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The Music of Robert Louis Stevenson
Garb of Old Gaul
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:
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Call Number: Manuscript Collection MS-4035
Series Works
Identifier Box 1, Folder 3
Finding Aid http://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=01015
File Name index.cpd
Sources:
Graham, George Farquhar. The Songs of Scotland. Glasgow: Wood and Co., [19th cent.]
Johnson, James. Scots Musical Museum. Edinburgh: J. Johnson, [1790?]
Significant References in Works of R.L.S.:
Booth, Bradford A. and Ernest Mehew. Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995:
Comments:
This original trio by Stevenson uses the Scottish melody In the Garb of Old Gaul. The tune appears in the Scots Musical Museum as number 210 under the title The Highland Character. It is evident from the slurs in the first part that Stevenson has copied it from Graham’s Songs of Scotland. Measures 5-6 have a slightly altered version of the melody, and it may be that Stevenson found his version easier to play on the flageolet. The melody was transposed from G to C, and the tempo marking altered from maestoso to marcato. The third 8th note in measure 14 (not shown) was changed from C to D to match Graham's notation.
The first and second parts are scored for either transverse flute or flageolet. The third part is marked “shell” and must mean shell ocarina. RLS used this same designation for the third part in his trio on Carnival of Venice.
He most probably encountered this instrument for the first time in the South Pacific, and so this arrangement must have been written after 1888. It is likely that the first part was played by Joe Strong on transverse flute with RLS on flageolet and Lloyd on the ocarina.