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The Music of Robert Louis Stevenson

Piano Piece in E

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:

Yale University Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Stevenson Library of E.L. Beinecke 6599

Source:

None.

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

None.

Comments:

This lovely, mysterious and untitled piano piece has a key signature of A major (three sharps) but in fact is in E major (four sharps). Stevenson has consistently added the missing sharp as an accidental and so should have used the correct key signature. That he didn't indicates, besides his inexperience, that throughout the work he continued to think in the key of A major rather than E, with the result that the manuscript ends in A rather than E. This has been changed by lowering the final notes in the right hand one step and changing the left hand note to E. In addition, he has inadvertently left out the lower staff in measure 10 and this has been supplied from an inversion of measure 2.

The piece consists of a six measure theme followed by a one measure transition and a repeat of the first section. In the repeat the left hand notes have generally been inverted from the previous statement. A two bar conclusion follows.