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Archive for the ‘Regency Period’ Category

Jane Austen and Music

Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency society, Regency style, Regency World, tagged , , on July 12, 2010| 21 Comments »

Inquiring Readers: This is the fourth and final post in honor of Pride and Prejudice Without Zombies, Austenprose’s in-depth reading of Pride and Prejudice, which is winding up this week.. My first post discussed Dressing for the Netherfield Ball, the second talked about the dances, and the third showcased the suppers that might have been served. This post discusses the music that was popular during Jane Austen’s era and that she personally liked. Some of her preferences are vastly different than those shown in film and tv productions.

“Yes, yes, we will have a pianoforte, as good a one as can be got for 30 guineas, and I will practice country dances, that we may have some amusement for our nephews and nieces, when we have the pleasure of their company.” – Jane Austen to Cassandra, 1808

Georgiana Darcy at her pianoforte

Like many ladies of her era, Jane Austen was an accomplished musician. And so were her characters. In Pride and Prejudice, Mary Bennet, Elizabeth Bennet, the Bingley sisters and Georgiana Darcy could all play instruments with skill. Lady Catherine de Bourgh would have been a proficient, as would her daughter Anne, had she learned and practiced. Before the age of electricity and cable the world was largely silent musically speaking, save for the music played by family members, local musicians, or more famous musicians who were paid to play for the rich.

Street Music, 1789

Musicians wandered the land, and London streets offered a pandemonium of sounds, much of it derived from musical instruments. The only music available in the home was that which amateur or professional performers could produce on the spot, so that the ability to play music well was crucial for all walks of life. From childhood on, young ladies were expected to play a musical instrument and study with music masters. Gentlemen sang as well and formed impromptu amateur groups that entertained in taverns and men’s clubs.

Farmer Giles and his wife showing off their daughter Betty to their neighbors on her return from school, Gillray, 1806

In Pride and Prejudice, Mary Bennet, while considered technically skilled, was pendantic compared to her sister Elizabeth, whose musical style was  more lively and who could sing with more expression. An evening in the Regency era might consist of a family gathered in the drawing room, with the women preoccupied with a household task like sewing, the men reading, or a group playing games, and someone playing a musical instrument or singing a popular song. For larger gatherings, small ensembles would form, prompting others to push furniture aside, roll up the carpet, and dance a jig or a reel, as I imagine Lydia Bennet and her friends might have done at Colonel Forster’s home. Sometimes professionals mixed with amateurs. In 1811, Jane Austen wrote about a get together at her brother Henry’s house in London:

George Woodward. "Savoyards of Fashion -- or, the Musical Mania of 1799.

“Above 80 people are invited for next Tuesday evening, and there is to be some very good music — five professionals, three of them glee singers, besides amateurs. Fanny will listen to this. One of the hirelings is a Capital on the harp, from which I expect great pleasure.”

Marianne Dashwood sings and plays

Like Anne Elliot in Persuasion, Jane Austen frequently played the pianoforte for the enjoyment of her family. She practiced several hours every morning before others in her family began their day. Her niece Caroline recalled her aunt as having a natural taste in music. Natural or not, Jane studied for several years with Dr. Chard, an organist at Winchester Cathedral. It was said that her speaking voice was as sweet as her singing, and that she sang for her family only. A place in Chawton Cottage was reserved for the piano forte (Marianne Dashwood had her gift from Colonel Brandon placed in the drawing room in Barton Cottage), but some of the larger homes in the Regency era might have a room dedicated solely for music. Georgiana Darcy played so well that her brother had an entire room made over for her music. These rooms would contain a variety of instruments, including the harp, flute, violin and pianoforte.

