Austen Chat: Episode 21
March 6, 2025
Jane Austen & Her Playlist: A Visit with Laura Klein
"I do not think I can live without something of a musical society. . . . without music, life would be a blank to me." —Emma
Though these words are spoken by the shallow and pretentious Mrs. Elton, the sentiment is one that Jane Austen herself likely shared. Austen played the pianoforte throughout her life and often incorporated music into her novels. In this episode, we chat with pianist Laura Klein about the music Austen and her family knew and loved and discuss how she used it in her writing to drive plots, reveal character traits, and provide emotional outlets for her heroines.
Laura Klein is a pianist and historical musicologist. Her current research centers on the music contained in the Austen Family Music Books collection. She founded The Jane Austen Playlist in 2019, a historical music project that features the music of the Austen family in digitized notations, companion recordings, and dramatically narrated performances. An active performer and presenter, she gives frequent concerts and lecture recitals online, throughout the United States, and in the United Kingdom, including Jane Austen’s House and Chawton House. Recent appearances include the world premiere of "The Jane Austen Playlist: Pride and Prejudice" at JASNA's 2023 AGM and "Drama in Words and Music: Jane Austen Sings," with Gillian Dooley, at the 2024 AGM.
Show Notes and Links
Many thanks to Laura for being a guest on Austen Chat!
- Learn more about Laura and The Jane Austen Playlist on her website: thejaneaustenplaylist.com.
- Watch videos of her performances on her YouTube Channel.
- Follow Laura and The Jane Austen Playlist on Instagram and Facebook.
Links for the Young Filmmakers Contest News Segment:
- Learn more about the 2025 Young Filmmakers Contest.
- Register and download the 2025 Contest Entry Form.
Listen to Austen Chat here, on your favorite podcast app (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other streaming platforms), or on our YouTube Channel.
Credits: From JASNA's Austen Chat podcast. Published March 6, 2025. © Jane Austen Society of North America. All rights reserved. Photo © Laura Klein. Theme Music: Country Dance by Humans Win.
Transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
[Theme music]
Breckyn Wood: Hello, Janeites, and welcome to Austen Chat, a podcast brought to you by the Jane Austen Society of North America. I'm your host, Breckyn Wood from the Georgia Region of JASNA. Listeners, it's time to strike the harp and join the chorus because my guest today is going to take us on a musical journey through Regency-era England. Laura Klein is a pianist and historical musicologist. Her current research centers on the music contained in the Austen Family Music Books Collection. She founded The Jane Austen Playlist in 2019, a historical music project that features the music of the Austen family in digitized notations, companion recordings, and dramatically narrated performances. An active performer and presenter, she gives frequent concerts and lecture recitals online throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom, including at Jane Austen's House and Chawton House. Member and Recording Secretary for the Denver/Boulder Region of JASNA, she premiered "The Jane Austen Playlist: Pride and Prejudice" at the 2023 AGM in Denver. More recently, she presented a performance, "Drama in Words and Music: Jane Austen Sings," with Gillian Dooley at the 2024 AGM in Cleveland. Welcome to the show, Laura.
Laura Klein: Thanks, Breckyn. I'm so happy to be here.
Breckyn: I saw that performance with Gillian Dooley, and it was lovely. So, I'm really excited—
Laura: Oh, thank you. It was so fun.
Breckyn: —really excited to chat today. Yeah, and it was a lot of fun. She was very—Gillian Dooley, too, was very expressive. She was funny on stage. It was fun to watch her. Okay. So to start off, we're going to play an Austen version of Would You Rather? Today, it's the Battle of the Henrys. Would you rather be in Henry Crawford's Drama Club or Henry Tilney's Book Club?
Laura: It's a difficult question. Here's why.
Breckyn: That's the point.
Laura: I love drama. I would probably pick Henry Tilney's Book Club just because of how much I love to read, and I can listen to music while I do it, and I can introvert while I do it. So, it's always surprising people don't know this about me, but I'm a major introvert because I come across as not being. And so that's one of the things that I love about reading and then digging into these plots of books. So, I'm going to go with Henry Tilney's Book Club. Sorry, Henry Crawford.
