The Austen family music books and Hampshire music culture, 1770-1820

Abstract

Jane Austen and her family engaged with music in ways that seem typical of English provincial gentry families of this period, and the music books collected by various members of the family are among the most important sources for understanding how. This is the first study to explore the contents of all the music books belonging to Jane and her immediate family. It focuses on repertoire in the seventeen extant music books and makes connections with other forms of music-making in the provinces, for example, the examination of which composers, genres or scorings are most prominent and how certain repertoire played in public performance is then found in a domestic setting. The study describes the physical condition of the books and the repertoire contained within, which ranges from theatrical songs, sonatas, oratorio extracts and French periodicals. It also records important findings on duplications within the collection and the different types of scoring used in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The study then expands to view Hampshire music-making in the period 1 770- 1820 in order to explore intersections with the music within the collection. After an overview of the provincial concert scene, I pursue a more extensive investigation of festivals, subscription and benefit concerts in Hampshire including those taking place in the key centres of Winchester, Southampton and Portsmouth. I concentrate particularly on the Hampshire Music Meeting, held in Winchester, an event Jane Austen almost certainly attended in 1800. The final chapter explores the relationship between the Austen domestic music collection and the public concerts taking place in Hampshire and how these two repertoires connect, with descriptions of the key works that exemplify this connection. I close with further consideration of how domestic music-making can be understood in relation to concert culture, concluding with observations on how this ostensibly private musical activity functioned to support women's participation in the public sphere. The appendix shows a complete listing of all the concerts held in Hampshire during this period, according to the Hampshire Chronicle. In addition there is a DVD of a concert presentation entitled 'Jane Austen and the Winchester Connection' presented and filmed at the Turner Sims concert hall at Southampton University in September 2012.

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