The ondes Martenot ( OHND mar-t?-NOH; French: [??d ma?t?no], "Martenot waves"), also known as the ondium Martenot, Martenot and ondes musicales, is an early electronic musical instrument invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. The original design was similar in sound to the theremin. The sonic capabilities of the instrument were later expanded by the addition of timbral controls and switchable loudspeakers.
The instrument's eerie wavering notes are produced by varying the frequency of oscillation in vacuum tubes. The production of the instrument stopped in 1988, but several conservatories in France still offer instruction to students of the instrument.
In 1997 the Ondéa project began designing an instrument based on the ondes Martenot. Since the Martenot name is still protected, the new instrument is called Ondéa, but has the playing and operational characteristics of the original ondes Martenot. In 2001 a completed prototype was first used in concerts. These instruments have been in regular use since 2005. In 2017, a new version of the Ondéa, built by Audities Studio of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, became available.
Since 2008 Jean-Loup Dierstein, with the support of Maurice Martenot's son, has been developing a new, officially named ondes Musicales instrument based on the model used when production stopped in 1988.
In 2016, ASADEN, a small company based in Asakusa, Japan, started distributing the first 'Ondomo' instruments. The Ondomo is a smaller, analog ondes Martenot instrument that has been in prototyping stages for several years.
Video Ondes Martenot
In classical music
The ondes Martenot has been used by many composers, most notably Olivier Messiaen. He first used it in the Fête des Belles Eaux for six ondes, written for the 1937 International World's Fair in Paris and then used it in several of his works, including the Turangalîla-Symphonie and Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine. His opera Saint-François d'Assise requires three of the instruments. The composer's widow, Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen arranged and edited four unpublished Feuillets inedits for ondes Martenot and piano which were published in 2001. The ondes Martenot has also been used occasionally in transcriptions: Leopold Stokowski used the instrument in his ethereal orchestration of Buxtehude's Sarabande and Courante ("Auf meinen lieben Gott").
Other notable composers who have employed the ondes Martenot in their works include Charles Koechlin, Edgard Varèse (as a replacement for two theremin instruments in his work Ecuatorial), Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Henri Tomasi, Cemal Re?it Rey, Giacinto Scelsi, Miklós Rózsa, Marcel Landowski, Karel Goeyvaerts, Maurice Jarre, Pierre Boulez, Sylvano Bussotti, Frank Zappa, Tristan Murail, Claude Vivier, and Thomas Adès in his opera The Exterminating Angel. André Jolivet wrote a prominent concerto for it in 1947. Bohuslav Martin? authorized the adaptation of his Fantasie to the use of the ondes Martenot when it proved difficult to perform on the Theremin, for which it was originally written.
Estimates of the number of works written for ondes Martenot vary. Hugh Davies reckoned there to be around a thousand works composed for the instrument, although Jeanne Loriod's figures are the more widely quoted: she estimated that there were 15 concertos and 300 pieces of chamber music. Jacques Tchamkerten's provisional catalogue of works for ondes, included in the current reprinting of Loriod's Technique, lists far fewer works than either of these figures.
Maps Ondes Martenot
In cinema and television
In 1936 Adolphe Borchard used it in Sacha Guitry's Le roman d'un tricheur, played by Martenot's sister, Ginette. It was used by composer Brian Easdale in the ballet music for The Red Shoes. It was frequently used in horror and science fiction movies and television, notably in the 1950s.
In 1962 French composer Maurice Jarre introduced the ondes Martenot to American cinema in his score for Lawrence of Arabia. Later, the English composer Richard Rodney Bennett used it for such diverse scores as Billion Dollar Brain (1967) and Secret Ceremony (1968). For the 1992 film Enchanted April, Bennett used the ondes. It was through Bennett that Elmer Bernstein first learned about the instrument, and later used it in several films, among them Heavy Metal, Ghostbusters, The Black Cauldron, and My Left Foot. Other film scores using the ondes Martenot include There Will Be Blood (2007) by Jonny Greenwood and Hugo (2011) by Howard Shore.
Barry Gray used the ondes Martenot for his film and television soundtracks of the 1950s and 1960s. David Fanshawe incorporated the ondes into his main theme and score for the Yorkshire Television series Flambards (1979).
