Unsung talents of storytelling great

Published on Thursday 10 November 2005 11:49

HE IS one of Scotland's most celebrated authors, but Robert Louis Stevenson apparently fancied himself as a bit of a composer too.

Experts today said they have been stunned to discover the existence of a rare piece of music written by a homesick Stevenson and inspired by a picturesque Lothian village.

Members of the Edinburgh-based Robert Louis Stevenson Club have been presented with the jaunty piece, titled Aberlady Links, and have now had it recorded for the first time.

The short composition, thought to be the only one Stevenson invented, was written in Samoa, where he died, for flageolet - a traditional recorder.

The original sheet music has been kept safe by a museum in Monterey, California, where his wife Fanny was from, and which now has a building full of Robert Louis Stevenson memorabilia given by members of his family.

Club member Bob Watt said: "Before this year, this music would not have been played for 100 years.

"But really it's just as well he wrote as well as trying to compose music because if he had tried to be a composer, he would have starved to death."

Linda Dryden, a reader in literature and culture at Napier University, said: "There are various people who moaned about his amateurish playing. His wife Fanny certainly complained because he wasn't very proficient, shall we say."

Dr Dryden said that before he died of a brain haemorrhage in Samoa at the age of 44, the flamboyant writer became nostalgic and penned several pieces about Edinburgh and the Lothians.

"My feeling is, in the latter part of his life, because he was so far away from Scotland and Edinburgh, he was writing a lot of stuff that was nostalgic.

"He didn't limit himself to fiction writing or poetry and this shows he had eclectic tastes and would experiment with other forms."

Mr Watt added: "We tend to think of him via the books and his illness but, considering his physical condition, he lived a pretty full life. This shows another dimension to the man.

"With his background, he could have been in Edinburgh and lived a comfortable spoiled life, but instead of that he wanted to live life and, as he said, feel the granite beneath his feet."

The CD will be officially unveiled at the RLS club's annual lunch on Saturday and copies will also be presented to the National Library of Scotland and The Writers Museum in Edinburgh next week.