Programmes
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Sense & Musicality
Never having been able to resist singing with a period instrument, Penny began researching all things Jane Austen and square piano swiftly following her first meeting with Jonathan in early 2024. This resulted in ‘Sense & Musicality’, happily coinciding with Austen’s 250th anniversary year.
‘Sense and Musicality’ explores the importance of music in Jane’s life, and her relationship with it. It includes music Jane played and sang herself (some being scores found in the Austen family music albums, often in her own hand) as well as music and composers mentioned or alluded to in her novels. Also included are pieces from the soundtracks of much loved screen adaptations, quotes from her writing, as well as extracts from letters between Jane and family members, most often her beloved sister Cassandra.
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The programme features 'Ode to Pity’, a brand new composition by Donna McKevitt, commissioned especially. It is a musical setting of Austen’s teenage poem (1793) which appears to intelligently mock the earnest grandeur of 18th century literary conventions, using highly descriptive, often antiquated language that in fact says nothing of any real depth. Donna has been inspired by this and the folk music Jane would have heard at the time, to create a song the young author might have enjoyed singing herself. Musical settings of Austen’s poetry are extremely rare and there appear to be none currently performed or recorded in the English Song repertoire. This commission aims to change this in celebration of her anniversary, and may also be the first contemporary music written especially for square piano.