Playing in Parts, James Gillray

“Through most of the 19th century, the lines between ‘popular’ and classical music were much more blurred than they are today. A Regency musicale or parlor performance could include a traditional Irish air popularized by Thomas Moore, a piano sonata by Pleyel, a favorite song from a ballad opera, or a setting of a popular dance tune.” – Anthea Lawson

Jane’s musical preferences tended towards the songs and dances that were popular at the time. That some of yesteryear’s tunes have become today’s classical music (Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven) happened purely by chance, for many of the composers whose music and songs Jane Austen preferred have faded into obscurity. Jane favored Ignaz Pleyel over Haydn, and had included in her musical collection 14 of his sonatinas. She played folk songs, Scotch and Irish airs (many arranged by Haydn and Beethoven), and songs from the popular stage by such composers as Dibdin, Arne and Shiled. She also collected works from Piccinni, Sterkel, and J.C. Bach, and owned Steibelt’s ‘Grand Concerto, Haydn’s English Conzonets, glees music of John Wall Callcott, and Che Faro from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. ( Music: What Was Popular When Jane Austen Was Writing?)

A Little Music, Gillray, 1810

In Pride and Prejudice, Mary Bennet played a selection of Scotch and Irish airs, which were quite popular at the time. Jane Fairfax in Emma played Robin Adair, a tune by G. Kiallmark that Jane Austen must also have played, for there were several variations of the song in her folio collection of music.

Jane Austen's copy of Dibdins "The Soldiers Adieu." She altered soldier to sailor.

Purchasing music sheets was expensive during the Regency era. People would loan sheet music to each other,which they would then copy into notebooks. While Austen did not write the lyrics she sang, she did choose which music she wanted to play. After borrowing a piece, she painstakingly copied it into a notebook with pre-ruled paper, or assembled the pieces she purchased into albums. Today, The Chawton House Trust owns eight volumes of Jane Austen’s collection of sheet music, two of which were largely written in Jane’s hand. A third volume was also copied by someone’s hand, and “five volumes contain printed music of songs, keyboard works, and chamber music from a variety of sources.” – (The Gift of Music )

Pleyel sonatas for the pianoforte or harpsichord

About half of the music in Jane’s notebooks are for vocals, or folk songs that tell stories. A few are so comic and fun that it is logical that the author of Pride and Prejudice and The History of England would be attracted to them. Charles Dibdin a composer and performer much in the vein of Benny Hill, wrote “The Joys of the Country,” which Jane copied by hand. He also wrote more serious, sentimental, and patriotic songs, supporting the fact that Jane’s taste was eclectic. She copied out the Marseillaise as The Marseilles March, and owned 56 Scottish songs, like “O Waly Waly”. Jane compiled more than the eight music books that reside at the Chawton House Trust, but the additional books, once studied by scholars in the 1970s and 1980s, are no longer available for study. (- I burn with contempt for my foes – Jane Austen Music Collections .)

Robin Adair, Scots Melody, Caroline Keppel

“In the evening she would sometimes sing, to her own accompaniment, some simple old songs, the words and airs of which, now never heard, still linger in my memory.” (James Edward Austen Leigh Memoir 330)

Many of the songs that were popular during the Regency era were franker than the topics that ladies of the Regency were allowed to conduct in polite conversation. Scored for a soprano voice, these popular ditties spoke of love and pursuit, sexual invitation, and people declaring their love openly – “some sexually, some chastely, some sweetly, some comically, some sentimentally, some melodramatically–a wildly “forward” thing for ladies to do in speech but apparently not in song.” (- I burn with contempt for my foes – Jane Austen Music Collections .)   Unmarried ladies sang songs in accents or impersonating Scottish girls. These musicales allowed them a freedom of expression and role playing that Jane Austen could have included in her novels. Many a chaste lady sang a bawdy song with an accent or impersonated a Scottish girl, with no one thinking the worst of her.  (Jane Austen Music Collection.)

