[Muses
Nine: Eight American Composers Plus One Pianist;
Margaret Allison Bonds]
Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-1978) is profiled at AfriClassical.com,
which
features a comprehensive Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de
Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com.
“‘Muses
Nine’ = DIANE THOME: Spiral Journey; MOLLY JOYCE: Medium Piano;
EMMA LOU DIEMER: Toccata for Piano; MARION BAUER: Six Preludes, Op.
15; ELLEN TAFFE ZWILICH: Lament; AMY BEACH: Dreaming; Honeysuckle;
Scottish Legend; From Blackbird Hills; LIBBY LARSEN: Mephisto Rag;
MARGARET BONDS: Troubled Water – Becky Billock, piano – Muses
Nine (Becky Billock) [Distr. by CD Baby] 62:56 ***:
“Becky Billock is
a very fine pianist who is clearly pursuing her own muse of the work
of female composers. I agree, actually, that the first step to
recognizing and promoting artists who are from 'outside the box' of
typical classical music is to play their works. The second step is
allowing the audience is to decide whether or not they like and
appreciate the quality of the works they are hearing; incidental to
any categorical commonality like the fact that – in this case –
all the composers happen to be women.
“Margaret
Bonds was one of the first African American women composer-pianists
to become well known. Her Troubled
Water
is a fantasy on the spiritual 'Wade
in the
Water'.
The treatment of the original melody is inventive and somewhat
complex, being wrought through a series of variations, but the piece
is fascinating and is helped by the weight and strength of the
original melody. Bonds also wrote some very impressive works for
chorus, all of them influenced by the Black Christian religious
experience in the Depression-era South.”
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