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The Music of Robert Louis Stevenson

Bride Song

By J.F.M. Russell ©2019

Robert Louis Stevenson began studying the piano and composition at age 36 and learned the penny whistle two years later. He played the flageolet, a version of the whistle equipped with keys, almost until the end of his life. His arrangements and compositions include more than 120 pieces. This site describes his complete works through facsimiles, transcriptions, recordings, quotations and commentary.

"An interesting chapter in his life will be written when all his scattered pieces are brought together, and the musical side of his character unexpectedly revealed to the vast public that knows him now only as the winsome versifier and the accomplished romancer."

Robert Murrell Stevenson in Robert Louis Stevenson's Musical Interests, 1957.

Facsimile:

Transcription:

Recording:

Manuscript Location:

Huntington Library

HM 2397

Source:

Grieg, Edvard. Symphonic Dance no. 4.

Significant References in Works of R.L.S.:

None.

Comments:

This is a hybrid work which takes Grieg's piece as an inspiration and results in virtually a new composition.

Stevenson copies the first four full measures of this piano duet version exactly. He shortens the tied quarter notes to a single eighth note and repeats the section. This results in two phrases of three bars, which is an interesting effect. He again shortens the tied notes in the next section to single quarter notes, copying four bars, then writing five original bars to end the piece. The two accompanying parts are original.

This short, but charming and imaginative piece seems complete except for the last measure, which Stevenson mysteriously did not supply. The second ending has been used, changing only one note in the melody part.

No instrumentation is indicated, but the third part transposes down a step, so probably Stevenson's stepson Lloyd Osbourne played this on his Bb clarinet.