Alexis Weissenberg achieved more fame as a pianist than a composer, perhaps partially because his compositions are not designed as vehicles for virtuosic display, but as investigations into darker places. Le regret, composed in 1962 for the producer Michael Glotz, was one of a projected cycle of seven etudes on emotions like obsession, deceit, and doubt, with only hope to balance the overwhelming gloom. Admittedly, this is not music that anyone less than a virtuoso could hope to play; it is not dense with ornaments or furious in tempo, but demands a shimmering tone and sure control of musical lines that sprawl over three or four staves. Still, this is music meant more for quiet introspection than for producing ovations. Le regret is built on rising and falling phrases, sustained precariously in a "liquide" tempo, which reverberate quietly as they overlap and separate. The shifting but essentially static texture creates an oppressive atmosphere, suggesting well the ruminations of one who has been consumed by mistakes past, while the work's ambiguous, shifting suggests there is nothing reliable to fall back upon. The music moves through uncertain cycles of fifths as the rising and falling phrases create harmonic tensions, but the tensions are mostly implicit, as the music avoids coming to impressive climaxes. At one point, a tonal resolution seems to have been achieved, but doubt creeps back in to usher the work to a delicate close.

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