Winter Balls

Available for 10 days

Donald Macleod visits the home of Jane Austen with historian Amanda Vickery, to discover some of the seasonal customs and Christmas music of late-Georgian Britain. Today they discuss a regular and popular feature of the social season in December: Christmas dances. We’ll hear how Jane Austen enjoyed dancing at grand stately homes and also within the more humble surroundings of the family drawing-room, with the furniture pushed back to make room. Balls were a perfect occasion to court the attentions of a future husband or wife, and we also hear about Jane Austen’s own Christmastide romance. Cimarosa: L'Olimpiade: Sinfonia Les Talens Lyriques, directed by Christophe Rousset Thomas Wilson: Wellington's Triumph The Fortuna Trio Thomas Straight: Trip to Vauxhall, Sailor Laddie The Birmingham Baroque Collective Weber (orch Berlioz): Aufforderung zum Tanz Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan Handel: Messiah (end of Part 1) Arleen Auger, soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano The English Concert Choir The English Concert, directed by Trevor Pinnock