This piece was composed for Kathy Holmes, from whom I took violin lessons in the mid-1990s, and with whom I had happy evenings playing chamber music before she moved in 1999. It was written in 1996, but has been revised recently. The title of movement 1,'Le Moulin', refers to a poem by Verhaeren (1855-1916). Some of the material is drawn from an uncompleted setting of this. The second movement is indeed a 'Song Without Words'. It relates to a well-known poem of which I was thinking when writing it. As for the final movement, it needed a French title too, and I feel that the one chosen fits the nature of its structure.