The Jane Austen Companion (1996)

performed by Alexander Michejew (cello), Hanover Road Band, John Anderson (oboe d'amore), John Wallace (trumpet), Peter Thomas (violin), Rainer Kuchl (violin)
composed by Etienne-Nicolas Méhul, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert, Johann Christian Bach, Johann Friedrich Fasch, Michael Haydn, William Boyce

The Jane Austen Companion, a compilation from Nimbus, consists of music from the era of Jane Austen, composed between roughly 1760 and 1820. Some of it may have been what Austen heard at concerts attended during visits to her brothers in London or when her family lived in Bath. The mixture of composers on the album is made up of those who lived or occasionally worked in London, such as Mendelssohn, Haydn, and J.C. Bach, plus English composer Boyce and a few other contemporary, continental composers. Most of the music is ... Read More

The Jane Austen Companion, a compilation from Nimbus, consists of music from the era of Jane Austen, composed between roughly 1760 and 1820. Some of it may have been what Austen heard at concerts attended during visits to her brothers in London or when her family lived in Bath. The mixture of composers on the album is made up of those who lived or occasionally worked in London, such as Mendelssohn, Haydn, and J.C. Bach, plus English composer Boyce and a few other contemporary, continental composers. Most of the music is single movements from symphonies or concertos and it's almost all slow or moderately paced, pleasant-sounding music without much emotional tension. Without a greater variety of music, the album as a whole brings to mind garden strolls and walks around assembly halls, which are certainly appropriate to Austen's work, but not really what it is known for. The only selections that are lively enough to hint at the wittiness of Austen's writing are an Allegro from Boyce's Symphony No. 1 and a... Read Less