Ladies at the piano, early Regency period

The Turban’d Turk

“The London folks themselves beguile
And think they please in a capital stile
Yet let them ask as they cross the street
Of any young virgin they happen to meet
And I know she’ll say, from behind her Fan
That there’s none can love like an Irishman
Like an Irishman”

(The British Minstrel and National Melodist, p 265-266, Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper, 1827)

The Piano Lesson, Girard, 1810

Like record producers and composers today, music publishers issued thousands of new songs for vocal performance and music for dances per year. In 1790 Andrews and Birchall published sheet songs bearing their name. Besides these, the bulk of Andrews’s publications between 1804-1810 included a sseries of ” Five Favourite Dances,” folio, Numbers i to 39 (7, 8, and 9 dated 1805), and a small oblong volume for the flute ” The Gentleman’s Vade Mecum.”  William Campbell published principally minor books dances, and include a series “Campbell’s Country Dances and Reels,” in oblong quarto. This runs to twenty seven books, and was re-issued, and probably continued from the 22nd up to this number by Robert Birchall. Werner was a dancing master and master of the ceremonies at Almack’s and the Festino Rooms. He lived at 6, Lower St. James’ Street, Golden Square, in 1782 and died in1787. Campbell, Fentum, Birchall, and Andrews, and others published his yearly books. When Jane traveled to London to visit her brother Henry, she haunted the shops, no doubt in search of new music as well as new fabrics, books, and gifts for the family.

Rowlandson, The Concert, Bath

During the 1790s the London concert life changed. Amateur orchestras in city taverns or in gentlemen’s clubs competedwith the professional concerts that began to sprout up in public places. (- The Rage for Music, Simon McVeigh) Local musicians would be hired for assembly balls in small towns. Musicians with a more professional background would be enlisted to play at more stylish events, like the Netherfield Ball. The lady asked to lead a set would choose the music and the steps, and relay her request to the Master of Ceremonies. As mentioned in my post about the dances at the Netherfield Ball, the musicians would play contemporary and lively music requested by the lady. Most of the marriageable young girls (think of the exuberance of Lydia and Kitty Bennet) preferred their version of modern music to the tunes of their elders. This means that many of the tunes chosen for the ball scenes in the Jane Austen film adaptations are entirely wrong! The early nineteenth century teen would have balked at dancing to a staid Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot, no matter how much today’s viewers like the scenes in which this tune is featured.

1817 Accidents in Quadrille Dancing

List of sources and examples:

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Public Reaction to Rising Waists During the Late 18th Century: Regency Fashion

Posted in Fashions, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency society, Regency style, Regency World, tagged , , on June 3, 2010| 9 Comments »

To our modern eyes, Regency empire dresses represent a charmed and romantic era. But in 1794, the high-waisted look that had so recently come into fashion aroused much ridicule, and was described as the “banishment of the body from the female form.” The Rage, or Shepherds I have Lost My Waist was a doggerel based upon a popular song of the time: “Shepherds I have lost my love – Have you seen my Anna?”

Shepherds, I have lost my waist,
Have you seen my body?
Sacrificed to modern taste,
I’m quite a hoddy doddy!
For fashion I that part forsook
Where sages place the belly;
T’is gone – and I have not a nook
For cheesecake, tart, or jelly.
Never shall I see it more,
Till common sense returning,
My body to my legs restore,
Then I shall cease from mourning.
Folly and fashion do prevail
To such extremes among the fair,
A woman’s only top and tail,
The body’s banish’d God knows where!”

The implication of the ditty was of the poor lady’s predicament. She had to refuse cakes and jelly for her dressmaker had left her with no body. Worse, her legs looked as if they started just below her breasts.


This image shows a lady wearing the latest rages: tall feathers and an enormous watch with fob suspended below a girdle without a waist.

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Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, the Insight Edition: A Review

Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen Novels, Janeites, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency World, Sense and Sensibility, tagged , , , on April 27, 2010| 9 Comments »

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, the Insight Edition from Bethany House is a lovely annotated version of this classic novel. The intended audience is obviously a young Christian girl or someone who is reading the novel for the first time. The notes sit in the margins; they are not too obtrusive or overly verbose, but they do add a dimension to reading the book. Symbols indicate what sort of comment to expect. For example, a feather tells us that we will learn a tidbit about Jane Austen’s life. A small cross will indicate themes of faith drawn from the novel or her life; a small crown leads to historical facts. (“Consumption: tuberculosis; once referred to as consumption because it “consumed” the body. P. 189.)  Smiley faces tell us about parts of the novel that make the reader smile, and frownies assure us that the character has become nothing but irritating. (On page 133, “ranking our dislike: 1. Fanny; 2. Lady “Passive-aggressive” Middleton, 3. ..”etc.)

