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The Unthanks
Leeds Town Hall
BECKY Unthank is considering the parallels between her family and that of the Brontes. They’re sisters. They have bodies of work obsessed by melancholy and death. They have a lesser-known brother.
These similarities are sufficient to qualify the folk band to commemorate the 200th birthday of Emily, who wrote Wuthering Heights, with a song cycle based on a selection of her poems.
Commissioned by the Bronte Society, the Northumbrian outfit were invited to work and record in the Parsonage Museum in Haworth. Becky and sister Rachel used the time to walk across the moors, “pretending we were Kate Bush,” while composer Adrian McNally played Emily’s five-octave cabinet piano under the watchful eye of curators.
The atmosphere of the Parsonage, where Emily lived and worked, has seeped into the project.
The world premiere of the cycle opens with the sound of a door closing, footsteps, and a clock ticking. It sets the scene of a working house and the period detail is furthered with She Dried Her Tears.
Inspired by a song in The Beggar’s Opera, which would have been familiar to the Brontes, it’s so similar that McNally has to protest, “I didn’t actually nick the tune!”
The track is exceptional in having a strong melody, with the poems generally taking centre stage. As such, the compositions are full of gently rippling piano that allow the words plenty of space to breathe between Becky and Rachel’s trademark harmonies.
As comfortably doomy as these minimal sketches are, the reverential air of the Parsonage seems to have cowed the work. Rather than drawing on the experimental nature of Emily’s work, and the progressive folk elements they brought to Mount The Air, they’ve turned to the heritage industry to which the family’s been reduced.
This decision to play it safe may make more sense when the song cycle is heard as an immersive audio tour of Haworth, which is available from the Parsonage until the spring.
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