Pictured: pianist James Pelham
We were intrigued to hear recently about two new pieces composed on the theme of Emily Bronte and her work by musician Donald Judge. We contacted him to find out more, and he kindly sent us this account of his recent composition and performance:
One of my ‘Emily Brontë’ pieces is a setting for soprano solo, choir and piano of her poem 'Line and the other is a solo piece called 'Emily’s Piano'.
A couple of years ago, I went to see the play 'Brontë' by Polly Teale at West Yorkshire Playhouse. Though I knew 'Jane Eyre' through film and play adaptations, I had never read any Brontë novels or given much thought to the three remarkable sisters, but was bowled over by the play and resolved to visit Haworth. The day I went, Maya Irgalina, a Belorussian pianist from the RNCM, was playing Emily’s recently restored cabinet piano. Listening to its sounds wafting through the Parsonage inspired Emily’s Piano.
'Emily’s Piano' is a set of variations. Polly Teale’s play presented Emily as the most unusual and headstrong of the three sisters, to me the most interesting, and research told me she was the most accomplished musician of the three. I imagined her getting her new piano and trying out not five-finger exercises starting on middle C, but a melody based on the initials of herself and her sisters, E B, C B, A B. In my mind, Emily immediately became an accomplished pianist, and also a composer or improviser – but a very unconventional one, breaking all the rules and driving her teacher to despair. The piece begins with a waltz, followed by other forms that would have been familiar in the first half of the nineteenth century, but which have quirky rhythms and harmonies that would have sounded very odd to Emily’s contemporaries. Many are modelled on Brahms – especially the Haydn Variations – though Brahms was only 15 when Emily died. A two-part invention inspired by Bach goes on a very wayward journey, and Emily allows herself a moment of sentimentality in a number that has a touch of Rachmaninoff about it before the finale (a chaconne on a ground bass derived from the ‘initials’) whirls us to a conclusion.
Maya liked the piece, but as far as I know, hasn’t played it in public. When planning our recent concert I thought of including it and setting a Brontë poem to put alongside it. James Pelham kindly agreed to play it, despite it been very challenging in places! As I flicked through the pages of a newly purchased volume, my eyes fell on Emily’s poem 'Lines'. I was attracted to it by its resemblance on the page to the poetry of Emily Dickinson – four innocuous looking four-line stanzas that belie its emotional impact. The poem is an extraordinary creation from a 19-year-old girl, albeit a literary genius to whom death was a constant presence, with a clergyman father, a cemetery next door, and a mother and siblings who died tragically young during her childhood. As did Emily, of course, who lived to be only thirty.
My setting of 'Lines' has distinct sections at different tempi, starting with a sort of slow chorale that is repeated several times, with the piano representing a harp, but playing arpeggios unobtainable on the harp. The final repetition differs in that the soprano soloist soars heavenward, accompanied by tinkling arpeggios, while those on earth remain firmly rooted there.
I was very pleased when the Brontë Society contacted me, asking for further details and offering to put something on the website. I tend to write things for specific performers and occasions, especially the Festival Choir and the children’s music theatre group I run and nothing gets commercially published, but if anyone is interested I can certainly let them have electronic or paper copies of the music.
Anyone wishing to contact Donald can email him here.