The musical instrument is the subject of the 2013 Quebec documentary Wavemakers. It is also featured in a performance of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time in an episode from the third season of the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle, where a musician is shown playing the ondes Martenot to inmates on Rikers Island.
The instrument is also used in Lucille Had?ihalilovi?'s Evolution (2015). Initially, Had?ihalilovi? did not intend to have any music in her film. She changed her mind after hearing the Ondes Martenot: "I heard pieces by Messiaen that used the Ondes Martenot and I thought that was exactly what was needed. I couldn't get the Messiaen piece unfortunately but we were able to do something with the Ondes Martenot on some of the recurring tracks. They bring a certain melancholy, almost a human voice, and it instantly creates a particular atmosphere."
In popular music
One of the first integrations of the ondes Martenot into popular music was done in French chanson during the fifties and sixties. For example in some of Baudelaire's poems set to music by French singer Léo Ferré in his albums Les Fleurs du mal (1957) and Léo Ferré chante Baudelaire (1967), or in popular dramatic lovesong Jacques Brel's "Ne me quitte pas" (1959). During the seventies Beau Dommage and Harmonium, the two most popular musical groups of the Quebec musical scene, made extensive use of this instrument (introduced there by Marie Bernard) in each of their 1975 albums, respectively Où est passée la noce? and Si on avait besoin d'une cinquième saison. Harmonium later toured with Supertramp
Jonny Greenwood is often credited with bringing the ondes to a larger audience through Radiohead's Kid A (2000), Amnesiac (2001), Hail to the Thief (2003), In Rainbows (2007), The King of Limbs (2011) and A Moon Shaped Pool (2016) albums. Greenwood uses the ondes Martenot often in his compositions, and has written a piece for the instrument, entitled Smear. In live concerts, Radiohead have used six ondes for "How to Disappear Completely" and for "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi".
The ondes Martenot was also utilized by Bryan Ferry, in 1999, on the album As Time Goes By, and by Joe Jackson on his 1988 soundtrack album for Tucker: The Man and His Dream and his 1994 album Night Music. Recently, ondist Thomas Bloch has toured in Tom Waits and Robert Wilson's show "The Black Rider" with Marianne Faithfull (2004-06) and in Gorillaz leader Damon Albarn's show "Monkey: Journey to the West" (2007 onward).
Also Yann Tiersen, well known for writing the music to the film Amélie, often features the use of the ondes Martenot in his music, with Christine Ott. His DVD La Traversee, documenting the recording of Les Retrouvailles, shows his use of the instrument.
In 2009, bruit direct disques released a 12" 45rpm vinyl record of original ondes martenot compositions by Accident du travail.
In their 2013 album Random Access Memories, Daft Punk used the ondes Martenot on Track #7 - "Touch" featuring Paul Williams. It was played by Thomas Bloch.
In 2009 & 2016, Christine Ott released three solo albums in which there's modern-classical compositions with Ondes Martenot. Solitude Nomade, Only Silence Remains and TABU soundtrack on Gizeh records.
Playing technique
The ondes Martenot is unique among electronic musical instruments in its methods of control. Maurice Martenot was a cellist, and it was his vision to bring the degree of musical expressivity associated with the cello to his new instrument. The ondes, in its later forms, can be controlled either by depressing keys on the six-octave keyboard (au clavier), or by sliding a metal ring worn on the right-hand index finger in front of the keyboard (au ruban). The position of the ring corresponds in pitch to the horizontal location along the keyboard. The latter playing method allows for unbroken, sweeping glissandi to be produced in much the same manner as a Theremin. The keyboard itself has a lateral range of movement of several millimeters, permitting vibrato of nearly a semitone below or above the pitch of the depressed key to be produced.
By depressing keys or moving the ring, no sound is initially produced. A control operated by the left hand and situated in a small drawer of controls (tiroir) on the left side of the instrument controls the musical dynamics, from silence to fortissimo. This control (touche d'intensité) is glass and lozenge-shaped, and can be depressed several centimetres. The depth to which this key is depressed determines the dynamic level: the deeper, the louder. The manner in which it is pressed determines the attack of the note: quick taps produce staccato articulations, whilst more controlled and deliberate depressions are used to play legato.
To give expanded control of pitch, the drawer contains a set of six transposing buttons, which make possible trills and keyboard playing that is microtonal.