Many of the annotations deal with scenes from film adaptations, which help to clarify them in relation to the book (look for the camera symbol). With the inclusion of these film annotations, Bethany House rightly assumes that many people reading Jane Austen for the first time seek out her novels only after seeing a movie based on her novel.

The foreword by Julie Klassen is short and to the point, and the book group questions in the back are neither pompous nor difficult to discuss. In short, this book provides a wonderful introduction to Sense and Sensibility, one of Jane Austen’s earlier novels and, next to Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, the most accessible to her new fans. Bethany House also offers a Pride and Prejudice edition, which I surmise must contain similar annotations and book group questions.

I highly recommend this book to new readers of Jane Austen, especially those who possess only a cursory knowledge about her life or the Regency era. Before purchasing the book for yourself or a friend or loved one, you should aware of the many notes that pertain to faith. The quotes are informative and not preachy, as on p. 145: “The hard core of morality and even of religion seems to me to be just what makes good comedy possible…where there is no norm, nothing can be ridiculous…” C.S. Lewis, “A Note on Jane Austen, Essays in Criticism.” This edition of Sense and Sensibility points out how Jane’s faith informs her writing and her life, which is natural given that her father and two of her brother were men of the cloth.

In reading this book I am enjoying my revisit with Marianne and Elinor, and the shenanigans of the devious Lucy Steele and mean-spirited Fanny Dashwood. I still find Willoughby’s conduct reprehensible for a man in love, but Colonel Brandon, though a tad boring, makes my heart patter with his devotion and strength of character . The margin notes, written by Jane Austen fans (not scholars)  have enriched my enjoyment of this edition, and thus I give it three out of three Regency fans.

About Bethany House: Bethany House Publishers, a division of Baker Publishing Group, has been publishing Christian fiction books for 50 years. Nearly 120 titles are published annually, including historical and contemporary fiction, Christian living, family, health, devotional, children’s, classics, and theology subjects.

Sense and Sensibility, insight ed. by Jane Austen
ISBN: 978-0-7642-0740-2
Price: $14.99
Format: Paperback
Division: Bethany House

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Jane Austen and Easter

Posted in Holiday, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency style, Regency World, tagged on April 3, 2010| 4 Comments »

This Easter weekend is a perfect time to reflect on Jane Austen and Easter. Hats and bonnets were prevalent, of course, and so were Easter Fairs and eating hot cross buns.
Ladies' bonnets, 1802

In her book, Jane Austen and the Clergy, Irene Collins writes: Clergymen in Jane Austen’s day were not expected to write original sermons every Sunday. “Henry Crawford, assessing Edmund Bertram’s commitments at Thornton Lacey, judged that ‘a sermon at Christmas and Easter ‘would be’ the sum total of the sacrifice.” Mr. Collins produced only two sermons between his ordination at Easter and his visit to Longbourn in November of the same year.- p. 96.

Jane Austen herself mentions Easter, most notably in Pride and Prejudice:

In this quiet way, the first fortnight of her visit soon passed away. Easter was approaching, and the week preceding it was to bring an addition to the family at Rosings, which in so small a circle must be important. Elizabeth had heard, soon after her arrival, that Mr. Darcy was expected there in the course of a few weeks, and though there were not many of her acquaintance whom she did not prefer, his coming would furnish one comparatively new to look at in their Rosings parties, and she might be amused in seeing how hopeless Miss Bingley’s designs on him were, by his behaviour to his cousin, for whom he was evidently destined by Lady Catherine; who talked of his coming with the greatest satisfaction, spoke of him in terms of the highest admiration, and seemed almost angry to find that he had already been frequently seen by Miss Lucas and herself.

