The Brontës and Music

We present today the second edition of Akiko Higuchi's The Brontës and Music which combines the two books that Professor Higuchi has published about the subject with an additional CD. An extraordinary achievement that we have discovered through a review in the latest issue of Brontë Studies:

The Brontës and Music
By Akiko Higuchi
Yushodo Press, Tokyo, 2008.
2 volume set. ISBN 978-4-8419-3180-8

Everyone loves the Brontës. The three sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, and the only brother Branwell, have been studied from almost all the aspects, that is, novels, poems, juvenilia, biographies, art, friends in Britain and Belgium, schools in Yorkshire and Brussels, as governesses and as a tutor, their parents' histories in Ireland-Cambridge and Cornwall, etc. However, music has been almost the only field that has not been paid due attention in the Brontë studies. Professor Akiko Higuchi has been devoted herself in the study of the Brontës and music since around 1994.
Professor Higuchi met with Anne Brontë's Song Book and Branwell Brontë's Flute Book in the summer of 1983. This became a crucial occasion for her that turned her attention to music. The two original handwritten music manuscripts have been kept in the Brontë Parsonage Museum Library. Anne wrote down 34 hymns, sacred songs, Scottish folk songs, and others, with piano accompaniments at the age of twenty-four or so while she was staying with the Robinson family as a governess. Branwell practiced the flute when he was fourteen, transcribing 21 melodies of Scottish folk songs, pop songs, marches, and so on. Dr. Richard Rastall edited these two music notebooks in two facsimile editions and published them by Boethius Press, Ireland, but nowadays they are both out of print. Eventually, Professor Higuchi's edition in print in one volume may presumably be the only sources available today.

Includes:

Vol. I: Anne Brontë's Song Book and Branwell Brontë's Flute Book. Second Annotated Edition.
ISBN 978-4-8419-3136-5

Formerly manufactured by Ongaku No Tomo sha corp. in 2002, 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. Flute players may enjoy the brilliant new piano arrangements to the flute melodies by Mr. Theodore Wiprud, a composer and Director of Education of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Those who purchase this volume can get a CD of the 55 pieces performed by professional musicians on request to Yushodo Press for free (shipping cost will be charged).

Vol. II: The Brontës' World of Music: Music in the Seven Novels by the Three Brontë Sisters. Second Edition.
ISBN 978-4-8419-3137-2

This volume treats the relationship between the novels and music: what music is referred to and how music is treated in Charlotte's The Professor, Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette; Emily's Wuthering Heights; and Anne's Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. 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.

Categories: Books, Music