Breckyn: No, it's a good choice. I mean, obviously, Henry Tilney is the better person. It's like, who would you rather hang out with? Henry Tilney is dreamy, and Henry Crawford is a jerk. But, still, I think being in the theatricals at Mansfield Park—drama! If you like drama, there's going to be a lot of drama in Henry Crawford's Improv Club.
Laura: Yes, there is. That is so true.
Breckyn: Okay, so let's start with The Jane Austen Playlist, which is this incredible labor of love and scholarship that you've done. Tell us all about it.
Laura: So The Jane Austen Playlist has been in the works, actually, before I even conceived it as a musical aspect. As a child, I read Jane Austen. I discovered her in the library when I was going to look for another Louisa May Alcott book. And you know Alcott and Austen are next to each other in the library. And so, I happened to see this book called Emma, and I was like, "Oh, what is this?" And in our library we had a classics section, and that's always where I was. I'm like this twelve-year-old middle schooler eating all these books up. And I found it and just fell in love. I remember just laughing hysterically as I was reading this book. And from there, it introduced me into the world of Jane Austen, but I did not find out that she was a musician for years, which—that's the common answer that I get a lot of times when I talk to people. They're like, "Oh, she was a pianist? What? We didn't know that." So fast forward years later, my husband and I take a trip to England, and, of course, Jane Austen's House is first on the list of places to visit.
Laura: And I even—the musician that I am, I emailed ahead and said, "I know that you guys have a pianoforte here. Is there any chance that I would be able to play it?" And so I show up, and they're like, "Here you go." And then the volunteer is like, "Did you know we have her manuscripts here?" And I'm like, "What?" And he's like, "Yes, we have her music manuscripts, and would you like to take a look?"
Breckyn: Absolutely.
Laura: It just blew my mind that I didn't know that this was a thing. I feel like I was late to the game because other people were already studying and working on these manuscripts. And so from there, after playing and after seeing the manuscripts and having that incredible experience, I started to just think, "This is the type of music I've always loved to play—is 18th century, early 19th century music. What is so special about the music in this collection? Why is this the music that she actually chose to copy?" Because there were many more pieces that she could have chosen, right? But these were specific pieces that she chose because she enjoyed playing them. And so from there, this whole project has just grown. The fun part about it is, as I was working through the manuscripts, which Jeanice Brooks has digitized and put online through the University of Southampton—which is amazing, by the way, because now we can access them all over the world—as I was researching and playing through them, I started to see parallels with the characters and the scenes in her books.
Breckyn: Oh, so fun.
Laura: And that was the part that then I started to think about how we have these amazing movies, and we have the beautiful music in the movies, right? But we don't know actually what the music was other than a few recordings here and there. And so that's when I started to think, "Well, what if I put together this dramatized performance that actually pairs readings from the novels that go with these pieces that very likely could have influenced the way she was writing at the time?" So, that's kind of the introduction to how this whole project started. And it's been a wonderful experience ever since.
Breckyn: And is it an ongoing project? Because you founded it in 2019, but then, amazingly, in July of 2023, this long-lost music book that belonged to Jane Austen and has her signature on it resurfaced after 40 years at Chawton House, and it's like buried treasure. So what did you think when that came out? Were you like, "I need to add that to the Playlist?"
Laura: Yes. What happened was I actually had a performance scheduled that same month. I was meeting up with Gillian Dooley. We had been in contact before then, but we had put together this performance; she was doing a presentation. She's like, "I'd love to have you come and collaborate." So I was already going to be there the week after this book was discovered. And so I jump on my email, and I email the curator at Chawton House, who at the time was Emma Yandle, and I said,—so I had met her back in January when I was there for a different time—and I said, "This book is here. Is there any way I can come see it?" And she's like, "Oh, please. We would love to have you come." So I flew over to England. I went and saw it, and she's like, "We need to actually have music in the house. Would you be interested in playing the music?" And I mean, of course, instant, "Yes, please. I would love, I would absolutely love to do that." So, since I was there for a few weeks, I was able to schedule a time to go back to the house, and I just spent the day playing on the pianoforte in the dining room at Chawton House. It was incredible.
Breckyn: Were there any fun surprises in that book? Or was it more of what you expected and just more that you could add to the Playlist, or was there anything new and exciting in that book, specifically?
