Composer’s Note:

In 2003, I wrote a quartet called “Far Psalteries of Summer” for the Ernest Bloch Music Festival Composers’ Symposium in Newport, Oregon. The ensemble consisted of violin, cello, piano, and marimba. This new version of the piece, simply called “Far Psalteries,” pares the group down to a piano trio, redistributing the marimba’s material to the other three instruments. The title is taken from an Emily Dickinson poem, whose first stanzas are these:

The Trees like Tassels — hit — and swung —

There seemed to rise a Tune

From Miniature Creatures

Accompanying the Sun —

Far Psalteries of Summer —

Enamoring the Ear

They never yet did satisfy —

Remotest — when most fair