Shetland-Music.com

In the introduction to The Shetland Violinist, a volume of Gideon Stove's compositions published in 1986 the following appeared, quoted from a national newspaper of January 1954. "Nimble fingers that set the Shetland Isles dancing have been stilled by the death of Mr. Gideon Stove, Shetland's oldest music master. He was 79.

Gideon Stove

A violinist, self-taught, and an expert in Shetland reels and folk tunes, he was equally accomplished in the classics. He had been playing his fiddle for more than sixty years at local musical events and was a member, and for a long time leader, of the first Lerwick orchestra. He played at successive Gilbert and Sullivan operas and was also fiddler to a squad of guizers at the Norse festival of Up-Helly-A'."

In addition, Gideon Stove was a prolific composer in similar mould to James Scott Skinner, of whom he was a contemporary; it's fair to say that in particular, Stove's strathspeys stand as equals to any of Skinner's. His best-known tunes are probably the reels Da Bonxie and Reestit Mutton, along with the marches Fort Charlotte and Guizers' March, while his hornpipes and slow airs are less well known thAN they deserve to be. His many pupils included Arthur Scott Robertson and Willie Hunter.