Élégie (à une âme exilée) pour Ondes Martenot et Piano - Edward Michaël

Corona Session #8: This Elegy is subtitled "for an exiled soul". Lately, we've all been in exile, haven't we?

Edward Michaël was born in 1921 in England, but grew up in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Palestine before returning to England just before World War II. While in the Royal Air Force, a chaplain taught him to read and write, and the chaplain's wife, impressed with his ability to memorize music, started to teach him music which he learned quickly. His first composition was performed just 2 years later. After the war, he continued formal study of composition and violin. In 1949, he saw a statue of Buddha which led to his study of meditation and Buddhism as well as other spiritual studies. For more information,


This performance is done using a modern analog synthesizer, the Behringer Pro 1. To emulate the sound of the "Metallique" speaker, a convolution reverb is used with the sound of a ride cymbal used as the impulse. This is used in the middle section of the Elegy. The Pro 1 has 2 oscillators with switchable wave forms which makes playing it more like the Ondes Martenot oscillator controls than some of the other synthesizers I own.