Serenade Electronique

Contrary to what the title might suggest, Serenade Electronique is an inventive acoustic piece that magically merges the sounds of the flute and marimba into a quite nontraditional serenade.

Genre: Duet for Flute and Marimba | # of Players: 2
Level: Medium Difficult | Duration: 7:50

Instrumentation
Flute
5-octave Marimba

Program Notes

Serenade Electronique was written for Emily Wespiser and received its premiere in Ithaca, NY in 2011.

I intended to use the word “Serenade” ironically. When I think of a serenade, I think of beautiful flowing melodies and very strong, simple tonality. This piece contains some of the implied lyricism, but one of the goals was for the main theme to use all twelve chromatic pitches. There is no prominent tonality for an extended period of time, as the music rapidly switches between different pitch collections.

With this in mind, the word “Electronique,” which is supposed to be a pretentious French-sounding version of “electronic,” describes the constant changes in harmony, meter, and tempo. There are many awkward silences in the piece, as well as some measures that repeat a few too many times or just don’t seem quite right, like a malfunctioning electronic device.