“To be quite honest, I do not think I can live without something of a musical society,” the newlywed Mrs. Elton reports telling her fiancé during discussions of life in his home village. “I condition for nothing else; but without music, life would be a blank to me.”
Emma’s Mrs. Elton is, of course, utterly insincere: After boasting of her artistic commitments, she makes clear that she expects to abandon them in short order, unless Emma agrees to her suggestion that they “establish a musical club, and have regular weekly meetings at your house, or ours.” (Of course, you wouldn’t know any of this from the frequent use of the life-would-be-a-blank passage as an Austen-certified declaration of music-love.)
Still, Austen herself certainly was a committed amateur musician, and so it’s fitting that Jane Austen & Co., which sponsors online scholarly lectures about Austen and her context, is launching a new four-part series called “Music & the Regency.”
The program kicks off tomorrow with “Georgian Fangirls: Women, Castrati, and Gender in Late 18th-Century London,” a talk by Jeffrey Nigro, an art historian affiliated with the Art Institute of Chicago. In March and April, other scholars will discuss the development of keyboard music and musical education in Austen’s time, as well as Austen’s own musical interests. The talks are pay-what-you-wish (including nothing), but signup is required.
Why, it’s almost like a musical club, with regular meetings! No doubt Mrs. Elton would have been happy to attend.
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