Nature Studies was commissioned by the Opus 3 Trio. I have written the following about the music:

I love to take mental pictures of the natural scene around me when I'm walking the dog in our suburban neighborhood, or jogging on the banks of a local creek, or even day-dreaming at my desk, staring out the window and trying to think of things to write. The first movement, Will o' the Wisp, came to me as a depiction of the changeableness of the natural scene, the delightful unpredictability of birdsong, rustling tree leaves, gurgling water. In the music this is reflected by continuosly changing and contrasting types of sound from the instruments. The term, Will o' the Wisp conveyed to me this idea of elusive playfulness. However, after finishing the movement and looking up the term in the dictionary, I found that it reads: "anything that deludes or misleads by luring on." Let the listener beware!

The second movement, Water, pictures a watery (at least, to me) flowing sound in the violin and piano. These accompany a tune in the cello adapted from Charles Ives' Three Places in New England: (the noble tune that dominates the third movement, "from the Housatonic at Stockbridge".) It is my tribute to that greatest of American composers.

Bulgarian Bug Dance (III) began as a light-hearted scherzo inspired by the frantic maneuvers of insects in our hot, humid summers. The critters however insisted on dancing in 8/8 rhythm - hence Bug Dance became Bulgarian Bug Dance," as in Bartok's "Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm" from his Mikrokosmos. (I suspect bugs dance pretty much the same way all over the world.)

Sunrise (IV) and Sunset (V) have a more abstract program. My idea was for the strings at the beginning to give a kind of scintillating, rustling sound to accompany Dawn, rising from the piano's low register. As the movement proceeds it becomes more and more heated, ending with white-hot intensity (Noon). .This proceeds without pause to Sunset, where the process is reversed: Strings have the tune (in harmonics) while the piano is the quiet hush of Sunset. There is a brief quote from the second movement, and if you try, you may catch a shadow of Taps as the movement closes.

Please contact Lawrence Moss for further availability details.