Songbook of delightful proportions

I am an avid user of the inter-library loan system my town library is part of. Last week while searching the databases I came across the CD pictured on the left. Oh my! "Jane Austen's favourite vocal music, collected and copied out in her own hand," the cover reads. Inside, the liner notes go on to say, "Music and the social status it expressed was an integral part of Jane Austen's life. Her novels are replete with details of domestic musical activities. Accounts of public concerts and private balls as well as music programs with hired musicians fill her letters. A dedicated amateur herself, Austen ordinarily played at the pianoforte at least an hour a day before breakfast from the 8-book music collection now preserved in her home at Chawton. For nieces and nephews she practiced 'country dances,' a number of which appear in her collections. Austen painstakingly copied and bound music that especially interested her."

I simply cannot stop listening to these arrangements or express how they make me feel. Perhaps it is because of the charm they possess being several hundred years old, or because Jane admired them so. I can sit around all day and read Jane's novels over and over, but listening to songs that she enjoyed throughout the duration of her life supplies a more personal connection than printed words on a page can. And I like that.

Photo: Amazon.com