Laura: Yes, actually, a lot of things. There were—well, just the book itself, the compilation of pieces in the book had different Scottish and Irish tunes that were worked into keyboard arrangements, which was a big thing at the time, in the 18th and early 19th century. That was how listeners and concertgoers could actually bring the music into their homes—through these keyboard arrangements. And so we're talking these themes of songs, or opera overtures, or pieces that they would see these famous singers perform, and then they were created into a keyboard arrangement, which is what this entire book is. It's just an arrangement, or a volume of all these different arrangements.
Breckyn: So when I bought my friend The Lord of the Rings soundtrack music for piano, it's the same thing. It's like what Jane Austen was doing, except for operas and stuff?
Laura: Yes.
Breckyn: I've never thought of it like that. That's really cool.
Laura: Yeah. Well you know, they also didn't have recordings at the time. So if you go to The Lord of the Rings, and watch The Lord of the Rings, and then listen to the soundtrack and get the piano book—which is amazing that we have that—they didn't have that back then. They couldn't just go and be like, "I want to purchase this CD, or I want to download the music on my phone and listen to it." So that's the only way they had to experience it was—if they weren't in the concert itself or it wasn't playing, then they were actually recreating it themselves as best they could. So it was fun to see a lot of the music in there that was music that you don't see anywhere else in any other collections, really. It was music that we know about and we can track for the most part. There are a couple of Easter eggs in there that I'm still trying to find. And that's the fun part of being a musicologist, is being able to dig in and find what some of these pieces are, because the way they're labeled is, "Oh, this is a miscellaneous lesson with this tune."
Laura: It's like, "Wait, where did this come from?" So that's the fun part of that. The actual book itself, though, is fascinating because in the index and then also in the scores themselves, there are crosses or X's next to certain pieces. It makes me wonder, "Is this how she indicated the pieces she was practicing or she was going to be working on?" Because she also happened to have this volume when she was taking lessons from the organist—at that point, he was the lay chorister at Winchester Cathedral, and he goes on to become the organist there. He would ride to Chawton, and he would give lessons there— sorry, not Chawton, Steventon—and give lessons in Steventon, and then it makes me wonder, "Were these the pieces that he assigned her to practice?"
Breckyn: In my old workbooks, I definitely have been, like, checking things off, and have notes in the margins from my teacher.
Laura: Right. It's way of tracking it because they didn't have Post-it notes at that point to mark it. The other really fascinating thing about this book is that there's one handwritten page. Out of all these printed pages, there's this one page that had to be hand copied down either because it was printed incorrectly or something was messed up with it. And so, when I compare it to Austen's other handwritten manuscripts, it looks like—I can't say for certain, there's no way to actually say for certain, and that's one of the things that we've been trying to dig up is, "Did she actually write this page? Did she copy it out or was it copied by somebody else?" But it's just this lone page of handwritten music that looks suspiciously like her handwriting.
Breckyn: Nice.
Laura: Yeah, it's just a fun book and just a surprising out-of-the-blue discovery that I happen to be a part of.
Breckyn: It's like kismet, like perfect timing. You're the perfect person. It's all coming together for you.
Laura: Right! Here we go.
Breckyn: So let's talk about the different genres of music that the Austen family would have enjoyed. Give us an overview of the music of the time period. And you also have some clips for us, so whenever you'd like to play those to give us an example of what a Scotch air is, or whatever, like that, we can listen to those, too.
Laura: Lovely. Yes. So, at the time, the songs that were really popular—we've already talked about a lot of the keyboard arrangements of opera overtures or arias or airs, that type of thing. Theater music was a big thing, too. But a lot of the music that they would be enjoying would be dances, of course, because assembly dances, going to a ball, that was a lot of the music that was being played while people were dancing. And we also know from her letters and accounts from that time period, as well as from the novels, some of the music that was used for these dances. In the manuscripts, you have quite a few actually that are in there. You have the—there's a strathspey, which is a Scottish dance. There are several waltzes. You have cotillions. You have all sorts of dances that are in the collection. So, those would have been pieces that they would have enjoyed. And then there are also, of course, the military-themed pieces, which—we know several of her brothers were in the military; they were in the Navy—and so there are several pieces in there, like one's called The Soldier's Adieu, which, actually, it's fun because she scratched out "soldier" and she changed it to "sailor" in her manuscript.
