Thank you for joining us for our Spring 2025 series,
Music & the Regency!

Look below to see our recorded events.

In Austen’s novels, we encounter music in a variety of forms and scenes with the pianoforte at their center. While Austen doesn’t mention keyboard pieces by their titles, she alludes to one style in particular that 18th-century music in its popular and utilitarian manifestation: the “air.” An air can designate a variety of styles and forms but most commonly indicates a song-like vocal or instrumental tune. In Austen’s mentions, they are delineated as Scotch, Irish, or Italian airs and are played on the pianoforte for dancing or for entertainment purposes. By the turn of the 19th century, however, tunes were gradually evolving into larger musical forms, most commonly serving as the primary motive for sonata movements and sets of themes and variations. This is evident in the wealth of representations contained in Austen’s personal music collection. Through examining the music that she was practicing when she was writing, we gain a richer understanding and more intimate view of the hands behind the pen. Laura Klein, pianist and historical musicologist, specializes in British keyboard music and performance practices of the long 18th century. Her current research centers on the music contained in the Austen Family Music Books collection. She founded The Jane Austen Playlist in 2019, a historical music project that features the music of the Austen family in digitized notations, companion recordings, and dramatically narrated performances. An active performer and presenter, she gives frequent concerts and lecture recitals online, throughout the United States, and in the United Kingdom. Klein is Affiliate Professor of Piano at Colorado Christian University and is completing her Ph.D. at the University of Colorado Boulder. Link to playlist of pieces featured in Laura's talk: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT2RxkRAjSpgs4Nd6BFcSLEvz7zTbHRJL

Jane Austen and other women who enjoyed music, and who aspired to even a modest level of musical accomplishment, needed some training. What kind of musical education could women in the Regency era expect to receive? What does it indicate that Marianne Dashwood plays concertos, why is Mary Bennet interested in thoroughbass, and how would Jane Fairfax have encountered the compositions of J.B. Cramer? Contemporary manuals on female education offer a glimpse into what was then considered appropriate for musical study, and help us understand what it took for Austen, her characters, and the women of her time to achieve their musical goals. Kathryn L. Libin, Mary Conover Mellon Professor of Music at Vassar College, earned BM and MA degrees in piano performance at the Oberlin Conservatory and New York University, and a PhD in musicology at NYU. She has lectured and published on Mozart’s music and manuscripts, on music in Jane Austen’s life and works, and on musical sources in the Lobkowicz Library near Prague. Her articles on Jane Austen and music may be read in Persuasions (19, 22, 28, and 46), in the collection Elegance, Propriety, Harmony: Jane Austen and the Arts (2013), and in the Edinburgh Companion to Jane Austen and the Arts (2024). At Vassar she teaches a course on Jane Austen and Music in the Domestic Sphere.

In her surviving letters, Jane Austen mentions music occasionally among news of friends, neighbours and family. We know that she played the piano and sang, apparently practising regularly when she could. The memories of relations who were still young when she died – especially her niece Caroline – give us an idea of the place of music in her daily life. There is also rich evidence in the surviving music books from the collection of Austen and her family circle, much of which is copied in her own handwriting. Austen sometimes implies her dislike of public concerts and her appreciation of people who are honest about their lack of musical taste. At other times she expresses genuine enjoyment of a superior performance. Some of these attitudes are also displayed in the novels, but there are subtleties and ambiguities in the way she uses music and musicianship in her writing to illuminate her characters and sometimes to advance her plots. In this talk, I will discuss various aspects of music in Austen’s life and work and give some idea of the music that she played and sang. Gillian Dooley is an Honorary Associate Professor in English at Flinders University, South Australia. She has published and presented internationally on various topics, including Jane Austen, often with an emphasis on music. She was co-convenor of the ‘Immortal Austen’ conference in Adelaide, July 2017, and as a singer she has been curating and presenting programs of music from Austen’s personal collection since 2007. In 2021 she completed a detailed index of each of the 500-600 items in the Austen music collections digitized by University of Southampton, and her book She Played and Sang: Jane Austen and Music was published by Manchester University Press in 2024.

Italian opera in the 18th century, whether in Italy or London, was dominated by the castrati, male-identified singers who had been castrated before puberty to preserve their treble voices. With their haunting timbres and spectacular vocal techniques, the castrati were the superstars of their time. Among their most devoted admirers were women; it was well known, or salaciously assumed, that women were attracted to castrati because they were "safe" lovers, still capable of sexual activity but without the consequences of unwanted pregnancies. But the writings and experiences of these female fans reveal a more sophisticated appreciation of the artistry of their favorite singers, a blend of connoisseurship and enthusiasm that allowed for intellectual and emotional outlets that were not always available to women at the time. By the later 18th century the castrato phenomenon was beginning to wain, due to a number of factors: the rise of Enlightenment rationality that found the practice "barbaric"; the shift towards a more binary notion of gender; and changing operatic tastes. Yet at a time when castrati were increasingly viewed as "freaks", their female fans continued to admire and respect their artistry. This presentation will focus on the relationships between two late-18th century castrati and the women who admired them: that of Gaspare Pacchierotti with the novelist Frances Burney and her sister, the diarist Susan Burney Phillips; and that of Luigi Marchesi with the visual artist Maria Hadfield Cosway. By studying these relationships, we have an opportunity to treat fandom, and especially women's fandom, with the respect it deserves. Jeffrey Nigro has had a professional relationship with the Art Institute of Chicago for over 30 years, including serving as Director of Adult Programs in the Department of Museum Education from 2003 to 2010. Jeff is currently a Research Associate in the Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium and an Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Interpretation at the Art Institute. He also teaches Adult Education Seminars at the Newberry Library, and he is a former Regional Coordinator of the Greater Chicago region of JASNA. His essay, "Georgian Fangirls: Women and Castrati in 18th-Century London" appears in Women and Music in the Age of Austen, edited by Linda Zionkowski and Miriam Hart (Bucknell University Press, 2023).