
Jules Massenet composed his opera Thaïs, Comedie lyrique en trois actes in 1894, based on a libretto which follows the story from Thaïs by Anatole France. The opera is enacted in ancient Egypt.
One of the Entr’ Actes from this opera became one of the popular themes of these days, the Meditation. It is a bit of a challenge to approximate the massive orchestration of the original on the guitar, for instance a sustain of a melody note over multiple measures is quite possible with strings but almost impossible on guitar. The melody on the low strings requires some practice to lift it out of the chord accompaniment. The arrangement, however, has the quality to give a fair impression of the original work.