Breckyn: Aww... she loved her brothers. It's really sweet.
Laura: Yes, right? It's just a neat little memento to her remembering her brothers. There's one called The Soldier Laddie, and then there's also a couple of— several other tunes that are military-themed. There's one that's a lot of fun that I'm going to play for you because it's one that listeners will probably recognize. In the manuscript, it's called The Duke of York's New March. So, there's The Duke of York's March that's several pages before that she'd copied. But this is The Duke of York's New March. And I'm curious to see how many of our listeners are actually going to recognize this.
Breckyn: All right, let's do it.
Laura: [plays piano]
Breckyn: Lovely. Okay, but I don't know what that's from. But I am terrible at identifying music and sound, so you're just going to have to tell me.
Laura: Yeah, so, this is in her handwritten manuscript, and on the same page down on the bottom, it just has a pencil marking of "Figaro." We don't know if it was from her or if it was someone later identifying it, but it's an aria that's sung in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. And it's the only piece by Mozart that is in the manuscript that's really recognizable. There's one other trio from a German dance that he wrote that she just has the trio in there. So you have a minuet and trio; the trio is like the middle section. And so, she's labeled that as a German dance. But other than that, it's the only Mozart that shows up in this volume of handwritten manuscripts, and it's labeled as a military theme. So the history behind that is one that's really curious because it's pulling from a well-known piece but it was obviously used in a military setting for her to have called it that.
Breckyn: And it did sound a little bit like a march. I don't even have the words to describe it, but it sounded jaunty. It sounded like you could march to that tune.
Laura: It's funny because it's actually the piece that I used when I did a reimagined residency with Jane Austen's House a couple of years ago. And I did a playlist. I was there over Pride and Prejudice Day 2023, and I did a playlist of what the different characters' pieces would have been. And that was my piece for Lydia Bennet—that one.
Breckyn: "The officers!" That is so fun.
Laura: "Oh, the officers!"
Breckyn: I love how music can tell these different parts of the story, and that's why—it was really fun, we had Ruth Mudge on to talk about the music in the movies, and she just had all of these insights about like, "Oh, yeah, and that's a French horn coming in, and it's like a hunting call, and they're hunting for a husband." And I'm like, "Now I hear it. Now I hear it every time." And I think maybe subconsciously I recognized that, but her ability to bring that to the forefront was really great. So I love this; I love experts like you who dig in deep and then have all these really cool takeaways. Okay, that was fun. Do you have any other clips for us of different genres, like a Scotch air, maybe?
Laura: Yeah. So one of the fun things about the Scotch airs is we read about them in the novels, of course, after Mary's long concerto at Lucas Lodge, where she is pleased to earn the "praise and gratitude" of those around her by playing Scotch and Irish airs. There are actually Scotch and Irish airs all over the Austen collection, one of them being in the handwritten volume that Jane herself owned. So, this is a fun little air that is literally labeled Scotch Air in her handwriting, and then it's just this cute little song. So I'll go ahead and play that for us now.
Laura: [plays piano]
Breckyn: I don't know what it is—and again, maybe you can give me the words as a musicologist—but there is something in Scotch and Irish music that is like longing. Do you know what I mean? It's something that—I don't even know, but it's soulful and a little bit sad, but in a fun way. I don't know. I felt that.
Laura: You felt that in this one, right? It's just this really tender sweet song. I think a lot of it comes from the fact that there's a simplicity to it. It's not over embellished. It's not over-ornamented. It's the more simple folk style representing these places, and these feelings, and these emotions. You hear that a lot in the Irish songs, too, of course, but if you think about folk music and how we have this big differentiation now between folk and your "classical style," they didn't have that differentiation back then. The music was—you had your folk music and you had your music that you would go and experience at the opera, but they were so intertwined. Mozart used his set of theme and variations on a French folk theme, which is the Twinkle theme. And it's this piece that's performed, and everyone's like, "Oh, that's Twinkle..."
