In Volume II, Chapter VIII
of Pride and Prejudice, Lady Catherine intrudes on a conversation with
Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam on music. Delighted by the subject (or simply
the chance to monopolize the conversation), she replies, “Of music! Then pray
speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the
conversation, if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England
Of course, this scene
largely convinces the reader that she has absolutely no taste or understanding
of music, and that she is far keener to give advice than take it herself. Yet
it also underlines the importance of music in Jane Austen’s society: music brought
young people together (as it does today), and was a necessary backdrop for all
the dances and card playing that gave life to an endless round of social
engagements. Young and old, rich and poor, everyone knew something about music,
or at least thought it was worth knowing about. Elizabeth herself plays—though
very ill, as she informs all her acquaintance—and Darcy complements both her
and her sister’s abilities, and takes great pleasure in their performances. In
a world without the ability to play pre-recorded music, one had to provide
one’s own entertainment, and a skilled musician in the family must have
shortened many a long winter’s night. In a famous letter to her sister
Cassandra, Jane Austen is willing to take the burden of entertainment on herself,
writing, “Yes, yes, we will have a pianoforte, as good as one 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” (1808).
Austen cites “country
dances” here, which would have been charming little jigs and quadrilles, some
with eccentric names such as Stingo, or the Oyle of Barley and Mr.
Beveridges’ Magot. Of course, when not dancing, more civilized music held
sway, much of it long-forgotten by time and memory. Yet Austen would have
listened to a few composers whose music comes down to us, notably Mozart—his
piano sonatas and other piano pieces were widely circulated—as well as sonatas
and songs by Haydn, and arrangements from operas by Gluck, Handel, Mozart, and
J.C. Bach (one of J.S. Bach’s sons). She might also have known the early
Nocturnes of John Field, the Irish composer who made his career in Russia:
these pieces, which would inspire the more famous Nocturnes of Chopin, are the
perfect backdrop to Austen’s world, and one can imagine Elizabeth—if perhaps
not Mary Bennet—practicing them at home. Sadly, she didn’t live long enough to
hear the explosion of Romantic music that would soon follow—one wonders what
she would have made of Berlioz and Liszt!
The topic of Austen and
music becomes even more interesting when it comes to film adaptations. How
should Austen’s stories “sound”? The easy way out would be to simply use a
soundtrack with Mozart, Haydn, and company, and round it out with some of the
quaint English country dances. However, a movie isn’t a museum piece, and it’s
not even an Austen novel. It’s a modern work of art that tells a story through
the translation of film, which means we need to see the past through the lens
of the present. For that reason, a skilled film composer is called in to
capture the emotional feel of an Austen novel, while still imparting some sense
of historical accuracy. So far, no composer has been too anachronistic and used
pop songs to score Darcy’s letter scene (though that could be intriguing), yet
composers draw a fine line between what Austen would have known and what we
expect to hear. The soundtracks below are all attempts to bring that crucial
element to Austen’s conversation—the feel of a modern reader wading through a
lost world, which still crackles with human warmth and regret.
Pride and Prejudice
There are two amazing
soundtracks for Pride and Prejudice,
each one solving the problem in a unique way and sounding utterly unlike one
another. We’ll start with the more
modern one, the 2005 version by Dario Marianelli, which also features the
famous French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in a concertante role throughout. In
many ways, this is the Austen score,
which is all the more surprising since I find the film rather flat and lacking
in humor (though it tries very hard to make the work seem alive and modern).
The score, however, far transcends the film through the sheer beauty and
memorability of its themes. The opening is gorgeous, with no attempt to marry
itself to the period, but simply evoking the simmering passions of Elizabeth
and Darcy. The delicate piano melody, much referenced throughout the score, is
at turns romantic and humorous, until it fades away like a lullaby. One of my
favorite moments is the third piece, “The Living Sculptures of Pemberley,” when
Elizabeth
Carl Davis’ score for the
famous 1995 miniseries (perhaps the best adaptation of them all) takes the
opposite track: while it exists less as music apart from the score, it
re-creates Austen’s world and sounds unlike any other adaptation. Indeed, Davis Hollywood embellishment. Other highlights include Collins’
buffoonish theme on the bassoon, an imposing Baroque inspired theme for Lady
Catherine (as if to suggest her age—she’s from another period!), and a lot of
busy dance-like episodes, often for piano alone, as if to echo the
accompaniment to the balls and salons in Meryton. It’s a glittering, delightful
score, maybe less of a piece than the later soundtrack, but it comes closest to
the music I hear when I read the book.
Sense and Sensibility
Perhaps one of the best
soundtracks in Austenland is Patrick Doyle’s 1995 score for Sense and Sensibility, which
effortlessly blends the demands of Hollywood
Emma
There are two great scores
for Emma, one in the 90’s by Rachel
Portman, which is difficult to find, and one made in 2009 by Samuel Sim for the
recent BBC production. I’ll focus on the latter not only
because of its accessibility, but because it’s one of the greatest of the
modern Austen scores. It opens with a gorgeous melody which seems to hint at
the potential romance between Emma and Knightley, capped off by a bell—a
wedding bell? The score is chamber-light in its scoring, allowing the harp to
shine through in many pieces, as well as the piano. Like Davis
There are scores for
recent versions of all of these books, but they are either impossible to find
or, in the case of the 90’s version of Mansfield Park BBC version of Northanger Abbey opens with a
spooky, Gothic-inspired theme which represents Catherine’s reading preferences,
and is a lot of fun. I enjoyed what I could glean from the score in several
viewings of the film, but I can’t find the music anywhere. The 1996 film of Persuasion
employs a very minimal score, with just a scrap of thematic material, and then
Chopin’s Prelude No.3 (on the seashore of Lyme) and a florid Italian aria at Bath
For those of you who want
to go beyond movie scores and back in time toward Austen’s own music, here are
some pieces you might want to investigate to construct your own score:
* Mozart’s Piano
Concertos: esp. 12, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, and 27—these all seem to breathe
the air of Austen’s world
* Mozart’s Piano Sonatas:
any of them, but esp. 8, 12 (the slow movement!), 13, and 18.
* Field’s Nocturnes
* Chopin’s Preludes,
Nocturnes, Waltzes, Ballades, and Scherzos
* And of course, a disc of
English Country Dances like the ones below:
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