My 10-year-old had a tin whistle unit in school, and she liked it, so now she is asking me for more music. I have printed a few hymns and (what is all the rage in her homeschool group) the hobbit theme from Lord of the Rings. As soundtracks to my day go, it is really not bad! I am devoutly thankful she isn’t playing the recorder; I am really over those things.
Jane Austen’s daily soundtrack would have been very different, of course, but I venture to think she would have enjoyed Howard Shore’s themes for LoTR as the English classicists were already moving toward more romanticism!
At any rate, we can picture her seated at her square piano, copying out the latest music in ink. There’s crumbs on the table, someone is complaining about the post, and Jane is quietly writing out an overture by Thomas Linley the Younger.
The Austen family’s music books—some of them copied by hand—are filled with pieces by English composers of the 18th century, including Tom Linley, Thomas Arne, William Boyce, and some from lesser names who were, for a time, very fashionable. It was the Spotify playlist of its day.
This YouTube playlist has a lot of English Regency works, and it is a major mood:
I was doing some composer research for a new book (finally! I haven’t been writing much for a long while) and I enjoyed reading about Tom Linley the Younger. He was, it sounds like, a musical genius as so many of these guys tended to be. He was also very young, very handsome, and very doomed. Born in 1756 (the same year as Mozart, which everyone always mentions), he was the eldest son of the Linley musical family of Bath. His father ran concerts and his children performed in them. His siblings: Elizabeth Ann, Mary, Maria, Samuel and William, were all raised to be musicians.
He studied in Italy. He played with Mozart. He composed glees, songs, and concert pieces that were celebrated for their originality. And then, at age 22, he drowned in a boating accident. Like Keats, Schubert, or anyone else who didn’t make it out of their twenties or thrities, his talent is forever frozen in potential. One of his glees appears in Jane Austen’s family music collection.
Then there’s Thomas Arne, who did live long enough to have both a peak and a reputation. Born in 1710, Arne wrote the music to “Rule, Britannia!”—which I confess was the only song I recognized. He also composed operas, songs, and instrumental works that were regular fare in English concerts for decades.
Austen would have heard their songs in assembly rooms or seen them listed in programs from private musicales before they ended up in their music books—alongside other English composers like William Shield, John Marsh, and Stephen Storace (whose sister Nancy was the original Susanna in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro—but that’s another post).
Where else did all this music get played?
A familiar answer to all Regency readers, Vauxhall Gardens.
Vauxhall was not just a garden. It was a sensory event, as all Georgette Heyer readers will be aware. Fairy lights, “floating” orchestras, painted supper boxes, and people from all walks of life brushing elbows. You could buy ham, hear a clarinet solo, and fall in love.
The style of music was meant to please, not provoke. The Regency style was still largely classical–as opposed to romantic. Glees (like modern part-songs) were especially popular—designed for three or four voices and meant to be sung after dinner with wine and feeling.
So here’s to Linley and Arne, and to all the composers whose names don’t travel easily beyond the footnotes (at least for many of us). They gave us the sounds of Austen’s world: elegant, earnest, and sometimes just lively enough to get you through a long evening with Lady Middleton.
And here’s to Jane—who knew what she liked.
—Corrie
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