Breckyn: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
Laura: Right. And it's the set of 10 variations on that, which, of course, at that time, it wasn't Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star; it was a French folk tune. But again these folk tunes show up, and there's actually—in the new or the rediscovered volume that we were talking about earlier—there are several of these Scotch and Irish tunes that show up in more formal work. So, for instance, there are several sonatas, there's a rondo, and there are even lessons that incorporate that. Here's another one that just has a little bit of that theme, and it's another Scottish one. It's called Where ha' ye been—excuse my Scottish, lack of Scottish accent because I am not Scottish, but it's Where ha' ye been a' the day, bonnie laddie?, and it's labeled as a Domenico Corri sonata. And so I'll play a little bit of that one, too, because that one's a lot of fun.
Breckyn: Yeah. When I was listening to the last one, I feel like it's something you can imagine, like, Rabbie Burns whistling as he walks in the Scottish Highlands, or something like that.
Laura: Yes, with the bloomin' heather, and the blue skies, and around the lochs and all of that.
Breckyn: One of his many, many loves is asleep on a riverbank or something.
Laura: Right.
Laura: [plays piano]
Breckyn: Lovely.
Laura: So, yeah—it's just that he takes this tune and he just creates this whole—following the classical form of the sonata-allegro form—he creates this whole movement for a sonata out of this Scotch tune. They show up all over the place.
Breckyn: What is it like performing music that you know Jane Austen played? Has it given you special insight into her mind or her work?
Laura: That's a really special question because it's one of those things where, as I've spent time working with this music, and the more time that I've delved into this, and discovering not only the music that I knew, but a lot of it that I didn't know—but from an era that I really love—it's helped me to gain a new appreciation for music not just being something that was for display. We know that Jane Austen was a pianist who spent time practicing by herself or playing by herself. In her niece's memoir, My Aunt Jane: a Memoir [sic], Caroline talks about that, where she would get up before anybody else and she would practice. I think one of the things that that really brings out is that this love that each of us has for whatever music we enjoy or whatever music we connect to—it's not always something that we're sharing in performance. It's something that we're also experiencing for ourselves. And as a performer and as someone who has been a musician my whole life, that's something that I've really appreciated about this—that, while I love sharing the music, it's also something that I love, just knowing that I'm sitting down and playing through the music that she did for the sheer fact of loving it and the sheer fact of enjoying it.
Laura: And then also thinking about how she's crafting her characters and her scenes, and thinking about—as I read her novels now, these are the songs that start popping up in my head as Scotch and Irish airs or a concerto or a song. It's like, "I wonder which one she was thinking about when she wrote this."
Breckyn: There's times in the movies where the heroines or one of the characters is working through something emotionally while playing at the pianoforte. That's something that Ruth Mudge pointed out to me that I didn't really ever notice. I think it's something that Jane Fairfax is doing maybe in the newer 2020 Emma, but also Marianne—she's always playing these mournful dirges after her father has died, and stuff like that. So thinking about Jane Austen doing something similar, like maybe she gets writer's block and she's really frustrated, and where would she go? Maybe she goes outside for a walk. Maybe she goes to the piano and she just plays, so she doesn't have to think about it for a while. Or maybe she thinks through it at the keyboard, which is a fun thought.
Laura: Right, and you know, it's interesting because—if you've seen the movie Becoming Jane, which—
Breckyn: Yes, that's how I found out that she played the piano. When I saw Anne Hathaway, I was like, "I didn't know Jane Austen could play the piano!"
Laura: I love that. Yes. The thing that I love about that movie, and, of course, there's speculation as to how accurate it is and all of that, but I think that that's one of the glimpses that we get of her as a human, right? Because we love her so much as an author and these stories that she's crafted and all of that. But, when the movie opens, she's sitting there at the piano. It's the early morning. She's sitting there writing. She's at the piano. She's still not dressed for the day. Her hair is down. Her fingers are ink stained. And she's bringing together something—two things—that she loves and that she does a lot of. And I think it's such a beautiful and poignant example of how both of these activities of writing and music were such an important part of her life. Actually, I love, too, that the composer who put together the music for the soundtrack actually pulled music from the manuscript. So, when you open, there's a little bit of— you can start to hear a little bit of the theme when the movie opens, but then she goes into this explosion of sound after she finishes a sentence or she finishes an idea, and she plays it, and it wakes the house up, right?
