Ernest John Moeran is an English composer born in 1894. He was an avid collector and arranger of folk music. While Moeran was born in England, he was also from Irish descent and eventually moved to Ireland during the latter half of his life. Greatly inspired by the landscape in which he was surrounded, Moeran’s music captures the rolling hills and lush greenery of both Ireland and his homeland. As the First World War transpired, Moeran served in the British Army from 1914-1919. However, he received a head injury in 1917 due to shrapnel being lodged in his head, but too close to the brain to be removed. Due to the current medical technology and surgical knowledge, after rigorous and primitive surgery, he was still declared unfit to serve and was therefore discharged.

Moeran asserted himself as a master of lyricism through his use of diatonic scales and suspensions as early as the 1920’s. He married cellist Peers Coetmore in 1945, for whom he wrote his cello concerto. As a young man, Moeran would often heavily drink with his friends, which dampened his music output between the years 1925-1930. His struggle with alcoholism was eventually put to an end in 1930 when Peers insisted that they move to a villa in the countryside, where he wrote his String Trio the following year.

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Consisting of four movements, Moeran’s String Trio opens with an allegretto giovale in a ⅞ time signature, creating a unique and folky feel. The emotional second movement contains elements of both internal conflict and external outcry as the performers explore the emotional depth of their instruments. The movement ends with a sigh motif and continues into the blustery and conversational vivace as a series of vivacious notes are passed between the strings. The movement loses momentum as it leads into the andante grazioso of the fourth movement, which concludes with a firework of energy as the players dance to resolution of the piece.