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The Music of Robert Louis Stevenson |
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"If I begin about music (which is my leading ignorance and curiosity), I have always to babble questions: all my friends know me now, and take no notice whatever. The whole piece is marked allegro; but surely could be easily played too fast? The dignity must not be lost; the periwig feeling" Letter from RLS to Mrs Fleeming Jenkin, March 1886, The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, Biographical edn, ed. by Sidney Colvin, vol ii [New York: Charles Scribner's and Sons, 1911], p. 331)
A little known fact about Stevenson is that he was a composer. He , a kind of keyed soprano recorder. He also wrote poems with an indication of the tune they could be sung by or wrote his own music for them; one of these is 'Ditty'.
, is an index of Stevenson’s more than 75 compositions or arrangements with links to sound files. Eventually it will describe them all through facsimiles, transcriptions, recordings, quotations and commentary.
Detailed list of RLS Music and Musical Settings
Image courtesy of Capital Collections
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