Journal

2010. The pianist was Maya Irgalina and the soprano was Kitty McDonald.
The programme included works that the Brontës were known to have loved.
There was a sonata by Clementi, a couple of waltzes by Beethoven and
Handel’s Harmonious Blacksmith.’ Kitty McDonald sang Banks and Braes O’
Bonnie Doon, The Old Oak Tree (Woodman spare that Tree) and My Mother bids me
bind my Hair by Haydn.
[During the talk we were entertained by Marion Millard who played some of
Branwell’s flute favourites and Marloesje Valkenburg sang Woodman spare that
Tree and My Mother bids me bind my Hair, accompanied by Michael Links.]
References
Anne Brontë’s Song Book and Branwell Brontë’s Flute Book. Second Annotated
Edition.ISBN 978-4-8419-3136-5 Price: ¥8,000. This volume contains all the printed
music scores revised by Professor Higuchi with careful editorial comments both on
music and words and analyses on Anne’s and Branwell’s music.
The Brontës’ World of Music: Music in the Seven Novels by the Three Brontë
Sisters. Second Edition.ISBN 978-4-8419-3137-2 Price: ¥8,000 This volume treats the
relationship between the novels and music: what music is referred to and how music is
treated in the Brontë novels. Most of the musical scores are presented and the probable
sources of pieces that cannot be identified are suggested and discussed. Then, the
technique how each musical piece ingenuously contributes to enhance the novel is
surveyed. At the same time, the fact that some novels feature the same songs as found
in Anne Brontë’s Song Book or Branwell Brontë’s Flute Book shows how similar the
tastes of the Brontë family members were. Besides, from social viewpoints, the readers
will also be guided to a certain representative Victorian trend of music in Britain, since all
the pieces reflect the musical atmosphere of an educated family in the mid 19th century
Yorkshire.
Emily Bronte and Beethoven by Robert K. Wallace. The University of Georgia Press,
Athens, Georgia 30602 ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-3295-6. ISBN-10: 0-8203-3295-X. In this
book Wallace continues to work from the perspective he developed in Jane Austen and
Mozart: Classical Equilibrium in Fiction and Music.
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