Jane Austen’s Music

Although the 18th Century witnessed a remarkable demand for the new pianoforte and a proliferation of printed music, music history records little of the female musicians for whom these goods were intended and whose study and performance filled 18th Century middle- and upper-class homes. - Mimi Hart, Assistant Professor, Ohio University, 2002

Much of the music during the 18th century was written for women to perform at home. Jane Austen practiced on the pianoforte every day, preferring popular music by composers we barely know, like Shield, Pleyel, Dibdin, Sterkel, Kotzwara, and comic songs. From 1750 to 1810, Jane meticulously copied works or musical items into manuscripts that were 85 to 95 pages long. A total of 8 musical manuscripts survive from Chawton Cottage. Of those, three volumes are handwritten, and two are in Jane’s handwriting.

Watch Silent Worship from Handel’s Tolomeo from the movie Emma, 1996. Jane might well have heard the melody, for Handel wrote Tolomeo in 1728. However, Mike Parker informs me that the words were written by Arthur Somervell, who was born in 1863, over 40 years after Jane’s death. Be that as it may, the scene in the movie is reminiscent of the amateur musical concerts friends and family played for a family gathering.

• Musical Muse, Perspectives, Ohio University

• Corda Music - Jane Austen’s Music - The Project

• Learn more at this site, Jane Austen: Music and the Truly Accomplished Woman

• The Piano Forte, Gentleman’s Magazine, January, 1812: Prints George

• Soft and Loud: Jane Austen and the Piano Forte
  

A square piano similar to Jane’s at Chawton Cottage.

Lyrics to Silent Worship by Arthur Somervell (1863-1937)

Did you not hear My Lady
Go down the garden singing
Blackbird and thrush were silent
To hear the alleys ringing

 

Oh saw you not My Lady
Out in the garden there
Shaming the rose and lily
For she is twice as fair.

 

Though I am nothing to her
Though she must rarely look at me
And though I could never woo her
I love her till I die

 

Surely you heard My Lady
Go down the garden singing
Silencing all the songbirds
And setting the alleys ringing

 

But surely you see My Lady
Out in the garden there
Rivaling the glittering sunshine
With a glory of golden hair

Adaptation einer Arie aus G. F. Handel’s Tolomeo “Non lo diro col labbro, 1728

Illustrations by James Gillray: 1800, Ars Musica and 1810, A Little Music

Post updated: Feb 26, 2008