1808: Yes, we will have a pianoforte

1808, Hampshire. As Jane Austen prepares to move into her new home at Chawton, she makes plans for one important purchase: a pianoforte. Once a luxury reserved for courts and aristocratic households, the piano is becoming affordable to a growing middle class, transforming how people encounter and make music in their everyday lives.

In drawing rooms across Europe, families gather around the instrument to sing, dance, accompany one another and play arrangements of the latest operas and orchestral works. New piano manufacturers, publishers and performers help create a thriving musical economy, while composers such as John Field and Schubert write works intended for music-making in the home.

The piano also opens new opportunities for women musicians. From Jane Austen's daily practice at the keyboard to the musical salons of Fanny Mendelssohn and the concert career of Amy Beach, access to the instrument helps create new spaces for creativity, performance and composition.

Gillian Moore is joined by a roster of distinguished historians for this major new BBC Radio 3 series, charting a course through 1000 years of classical music history. For the next eight programmes, historian Simon Schama is in the chair, as together they explore the rich musical world of the Classical era.

Producer: Zerlina Vulliamy
Academic Consultant: Professor Laura Tunbridge, University of Oxford
Story Consultant: Kate Leys
Series Editor for BBC Audio: Emma Harding

Key Changes theme tune composed by Joseph Howard and performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Kerem Hasan.

MUSIC DETAILS

Joseph Haydn: Piano Sonata No. 48 in C major, Hob. XVI:35 – III. Finale
Joanna Leach (square piano)

Ludwig van Beethoven: Songs of Various Nationalities – No. 7, “Robin Adair”
Janice Watson (soprano)
Dame Felicity Lott (soprano)
Ann Murray (mezzo-soprano)
Ruby Philogene (mezzo-soprano)
John Mark Ainsley (tenor)
Timothy Robinson (tenor)
Thomas Allen (baritone)
Krysia Osostowicz (violin)
Elizabeth Layton (violin)
Marieke Blankestijn (violin)
Ursula Smith (cello)
Malcolm Martineau (piano)

Carl Maria von Weber: Der Freischütz – Overture (four-hand piano version)
Alexander Paley (piano)
Brian Zeger (piano)

Carl Maria von Weber: Der Freischütz – Overture
Hallé Orchestra
Stanisław Skrowaczewski (conductor)

John Field: Nocturne No. 13 in C major, “Rêverie-Nocturne”
Alice Sara Ott (piano)

Franz Schubert: Erlkönig, D328
Matthias Goerne (baritone)
Andreas Haefliger (piano)

Fanny Mendelssohn: Four Lieder for Piano, Op. 8 – No. 1 or No. 2
Giorgi Gigashvili (piano)

Amy Beach: Piano Concerto – II. Scherzo
Danny Driver (piano)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Rebecca Miller (conductor)

Nina Simone: Love Me or Leave Me
Nina Simone (voice and piano)

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