Laura: And so that same theme—which we also see in the Emma 2020, by the way, when Miss Taylor is getting married and becomes Mrs. Weston ,the same song—I want to play a little bit of that.
Breckyn: Yes, please.
Laura: This is actually from the drawing room at Jane Austen's House on the pianoforte there. It's called The Wedding Day, and it's by James Hook. He's one of the composers that I mentioned earlier, who we don't really know who he is anymore. But it's a great song. So let me play a little bit of that.
Breckyn: I love these Easter eggs that are basically just for you and the other super music nerds that can pick up on it.
Laura: Right? Like, "Oh, it's there!" Yes. There's so many of them. It's just a lot of fun. All right. So here's The Wedding Day.
[Plays piano]
Soprano Megan Poff: [sings] "What virgin or shepherd in valley or grove will envy my innocent lays? The song of the heart and the offspring of love, when sung in my Corydon's praise."
Breckyn: It's so funny seeing you play on this old-timey piano in this old drawing room on an iPad. It's a great convergence of these two worlds of the old and the new.
Laura: Yes. I can only imagine what Jane would have thought. "I don't have to copy this down? I can just put it in a computer and play it on the screen!"
Breckyn: Let's end by talking about music in the novels because I always like to dive back into Jane's words whenever we can. I had Kim Wilson on recently to talk about gardens, and she mentioned how a love of nature is a kind of moral litmus test in Austen's novels. The good characters enjoy and appreciate it, like Elinor and Marianne, and the bad or the silly ones don't, like Fanny Dashwood. And I think Austen does a similar thing with music. When I was thinking about it, the example that came to my mind is the scene in Sense and Sensibility, where Marianne is playing at Barton Park, and no one is really paying attention except Colonel Brandon. Do you mind if I read that quote?
Laura: Oh, please do.
Breckyn: It's so funny. I love that scene. Okay. "Marianne's performance was highly applauded. Sir John was loud in his admiration at the end of every song, and as loud in his conversation with the others while every song lasted. Lady Middleton frequently called him to order, wondered how anyone's attention could be diverted from music for a moment, and asked Marianne to sing a particular song, which Marianne had just finished. Colonel Brandon alone, of all the party, heard her without being in raptures. He paid her only the compliment of attention, and she felt a respect for him on the occasion, which the others had reasonably forfeited by their shameful want of taste." I love that. The characterization—we get insight into Marianne, into Colonel Brandon, into Lady Middleton, into Sir John Middleton. In just one short paragraph, you know pretty much all you need to know about all of those people by using music. And it's really—so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Laura: Yeah, I think that Sense and Sensibility has so many of these moments that— I actually just recently submitted a paper for publication about this—Marianne and the music, and the instrument, and how the piano is in and of itself its own character in the novel, because it's where—as we talked about earlier— it's where she finds herself, at the piano. It's a voice of expression. It's a mode of expression for her. And when Willoughby leaves, she's alternating between weeping and playing at the piano, and it becomes this journal or diary of sorts for her, right? But I love how that is something that's incorporated into that novel, especially showing the shift that's happening in music at that time, because music is becoming a more personal thing. It's like the earliest glimpse that we get of Romanticism and what music is—how it's shifting from this mode of entertainment and display to something that's much more personal. And I think that that's a great example of that, and not one that we necessarily see through a lot of the rest of the novels, because, if you think about the rest of her heroines, none of them are overly musical. I mean, Fanny doesn't play at all. Fanny loves it, Fanny Price—
Breckyn: Elizabeth Bennet is not very good.
Laura: Right.
Breckyn: And that comes up a lot about how she's like, "I'm not that good. I haven't practiced that much."
Laura: And Catherine Morland starts piano lessons, decides, "I don't like to do this. Forget this," which a lot of my younger students can relate to from time to time. So, what I think is so interesting about that is, as much as we know that Jane Austen loved music, she doesn't use it as a form of showmanship in her novels. She uses it more as, "This is what I do only if I love it, or if I want to do it, or if I want to connect with it." And a lot of the focus of the time was the young ladies on display or demonstrating. And in a way—
Breckyn: Mrs. Elton.
