Weekend Reads

Have you read any good books over the weekend? Here's what I've read:

Teaser Friday

The following snippet from SPRINGTIME PLEASURES ties in with my last blog post about handwritten music in the Regency period. I wanted to make music something to strengthen the friendship between Charlie, my heroine, and Lady Isabella, the hero's sister. In this context, swapping music and sharing your own private music album becomes an act of growing intimacy. (The traditional song that is mentioned in this excerpt can be found in the Austen music albums, too.)

Charlie rummaged in her reticule and dug out the music album she had mentioned to Isabella on one of their earlier outings. Music, as Emma-Lee had informed Charlie, was generally considered a suitable topic for young ladies and was not likely to shock a gently-bred girl like Lady Isabella (unlike boars and other wild beasts). Charlie had decided to follow her friend’s advice, and as she had expected, it turned out to be a sound one: Isabella loved music, and she particularly liked playing the fortepiano.
 

“Here is the song album I promised you.” She put the much-used album with its rubbed corners onto Isabella’s lap.
 
Delight spread across the other girl’s face. “How very kind of you.” Smiling broadly, she stroked the faded red cover. “A true St. Cuthbert’s artefact! I am so excited.”
 
“It contains all my favourites,” Charlie said eagerly, leaning forward. “Do you know ‘Waly, waly’? It’s such a lovely sad song.” Unerringly, she found the right page. “There it is. I hope you can read my hand.”
 
Isabella peered at the page of handwritten music and quietly started to hum the melody. “Is this correct? How delightful it sounds!” she said after a few bars, glancing up at Charlie.
 
“Doesn’t it? And isn’t the text of the chorus most heart-wrenching?” Charlie started to sing:

“O waly, waly, love is bonnie
A little time when it is new;
But it grows auld, and waxes cauld,
And fades away like morning dew.”

Today I'm also doing a guest post on Just Paranormal Romance about "Folk Charms and Folk Magic in Bewitched".

Hands On! Music in a Bygone Age

In our age, in which printed matter is so easy to come by - indeed, our daily life is dominated by printed matter as are our correspondences - it's very easy to forget to what extent handwritten texts dominated everyday culture 200 years ago. I knew that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a lot of poetry was still circulated privately among friends and family, and would be copied into private albums.

What I didn't know until I started researching this matter for SPRINGTIME PLEASURES was that a lot of music was also circulated in the same manner. And we are not merely talking about short songs here; no, people copied longer pieces, too, like whole sonatas. Chawton House holds eight manuscript volumes of music that belonged to the Austen family:

The musical content of these volumes is varied. Songs, keyboard works (both solo and duet) and chamber music form the core of the collection and are drawn from a variety of sources. The contents are typical of domestic music-making of the period - and consequently include hardly any music by composers famous today. In Jane Austen's day, Pleyel and Sterkel were more famous than Haydn and Mozart, their music often more accessible via successful printing and distribution businesses than those of their more talented colleagues with their high-powered court appointments and operatic commissions. 

(from the booklet to the CD Jane Austen Entertains)

Isn't this fascinating? I have to admit that I was rather flabbergasted by the info that longer musical works were copied, too. So I decided to do an experiment, and copy the first few bars of the Haydn sonata Isabella plays at a party in SPRINGTIME PLEASURES. You can see the result above. From what I've seen, the Austens used albums in landscape format, so format wise, my attempt is not quite authentic. In addition, it's been twenty years or more since I last wrote down music - and boy, did I feel these years!

Apart from the resulting awkwardness, I also noticed a number of other things that make copying music quite different from copying a text. First of all, with music you have to plan ahead and decide which hand to write down first. Secondly, you have to be so, so careful because it's so, so easy to make mistakes. Also, you want to make sure that you (and others) will be able to read the music after you've copied it. As a curious side-effect, you become rather intimately acquainted with the piece you are copying, which, I assume, would also make it easier to learn the piece afterwards.


If you are interested in the Chawton House collection of music, I can recommend the CDs Jane Austen Entertains (you might want to listen to the samples first; several Amazon customers apparently didn't like the soprano) and Jane Austen Piano Favourites. If you'd like to start copying a few musical pieces yourself, I suggest you do it in style and buy this scrumptious-looking Edition Peters album. 

Temptation in Green

It started harmless enough: I was looking for a nice edition of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. I love, love, LOVE North and South, but my Penguin Classics edition, which I use for teaching, looks rather bedraggled, and the Norton edition that I also have isn't really that pretty. Soooo... Off to Amazon I went to check out my reading options.

And there it happened.

I stumbled over the Penguin Clothbound Classics edition of Cranford (see above).

OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

You know how susceptible I am to pretty covers. And if that is not a pretty cover, I don't know what is!

This was the first time I had ever heard about the Clothbound Classics. They are hardcovers. And they are pretty. (Unfortunately, there is no North and South Clothbound Classics edition. That's too bad of you, Penguin!)

So, there I was, sitting in front of my computer, salviating at the sight of this beautiful book. Have I mentioned that I was somewhat stressed, too, what with contacting reviewers about Springtime Pleasures, inserting the copy edits, and finishing off all the grading from the past semester? Well, you know what happens when I'm a bit stressed: I buy books.

And so I succumbed to the green temptation. *happy sigh*

Revisions in Action, Part 4: Beware of the Zebra!

I was mad enough to include a throw-away line about a zebra in SPRINGTIME PLEASURES: basically, Charlie asks another character whether that person has ever seen a zebra. It only occurred to me later that Charlie could have well seen a zebra herself in one of the menageries in London. So I've been leafing through my research books and flicking through early-nineteenth-century guidebooks on Google Books on the hunt for the dratted elusive zebra.

In the early 19th century, there were at least two menageries in London, namely the Royal Menagerie in the Tower and Pidcock's Museum. The Zoological Gardens were opened in 1828, but apparently, they weren't open to the public at first. But SPRINGTIME PLEASURES is set in 1817 anyway, so no London Zoo for Charlie.

About Pidcock's Museum I've so far found only the following:

Over Exeter Change, in the Strand, has a collection of divers beasts and birds, not exceeded in rarity even by the royal menagerie in the Tower. These occupy three apartments, which may be seen for half-a.crown, or two of them for two shillings.

(from: John Wallis, LONDON: BEING A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE BRITISH CAPITAL, 4th ed., 1814)

No list of animals, alas.

I've been luckier in regard to the Royal Menagerie and found the following list in THE PICTURE OF LONDON OF 1805:

As you can see, still no mention of a zebra. So, sorry, Charlie, it looks as if there is no zebra for you.