The small drawer of controls also contains flip-switches to control the instrument's timbre. These function in much the same way as a pipe organ's stops can be added or removed. Like organ stops, each switch has its own sound color, which can be added to the chorus of other timbres. The 1975-model instrument features the following timbres:
The timbre can be further adjusted by a dial, which controls a brightness filter (Feutre).
In addition to the timbral controls, the control drawer also contains flip switches that determine to which loudspeakers (diffuseurs) the instrument's output are routed. These are labeled D1 to D4.
See also
- The Electro-Theremin similarly uses a slider to control an oscillator's pitch, and is famous for being used in the song "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys. The Electro-Theremin differs from the standard Theremin. In regards to the Theremin, the performer varies the pitch of its oscillator by moving one of his hands in a manner similar to that of an orchestra conductor. Thus, unlike the Electro-Theremin and the Ondes Martenot, the performer's hands are not in contact with the Theremin. Instead the movement of each hand is tracked by one of the Theremin's two antennas. One antenna governs the pitch of the Theremin and one controls its volume.
- The Ondioline, a French electronic musical instrument invented and manufactured by Georges Jenny in the 1940s, lacked the ruban and touche d'intensité of the Ondes Martenot, but used a similar suspended keyboard, and its 15-slider filter bank made it capable of a wider variety of timbres. It was marketed as a less expensive alternative to the Ondes Martenot.
- The Therevox uses the au ruban and touche d'intensité of the Ondes Martenot as part of a dual oscillator analog synthesizer.
- Jeanne Loriod's three-volume Technique de l'onde electronique, type Martenot (Leduc, 1987) is considered to be the standard reference work on the ondes Martenot. It has a preface written by Olivier Messiaen.
Players
- Thomas Bloch
- Valérie Hartmann-Claverie studied under Jeanne Loriod at the Paris Conservatoire, where she now teaches herself. Performed as part of the Loriod sextet for twenty years, then formed the quartet Ondes de Choc. Collaborated more recently with Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead and on his piece smear, part of which appeared on the There Will Be Blood soundtrack.
- Christine Ott
- Cynthia Millar has performed works by Messiaen and Varèse internationally, played in over one hundred film and television scores, performed the important solo Ondes Martenot part written especially for her by Thomas Adès in his latest opera The Exterminating Angel.
- Nadia Ratsimandresy posseses advanced Training Diplomas in ondes Martenot and Musical Acoustics, both obtained in 2002 at the Paris Conservatoire. As a member of Ensemble Volta, she has recorded all of composer Tristan Murail's works for ondes Martenot.
- Augustin Viard studied under Valérie Hartmann-Claverie at Paris Conservatoire. As a member of Ensemble Volta, he has recorded all of composer Tristan Murail's works for ondes Martenot.
- Genevieve Grenier studied the ondes Martenot at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, where she obtained a First Prize in performance in 1990. She has been a member of l'Ensemble d'ondes de Montréal since 1988.
- Suzanne Binet-Audet studied at Conservatoire under Maurice Martenot, eventually earning a Première Médaille. She also received instruction from Jeanne Loriod at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris. She is a member of both the Parisian Sextuor Loriod ondes Martenot and l'Ensemble d'ondes de Montréal. She features in and performed the soundtrack for Wavemakers.
- Jonny Greenwood
- Jeanne Loriod
- Tristan Murail
References
Further reading
- Orton, Richard, and Hugh Davies. "Ondes martenot". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
External links
- About Ondes Martenot (in English)
- Sculpting music with the ondes martenot - Radio France Internationale (in English)
- Ondes Martenot : facts, videos, pictures, discography, works... (in English)
- Présentation détaillée des Ondes Martenot (in French)
- Christine Ott ; movie soundtracks, "ciné concerts", discography, videos, works...
- The presentation of Ondes Martenot C° Federation des Enseignements Martenot (in English)
- Audities Foundation Model 6 Ondes Martenot
- BBC Radio 6 Music - The Great Bleep Forward
- A virtual Ondes Martenot produced by software company Soniccouture
- Selected repertoire, photography, sound installations and extracts with ondes, Nathalie Forget
- Technical overview of the Ondes Martenot, by Ondes performer Estelle Lemire
- The Ondes Martenot on '120 years Of Electronic Music'
- Palme et onde martenot DIY
- François Evans demonstrating sections of a model 6 Ondes Martenot at Synthtopia website
Source of article : Wikipedia
0 Comments