Laura: Right. Exactly. Her musical club.
Breckyn: "We should start a musical club." Oh, man, she's ridiculous.
Laura: I know. It's so ridiculous. She cracks me up. I mean, her quote, "Without music, life would be a blank to me."—It's like, yes, it would be. But it was Mrs. Elton who said it? Really? Come on.
Breckyn: Well, it's like that quote about, "There is no enjoyment like reading," and everybody always uses that quote. And it's, like, Caroline Bingley said that quote. It's ironic. She didn't really mean it.
Laura: Right, exactly. Like these terrible characters who end up saying all these amazing things.
Breckyn: And they end up on a t-shirt or a mug, and you're like, I like the quote, but, actually, Jane Austen is laughing at me right now.
Laura: Right, all these years later. Yeah, I think the really poignant thing about it is the fact that music is—in her own ironic way—music is not something that Jane herself used for display, or to show off, or as a way of demonstration. And I think that's her, in a way, thumbing her nose up a little bit about that practice of, "Oh, all the young ladies need to exhibit," as Mr. Bennet says. It's a fascinating thing to think about—how music plays such an important role in her life and in her books. But yet, it's not the way that you always necessarily expect it to. And then you have this moment when Colonel Brandon is appreciating Marianne's music, and it's not for the virtuosity of it, and it's not for the display of it, but it's for the appreciation of it itself. So that, to me, just speaks so much.
Breckyn: That's a great insight. I don't know if we should start this topic because I feel like there's so much we could still talk about, but I do want to hear your thoughts, especially because you are a pianist and you talk about the pianoforte, specifically. But Mary Crawford and her sexy harp—what is that all about? And why are all the young ladies only playing the pianoforte? How come nobody plays the flute, or the fiddle? Maybe you have some insight into that? Because those are small and inexpensive. It seems like—pianos are heavy and expensive, and maybe that was the point, right? It's a display of someone's wealth. But why don't we see more women playing smaller, more "feminine" instruments?
Laura: Right. Well, it's interesting that you bring that up because we consider them feminine now, right? But at the time, they weren't considered feminine because of the way that they displayed the woman's figure. It's immodest or it's not showing the proper silhouette or the proper posture if you're holding a violin or if you're holding a flute, right? It's making you sit in an awkward position. There's a lot of research that's been done—and I can't think off the top of my head, several scholars who have talked about this—in musical instruments. The piano was one, and the harp, too, was one where you could be very sedately seated, and you weren't showing some grotesque figuration of your body, in a way, which is ridiculous to think about, right? But that was something they thought about. So you can sit very demurely at the piano or very demurely at the harp.
Breckyn: Or you can hide behind it, right? I think that's what Anne Elliot is always doing. For her, music—it's display in one way, in that she's playing for a crowd, but nobody's really paying attention to her. It's always this active service that she does, like "Here, I'll play so everyone can dance." It's definitely a place for her to disappear behind.
Laura: Right. Oh, totally. Yes, very much so. Well, and also, too, with the whole pianofortes and how they were developing from the 18th into the 19th century—because of the square piano, which—thank you, Johann Zumpe was the first guy who created—isn't that a mouthful?
Breckyn: That is a great name.
Laura: But it was in England, and he was the first one to develop the square piano, and by the time Jane Austen was born—and Jane Austen was playing a piano which most likely would have been a square piano, unless it was another like a pianoforte at Chawton House with her brother, Edward Knight. We know that he rented pianos, or he purchased pianos from Broadwood. Most of the pianos that Austen herself was playing were square pianos because they were smaller and they were more affordable. And that was the point—to get these musical instruments into the homes that were not necessarily just the gentry, but were the middle class. And that's where—then, as you go into the 19th century, piano music—and you see that happening in America, too, there's a parallel. It's really fascinating to see how music history converges and supports or illuminates a lot of the things that are happening into these little glimpses that we see in Austen's life.
Breckyn: That's fascinating. This has been such a great conversation, Laura. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can listeners go to learn more about your work? We're definitely going to include some of these videos in the show notes. People need to see you playing at Jane Austen's House because in some of them you're dressed up in Regency, which is delightful. But you have your own website as well.