At Rosings with Colonel Fitzwilliam

Colonel Fitzwilliam’s manners were very much admired at the parsonage, and the ladies all felt that he must add considerably to the pleasure of their engagements at Rosings. It was some days, however, before they received any invitation thither, for while there were visitors in the house they could not be necessary; and it was not till Easter-day, almost a week after the gentlemen’s arrival, that they were honoured by such an attention, and then they were merely asked on leaving church to come there in the evening. For the last week they had seen ver little of either Lady Catherine or her daughter. Colonel Fitzwilliam had called at the parsonage more than once during the time, but Mr. Darcy they had only seen at church.

The invitation was accepted of course, and at a proper hour they joined the party in Lady Catherine’s drawing room. Her ladyship received them civilly, but it was plain that their company was by no means so acceptable as when she could get nobody else; and she was, in fact, almost engrossed by her nephews, speaking to them, especially to Darcy, much more than to any other person in the room.

Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam at the pianoforte

Ellen Moody noted that dating Sense and Sensibility presented a problem. It was revised several times and as a result the chronology remains inconsistent. Towards the book’s end, Easter is mentioned as occurring on March 31. This would have fallen in 1793, when the first draft of the novel was written. But, there is another reference to Easter in early April, which would have placed the novel in 1798 (the most likely), 1801, 1803, and 1809.

More on the topic:

Jane Austen’s Easter: Jane Austen Centre Online Magazine

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Transferring Embroidery Patterns to Muslin

Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency style, Regency World, tagged , , , on March 27, 2010| 7 Comments »

Gentle reader – a few weeks ago someone asked me how the beautiful muslin patterns that Ackermann’s Repository of Fashions offered in its magazines could be transferred. This 19th century Enclyclopedia from Project Gutenberg offers practical suggestions. Among them are:

Tracing patterns against a window pane.—In order to copy a pattern in this way, the first step is to tack or pin the piece of stuff or paper on which the copy is to be made upon the pattern. In the case of a small pattern, the tacking or pinning may be dispensed with and the two sheets held firmly pressed against the window pane with the left hand, whilst the right hand does the tracing, but even then it is safer to pin or gum the four corners of the two sheets together, in case of interruption, as it is difficult to fit them together again exactly.

The tracing may be done with a pencil, or better still, with a brush dipped in Indian ink or water-colour paint.

The process of tracing is easy enough, so long as the hand does not get tired but as this generally comes to pass very soon it is best, if the pattern be a large and complicated one, to stick the sheets to the pane with strong gum or suspend them on a string, fastened across the pane by pins stuck into the window frame on either side.

To copy with oiled paper.—Another rather expeditious mode of transferring patterns on to thin and more especially smooth glossy stuffs, is by means of a special kind of tinted paper, called autographic paper, which is impregnated with a coloured oily substance and is to be had at any stationer’s shop. This you place between the pattern and the stuff, having previously fastened the stuff, perfectly straight by the line of the thread, to a board, with drawing-pins. When you have fitted the two papers likewise exactly together, you go over all the lines of the pattern with a blunt pencil, or with, what is better still, the point of a bone crochet needle or the edge of a folder. You must be careful not to press so heavily upon the pattern paper as to tear it; by the pressure exercised on the two sheets of paper, the oily substance of the blue paper discharges itself on to the stuff, so that when it is removed all the lines you have traced are imprinted upon the stuff.

This blue tracing paper is however only available for the reproduction of patterns on washing stuffs, as satin and all other silky textures are discoloured by it.

To pounce patterns upon stuffs.—The modes of copying, hitherto described, cannot be indiscriminately used for all kinds of stuff; for cloth, velvet and plush, for instance, they are not available and pouncing is the only way that answers.

The patterns, after having been transferred to straw or parchment paper, have to be pricked through. To do this you lay the paper upon cloth or felt and prick out all the lines of the drawing, making the holes, which should be clear and round, all exactly the same distance apart.

The closer and more complicated the pattern is, the finer and closer the holes should be. Every line of the outline must be carefully pricked out.

If the paper be sufficiently thin, several pouncings can be pricked at the same time, and a symmetrical design can be folded together into four and all pricked at once.

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