Chapman Issue 89-90

Issue: 89-90 - Meeting Ronald Stevenson

Celebrating his 70th birthday – studies of Stevenson. Malcolm MacDonald overviews the composer’s life and music, Eddie McGuire looks at his socialism and Jamie Reid Baxter discusses his choral music, Ruzena Wood explores the man under the famous Fedora and Judy Steel appreciates his role in the early Borders Festivals. RS himself writes about composing a song-cycle, and his settings of poems of Soutar and Whitman are examined in detail, and several song settings appear, including one of MacDiarmid’s ‘A’e Gowden Lyric’. Personal reminiscences and illustrations by John Purser, Alexander Moffat, John Bellany and Kenneth White, his daughter Gerda and others give insight into Stevenson’s extraordinary life. Much else, even a catalogue of Ronald Stevenson’s piano works and other compositions. Also a debate on the ‘packaging’ of Gaelic poetry from Wilson McLeod, rebutted by Scottish Writer of the Year Aonghas MacNeacail; Peter France on bilingual poetry and Robert Dawson Scott, paying tribute to the late Allen Wright, comes clean about life as Arts Editor of The Scotsman. The winners of RLS Award Angus Dunn and Dilys Rose discuss their time in France and present new work. Poetry and fiction by Canada’s Ven Begamudré, Ian McDonough, Alan Riach, Tom Bryan &c. Translations of Arseny Tarkovsky (Russia), Louis Aragon, (France), George Vafopoulos (Greece) and much else. 208 pp, 1998, ISBN-10: 0-906772-85-0 / ISBN-13: 978-0-906772-85-0 £8.00