Laura: I do, yes. So it's thejaneaustenplaylist.com. And then I'm also on social media, on Facebook and Instagram—the Jane Austen Playlist—as well. And then I have a YouTube channel where I post videos. I'm not as active on YouTube, but I've been posting a video a day. I just got done doing a whole bunch in honor of Pride and Prejudice Day that are different pieces that incorporate themes of Pride and Prejudice on Instagram. So people can find me there, too.
Breckyn: Yes, definitely. Everyone, check them out because seeing—I mean, Laura is a performer. She's a concert pianist. She's just got these lovely long arms and so graceful at the piano. It's just so fun to watch you. I'm really glad I got to see you in person in Cleveland. But everyone should check out the videos, for sure.
Laura: Thank you. Thank you for having me. This has been such a joy. I've loved talking about Austen and music.
Breckyn: OK, Listeners. JASNA’s 2025 Young Filmmakers Contest is under way, and we've invited Erika Kotite, the chair of the contest committee, to give us the details. Thanks for joining us today, Erika!
Erika Kotite: Thank you so much for inviting me. This is actually perfect timing to announce our upcoming Young Filmmakers Contest. We are in our ninth year for what we think is the world's only short film contest around Jane Austen. This contest started in one U.S. Region, and then it expanded to all of North America. Now we're open to under-30 filmmakers in all countries for the first time. Add to this the fact that Austen's 250th birthday is celebrated around the world this year, and young filmmakers have the perfect timing of screening their films when the whole world is watching.
To help stir the filmmaking fires, we're also encouraging entrants to follow the theme of the Annual General Meeting that takes place this year. For 2025, it's "Austen at 250: No check to my genius from beginning to end." This quote, from one of her letters to her sister, Cassandra, conveys what all of us already know about Austen: her characters, her plots, satire humor, language provide genius inspiration for cinema. We've seen it over and over in the many short films submitted to the contest over the years. We can't wait to see what comes next, and if you're a filmmaker under 30, don't wait. The deadline for 2025 submissions is June 20th.
The criteria are really simple. Think about an original idea for a film of five minutes or less that centers around Jane Austen. Film it on your iPhone, or on a DSLR, or a mirrorless, or any other video camera. Bonus points for good framing, title, music, locations, costume, and sound quality. Just submit your film and your entry form to our youngfilm@jasna.org email address. Our JASNA YFC team screens all the entries, and then they hand over the finalists, announced around late July, to a panel of judges. We've had some really great judges in the past, such as Amy Heckerling, Gurinder Chadha, and Adrian Lukis. Stay tuned for announcements of the judges of this year's contest are coming soon.
Winners are announced at the Annual General Meeting in Baltimore in October. The first-, second-, and third-place winners receive generous cash prizes and an annual JASNA membership. Another really valuable item they receive is detailed comments from all six judges based on the contest criteria, which is originality, creativity, artistic and technical skill, and relevance to theme. Many of the finalists have told us that this is the best part of the contest.
You know, being in JASNA is all about learning new things about our favorite author. With the Young Filmmakers Contest, entrants learn more about Austen, but they also hone their emerging filmmaking skills. All the contest details are on the JASNA website. You can also find the links in the show notes. If you're interested in submitting, please register online. You'll receive the contest entry form and guidelines, as well as periodic emails with contest news and lots of ideas and inspiration. There isn't any obligation to submit a film, and you can unsubscribe from the emails at any time. So thanks for listening, and we hope to see the movie magic you can make with this most interesting of all topics: Jane Austen.
Breckyn: Dear Listeners, I just wanted to end today’s episode by saying thank you. Austen Chat now has over 100 5-star reviews on Apple Podcasts! We are thrilled and so grateful for everyone who has left a review. Here is a 5-star review from artgirl01: "This is an informative and fun podcast about Jane Austen. I found myself enjoying all the perspectives I had never thought of around the novels and her life. Definitely would recommend this podcast." Thank you artgirl01! We’re so glad you’re enjoying the show.
If you haven’t left a review yet, please consider giving the show 5-stars on Apple Podcasts. The more reviews we get, the easier it is for new Janeites to find us. Join us again next month for another episode. In the meantime, I remain yours affectionately, Breckyn Wood.
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