MSS 151 Box 7, folder 36):[4]<\/p>\n

AS 1:\u00a0<\/strong>Autograph full score, 7 pp., headed \u201cNO MAN HAS SEEN HIS FACE \/ SATB with piano accompaniment \/ and Sop[rano] or Tenor Solo \/ Words by Janice Lovoos [space] Music by Margaret Bonds.\u201d At the end it bears the autograph inscription \u201cMarch 21, 1968 \/ Home of Thor and Janice Lovoos \/ Hollywood, Cal.\u201d This manuscript includes autograph pencil cues to pages 3-14 of another manuscript \u2013 suggesting, since\u00a0AS 1\u00a0<\/strong>is only seven pages long, that there is also another manuscript (now lost) of the work that is either scored for larger ensemble or written on paper of a different format \u2013 both situations that would require more paper for the same music.\u00a0AS 1<\/strong>\u00a0also contains autograph pencil corrections that are not incorporated into the other manuscripts, suggesting that it postdates them.<\/p>\n

CS 1:\u00a0<\/strong>Transfer-paper copy of autograph full score, 7 pp. Although this manuscript concurs with\u00a0AS 1\u00a0<\/strong>in most regards, it includes some subtle variants (noted in the\u00a0Critical Notes\u00a0<\/em>below).<\/p>\n

CS 2:\u00a0<\/strong>Version for high voice and piano, 4 pp.[5]<\/p>\n

CS 3:<\/strong>\u00a0Version for medium voice and piano, 4 pp., transposed to E-flat major.[6]<\/p>\n

Critical Notes<\/em>: This edition takes source\u00a0AS 1\u00a0<\/strong>as its copy-text. The tempo and style designation \u201cAndantino \u2013 cantabile\u201d is lacking in both\u00a0AS 1\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0CS 1<\/strong>\u00a0and is adopted here from\u00a0CS 2\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0CS 3<\/strong>. Notes: Mm. 30-31, S\/T solo:\u00a0\u00a0b1<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0CS1, CS 2,\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0CS 3<\/strong>, originally\u00a0b1<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0AS1<\/strong>, but crossed out and changed to\u00a0d2<\/sup>\u00a0<\/em>in pencil; m. 39, beat 4, T, B, Pf:\u00a0f<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0lacking in\u00a0CS 1<\/strong>; m. 40 Pf: LH slur lacking in\u00a0CS 1<\/strong>; 43-44 , A, T, B: slur lacking in\u00a0CS 1<\/strong>\u00a0in 43, but completion included after the system break to m. 44.<\/p>\n

Acknowledgments<\/strong><\/p>\n

First and foremost, I thank the family of Margaret Bonds for their permission to publish these materials. Thanks are also due to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University for granting access to the autographs used for this edition. I also thank Elinor Armsby and Nancy Hale at Hildegard Publishing Company for their interest in this project and for shepherding it through the publishing process. Finally, I thank my family for their patience and support unending.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Michael Cooper<\/p>\n

Denton, Texas, 10 January 202<\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0There is still no book-length biography of Bonds. By far the best study currently available is Helen Walker-Hill\u2019s chapter in her\u00a0From Spirituals to Symphonies: African-American Women Composers and Their Music<\/em>\u00a0(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007), pp. 140-88.<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0Christina Demaitre, \u201cShe Has a Musical Mission: Developing Racial Harmony; Heritage Motivates Composing Career,\u201d\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u00a087, no. 253 (14 August 1964).<\/p>\n

[3]\u00a0See Margaret Bonds:\u00a0Three Sacred Songs<\/em>, ed. John Michael Cooper (Bryn Mawr: Hildegard Publishing, 2021).<\/p>\n

[4]\u00a0This folder also includes\u00a0Touch the Hem of His Garment\u00a0<\/em>in versions for chorus and piano and solo voice with piano, as well as autograph scores for three other works:\u00a0Will There Be Enough?<\/em>,\u00a0Go Back to Leanna<\/em>, and the \u201cnovelty song\u201d\u00a0The Animal Rock \u2019n\u2019 Roll<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[5]\u00a0A copy of this manuscript from the collection of Charlotte Holloman is in the possession of Dr. Louise Toppin and will soon be published by Videmus Editions (Ann Arbor, Michigan).<\/p>\n

[6]\u00a0The solo versions are published in Margaret Bonds:\u00a0Three Sacred Songs<\/em>, ed. John Michael Cooper (Bryn Mawr: Hildegard Publishing, 2021).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Music researcher and professor Dr. Michael Cooper shared a paper about Margaret Bonds composition\u00a0NO MAN HAS SEEN HIS FACE FOREWORD About the Composer Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-72) stands as one of the more remarkable composers in twentieth-century music \u2013 woman or man, Black or White.\u00a0[1]\u00a0\u00a0Her mother was a musician who studied at Chicago Musical College;…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16874,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[442,232],"class_list":["post-17200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-musicuntold-blog","tag-dr-michael-cooper","tag-florence-price","category-97","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17201,"href":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17200\/revisions\/17201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicuntold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}