Élégie / Massenet

This composition recorded March 21, 2024.

Élégie in E minor - Jules Massenet

Moog Etherwave; Keeley Parallax

Piano accompaniment by Héctor Valls via Petrucci Music Library / Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0

Albert Glinsky tells us in his wonderful book Theremin: Ether Music & Espionage, that Massenet’s Élégie was one of the very first melodies Leon Theremin experimented with when the circuit he built to measure “the density and dialectric constant of gases under varying conditions of pressure and temperature,” began to show promise as a musical instrument. This bite-sized composition felt like a must-learn for me on my theremin journey. I’ll admit, even with a couple years’ practice on this one, the huge jumps between some notes at its insistent tempo still consistently throw me, but it’s a sound I love and a challenge I welcome in my practice.