Adapting Robert Louis Stevenson's 'curious' poetry: approaches to musical narrativization in my recent composition 'The Land of Nod'.

This article critically examines the compositional process behind "The Land of Nod," a clarinet quintet movement adapting Robert Louis Stevenson's poem of the same name, through the interdisciplinary lenses of transmedia narratology and musical narrative theory. Drawing on Marie-Laure Ryan's framework of storyworlds and Byron Almén's theory of musical narrative, the composer expands Stevenson's implicit poetic narrative into a detailed musical plot that reflects both the poem's themes and personal experiences of parenting. The work employs established musical topics and tropes—such as bebop-inspired clarinet lines, Westminster clock chimes, lullabies, and dreamlike motifs—to evoke distinct narrative phases and characters within multiple storyworlds, highlighting the adaptive potential of instrumental music beyond text-based forms. The article also addresses the relative scarcity of composer-led practice research on adaptation, advocating for greater interdisciplinary dialogue and self-reflective methodologies to enrich understanding of storytelling through music.