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Chamber Music
 The
bulk of Moeran's chamber music dates from the earliest part
of his compositional output - whilst still at school he busied
himself with three string quartets and a sonata for cello
and piano which is said to have lasted nearly an hour! None
of this music survived its composer's desire to suppress his
juvenilia.
In the categorisation of his music, there is
an obvious overlap between chamber music and solo music in
the shape of the sonatas, and I have decided against reanalysing
work from different perspectives for the time being, so some
of what you read here you'll also find in the solo music section.
 Moeran
wrote two Trios just over a decade apart. The first, his Piano
Trio, dates from his student days in 1920, though he
carried on working at it for a further five years after the
premiere, during which time it was largely rewritten. Perhaps
a little rough around the edges, it remains one of my favourite
works. The String Trio of 1931
has been described as 'the first masterpiece of his mature
style' - a pivotal work which was to lead directly to the
resumption and eventual triumph of the Symphony in G minor.
 Moeran
wrote two String Quartets, the "first" in 1921,
No 1 in A minor is delightful
if perhaps reminiscent of Ravel's quartet. The 'second', No
2 in E flat, turned up in Moeran's papers following
his death and was published in 1956. A publisher's note on
the score suggested it was probably an early work, which has
perhaps been too readily accepted as the evidence for this
is at best slim. By contrast, a powerful argument can be made
for at least part of the work being quite late, even as late
as 1949. It was my first introduction to Moeran's music and
remains a work I like to come back to over and over again.
A definite late work is the Fantasy
Quartet for Oboe and Strings. This interesting combination
was suggested by the virtuoso oboist Leon Goossens in the
spring of 1946, which within a few months had become a fourteen
minute one movement success - a letter in August 1946 stated
with pride "Leon only wanted to alter one phrasing mark
in the whole quartet".
 Moeran's
three sonatas often seem to explore areas untouched by his
other works. The better known of the three, those for Violin
and Piano and for Cello and
Piano both offer a starkness of voice not often apparent
in Moeran's other work. Of great interest to historians and
true Moeran nuts is the Sonata for
Two Violins. Written largely from his hospital bed,
this work comes from a vital time as he attempted to turn
from the Delius-influenced harmonies of the 1920s and find
a new voice. Despite receiving good reviews on its debut,
the work has, more than any other, been the subject of neglect.
In an attempt to rectify this, I have been able to track down
an unreleased professional recording of this fifteen minute
piece and make it available for download.Listen
to the Sonata for Two Violins here
Finally we come to the Cello
Prelude - a short piece for Cello and Piano Moeran
wrote for Peers Coetmore in late 1943 as a first work specifically
for the instrument. To quote Geoffrey Self, "It is a
retrogressive piece, doomed to a humble place in grade examination
lists." Well it's not as bad as all that, really!
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