The Innocent Diversion - Music in the Life
and Writings of Jane Austen
by Patrick Piggott
First paperback edition, 2011
George Mantle Childe (original edition, 1979)
184pp
13 illustrations
ISBN 978-0-953961-6
This highly readable volume covers three aspects of Jane Austen and music:
Austen as performer and listener (apparently, she preferred the former); references
to music in her writings, including letters and the less well known fiction;
and the two collections of her own music books, many written out in her own
hand. The major novels are discussed in detail, showing how music fitted into
her plots. Emma is particularly important in this respect.
Her own collected music featured a lot of popular dance music but there are
songs and instrumental pieces as well. These include relatively little Beethoven
and Mozart, with rather more Haydn and much by lesser known composers of the
Austen period. Clementi and Cramer may be instanced. Cramer is the only composer
to be mentioned in an Austen novel.
The book is full of insights into both musical history and Austen's writing.
There are however a few details to pick up. Were public concerts "rare events
outside London or Bath" (p.17)? I have come across many circa 1800-1820 in
my researches into Doncaster musical history and other places were equally
well endowed. William Boyce was born in 1711, not 1710. Kotzwara's The
Battle of Prague was not "one of the oldest battlepieces" (p.145); I can
think of examples by William Byrd, Johann Kuhnau and Heinrich Biber centuries
before. And it is surely wrong to assert that J.S. Bach "had yet to be discovered"
in Austen's time. Mozart knew of him and in England Samuel Wesley had done
much for him, well before Mendelssohn took him up. However these are details
which do not affect a warm welcome for this book which is well detailed and
cogently carried through.
You can pay the full price of £12.99 if you order from them online (http://www.moonrisepress.co.uk/)
- you click the PayPal option, and it gives you the option to pay straight
from your credit card rather than going through a PayPal account.
On the other hand the book can be ordered at a discount price from Moonrise
Press for £10.00 post-free. To do this you would have to order
by emailing Moonrise at mrp@moonrisepress.co.uk
and they would send you an emailed PayPal invoice, which can then be paid
by credit card if desired. They don't have a facility for taking card payments
over the phone.
You can contact Moonrise Press at Upper House, Stoke Sant Milborough, Ludlow,
Shropshire SY8 2EJ, United Kingdom.
Philip Scowcroft
A warm welcome for this book which is well detailed and cogently carried through.