Welcome to the first installment of the Zögernd Bookpile, where sounds are summoned from the silence of the printed page.

We begin with “Us Conductors,” a 2014 novel that imagines theremin inventor Lev Termen as a reluctant spy for the Soviet Union and practitioner of kung fu. Its subtitle: “In which I seek the heart of Clara Rockmore, my one true love, finest theremin player the world will ever know.”

Given the diagram on the cover, I take the title to be a reference to conductors of electricity — not only the components within the theremin but also the performer’s body, which interacts with the instrument’s electrical field. This performer gestures with both arms to create sounds, a bit like the conductor of an orchestra.

Author Sean Michaels has said the chapter titles in “Us Conductors” are the titles of new wave rock songs of the 1980s — “​​Music that’s really beautiful and noisy — that was the kind of feeling I was trying to carry through.” With minimal detective work I matched every title to an artist and assembled the following playlist. The only mystery is Part I, Chapter 6: “Closer.” That’s the title of a Joy Division album, but not a song from that band or era or genre, as far as I can tell.

These songs are anachronisms for a book set in the early 20th century. But throughout the narrative are references to several era-appropriate pieces of music — mostly short classical works, a lot of them performed on theremin by either Lev or Clara. Here’s another playlist.

The final composition mentioned in the book is “Bolero” (1928) by Maurice Ravel. My favorite version of this particular piece is done on the Moog synthesizer, a nephew of the theremin.