Jane Austen Entertains:  Music From Her Own Library, by Miss Sara Stowe (soprano), Miss Jenny Thomas (German flute), and Dr. Martin Souter (pianoforte)

This is an album that knows its fanbase and aims squarely at it—this music is all about Jane Austen.  It answers a question many people may have but never think to ask—what kind of music did Jane Austen like and play.  After all, this is a project that is focused on mimicking the sound that Jane Austen would have made playing for her friends and family.  There are two elements that seek to provide particular credibility as a Jane Austen project.  For one, this music is recorded in the Chawton home where Jane Austen spent most of her later years [1].  For another, the music actually comes from her library, much of it copied in her own hand.  There are two sort of people who will appreciate this album—Jane Austen fans who want to listen to the music that she liked, and people who fond of obscure composer, most notably Ignace Pleyel, who is the real star performer here in that three of his works show up here.  Since the music is mostly undemanding and similar sounding, I will not attempt a track by track review.  It is worthwhile to reflect a bit upon the different selections included here:

The Yellow Hair’d Laddie (flute)
Hooly & Fairly (vocals)
Waly, Waly (vocals)
Sonatina No. 5 in G major for pianoforte solo by Ignace Pleyel (Adagio non troppo, Un poco piu moto, Rondo Allegro)
The Egyptian Love Song (flute)
Betsy Bell & Mary Gray (vocals)
Polwart on the Green (vocals)
For Tenderness form’d in Life’s early day (flute)
Sonata No. 2 in G major for flute and pianoforte by Johann Sterkel (Allegro con brio, Rondo Andante)
The Last Time I Came O’er (vocals)
The Banks of Forth (vocals)
Katharine Ogie (vocals)
Sonatina No. 10 in B flat major for pianoforte solo by Ignace Pleyel (Andante Grazioso, Menuetto Allegretto)
My deary, if thou die (vocals)
Sonata No. 4 in A major for flute and pianoforte by Ignace Pleyel (Allegro, Andante, Rondo Allegro assai)

Looking at the organization of this, it is clear that the producers sought to mix the pieces together, dividing up the sonatas along with various folk tunes, some of which are impressive and many of which sound exactly like something you would expect to see from a talented young woman who wrote romance novels.  The sonatas are undemanding but lovely, many of the folk songs deal with handsome boys, relationships, fears of losing a lover to death, and pretty girls.  The classical music as a whole would work well for offertory music at church or played at a concert hall, or performed while one is attempting to draw the attention of a gentleman who happens to like good music.  It should be noted that Pleyel, who composed more than a third of this album, was a student of Haydn’s who was prolific and popular during his lifetime, largely because his music was not very hard to play, but he is very obscure nowadays.  It’s a pleasure to listen to, though.  It is a shame that the recording volume is so low that I had to turn up the audio to 25 to hear it properly, but that is a mere quibble, as the songs are performed well and are pleasing to listen to, besides being of historical note since they form part of the soundtrack for the life of Jane Austen, who happened to be the only musically inclined person in her family.  This is the next best thing we can get to being entertained on disc by Jane Austen herself, and it’s a worthy album for people who are fond of classical music and Jane Austen.  What’s not to like about those two things put together?  There’s only one thing this album needs to be even better—a violist.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/today-in-history-on-january-28-1813-jane-austens-pride-prejudice-was-published/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/today-in-history-on-december-16-1775-jane-austen-was-born/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/reading-jane-austen-by-candlelight-in-thailand/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/book-review-jane-and-her-gentlemen/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/as-she-lay-dying/