September and October saw Tyran Parke direct a staging of Carl Davis’ Pride and Prejudice in Words and Music for narrator, violin, and piano, starring renowned Australian actor Nadine Garner at Arts Centre Melbourne. She was joined by violinist Madeleine Easton and pianist Dan Le for the run of nine performances.
The work is based on Davis’ iconic score for the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen, joined by Gill Hornby’s reworking of key passages from the novel, which follows the pattern of the plot. Davis’ music for the celebrated TV serial took the form of quasi-concerto for fortepiano, played by Melvyn Tan, grounded in the chamber and orchestral textures of the early nineteenth-century world of the novel.
The violin and piano version with narrator follows the pattern of the plot , with the opening overture reprising the famous theme for the TV show. The many balls of the story are evoked with a mix of gallant dances, with Davis elsewhere offering a varied musical commentary on the action, both dramatic and witty by turns. Dinner at the grand Rosings Park is evoked in a flamboyant, curlicued Baroque sonata; Mr. Collins’ hopelessly bold proposal to Elizabeth is set out in a series of dramatic violin advances met by horrified silence – with a furious succeeding interlude representing Mrs. Bennett’s outrage at the girl’s rejection of his offer. The stiff formality of lady Catherine de Bourg is suggested by a stilted, secco march, imbued with funereal seriousness.
Pride and Prejudice in Words and Music premiered and toured in 2017 by Matthew Trusler and Ashley Wass, with actor Hayley Mills narrating. It will be performed at Jane Austen’s House in Hampshire in January 2025 by Leora Cohen and Paul Wingfield, narrated by Susan Rutherford, as part of a tribute to the late composer featured at the Pride and Prejudice Festival.