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by Thomas Bloch
copyright Thomas Bloch / Naxos, 2004
from the Thomas Bloch's CD "Music for ondes Martenot" - (ref.: Naxos 8.555779)
English translation: Susannah Howe
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Maurice Martenot
plays the first model
of ondes Martenot
with his sister Ginette (keyboard)
in Paris opera
(1928)
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The french Maurice
Martenot (Paris, 1898 - Clichy, 1980) began his musical education
early, giving his first cello concerts at the age of nine, accompanied
by his sister Ginette who was to become the first ondes Martenot
soloist. He was equally passionate about science (an area in which he
was self-taught) and teaching; he wrote books on relaxation and
breathing techniques, as well as, with his older sister Madeleine,
developing the Martenot teaching method, widely used in France.
In
1917 Martenot was working as an army radio operator when he came across
the principle behind the instrument he went on to invent. While using
valve radios tuned to similar (but not identical) frequencies, he
noticed the “purity of the vibrations produced by triode valves
when the intensity of the electrical charge is varied by means of a
condenser [or capacitor]”. He began his musical experiments in
1919.
At
around the same time the Russian physicist Lev Theremin was perfecting
his own electronic instrument. The theremin has two aerials and the
performer moves his or her hands towards and away from them, without
ever touching them, to change the pitch and volume of the sound
produced. Greatly piqued by the appearance of the theremin in Paris in
1927, Martenot presented the second version of his instrument, which he
was then calling the “ondes musicales” (musical waves) at
the Opéra on 3rd May 1928. The international tour that followed
was met with great critical acclaim: the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
said, “Theremin is a physician-musician while Martenot is a
musician-physician”; “It is ethereal, supernatural,
inexplicable” claimed Information, and Der Abend (Vienna)
enthused, “Wonder triumphed over scepticism”, while the New
York Herald said that had he lived in the Middle Ages, Martenot would
have been accused of witchcraft and burned alive in the town square. |
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Martenot’s
primary interest, however, was not research into new sounds (unlike the
inventors of synthesisers, whose first models appeared almost thirty
years later). The development of this most musical of electronic
instruments was driven above all by an interest in the expressive,
musical potential offered by electricity.
To
understand how the ondes Martenot works, we need to look at an acoustic
phenomenon. The string of an instrument playing the note A has a
frequency of 440 Hz, i.e. it vibrates back and forth 440 times per
second. Depending on the speed of this vibration, the note (frequency)
is low or high. The radio used by Martenot only worked at a very high
frequency, emitting an ultrasonic note inaudible to the human ear (80
000 Hz). To obtain an audible sound therefore, he used the principle of
heterodyning (which musicians use when tuning to another instrument) -
producing a beat frequency by the combination of two oscillations of
slightly different frequency in order to generate a third, whose value
is the mathematical difference between the first two. The note A, for
example, can be produced by the simultaneous production of two
inaudible frequencies of 80000 and 80440 Hz. The first frequency is
fixed and never changes, while the second is variable, modified by the
performer who plays the instrument either via a keyboard (clavier or CL in French) or by moving a
wire know as a ribbon (ruban or R in French).
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The keyboard and the loudspeakers |
The keyboard
the ribbon
the drawer
and the pedals
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The
ondes Martenot is monophonic, so the keyboard and ribbon are played
with the right hand only, with the exception of a number of virtuosic
works requiring the use of both hands. With the left hand, the
performer can alter aspects such as dynamics and timbre, using controls
in a small drawer on the side of the instrument.
The
keyboard (written CL on a score when it is used in a work) has six visible octaves but actually has a range of almost
nine, via a switch and transpose buttons. It is also sprung and the
keys can be moved laterally through microtones a semi-tone up or down,
thereby enabling the performer, by moving the right hand from side to
side while depressing the keys, to create a vibrato effect just as
Martenot could when playing the cello.
The
ribbon (written R on a score when it is used in a work) extends along the length and in front of the keyboard and has a
metal ring which fits on to the ondiste’s right index finger. He
or she then plays different notes by sliding the ring along the
keyboard, and above a scale calibrated with bumps and indentations
which act as visual and tactile reference points. The sound made is
like that of a fretless string instrument or the human voice, producing
glissandi that can be unbroken or sketched out across the
instrument’s range, special effects, lyrical intonation,
microtones, vibrato, and so on. Here again there is an obvious analogy
with the cello. In addition, a key element of Martenot’s teaching
method was the importance of gesture and movement and the
ondiste’s ribbon technique puts this into practice. Some
composers add scroll-like designs to their scores which players then
reproduce with their hand movements, translating the image into sound. |
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The
musician’s left hand works the touche d’intensité
(intensity key) located in a little drawer on the left side of the
instrument. This controls the sound level, something like the volume
control of a radio. Extremely sensitive, it has a two-centimetre range
of movement and can take the volume from zero to earsplitting. It acts
as an extension of the player’s thought process, enabling a wide
variety of nuance, phrasing and attack (accents, slurring, detached
notes, staccato, percussive effects, and so on). In order to produce a
sound the musician has to play the keyboard (or ribbon) and depress the
button simultaneously. The action of the latter is similar to that of a
bow, recalling once more Martenot’s beloved cello.
Also
located in the drawer are seven switches that control the choice of
wave form (sounds) and their mixing, enabling numerous timbre
combinations. On the latest model (1975), they are designated by
letters rather than by numbers as on previous models: O for Ondes
(sinusoid waves), C for Creux (peaklimited triangular signal), g for
petit gambé (a square signal whose intensity can be regulated
using a selector), G for Gambé (square signal), N for Nasillard
(pulse signal), 8 for Octaviant (reinforced first harmonic, whose
intensity can be regulated using a selector) and T for Tutti
(combination of all timbres). There are also two switches which can be
used to obtain variable-intensity pink noise, comparable to a Puff (S
for Souffle), and to filter the harmonics (F for Feutre), creating a
mute effect.
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Playing on the keyboard (right hand)
while the left hand
controls the intensity key |
The keyboard, the ribbon with the ring
and the drawer with the intensity key (in white),
the sounds, the white noise, the loudspeakers and
the transposition buttons and the mixing knobs
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The
drawer also contains six transpose buttons which allow the player to
change each individual note instantaneously and simultaneously: a
quarter-tone higher or lower, or a semi-tone, tone, third or fifth
higher.
Two
foot pedals are connected to the drawer to work as a filter and touche
d’intensité (intensity key) when a score requires both hands on the
keyboard.
Finally,
the player uses a selection of switches to choose one or more of the
four separate loudspeakers (diffuseurs in French: D1 to D4) which
produce specific sound effects that can be combined using a mixing
knob.
The main loudspeaker (Diffuseur Principal - D1) is a traditional loudspeaker
invented with the instrument. The Résonance (D2) dates from 1980
and is made up of stretched coiled strings enabling sounds to be
prolonged. It is based on the Palme (D4), developed in 1950; both are
used in the same way, but the latter has two sets of twelve
chromatically tuned metal strings, stretched over a flame-shaped case,
which resonate in sympathy with the notes played by the performer.
Lastly, the Métallique (D3), invented around 1930, has a
metallic plate like a gong that acts as the speaker membrane and
produces an acoustic halo effect when the instrument is played. |
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Over
the decades since its invention, there have been seven models of the
ondes Martenot, all incorporating various improvements.
The 1919
instrument, a kind of theremin, was not seen as viable by Martenot and
his first “official” model was that of 1928. This only had
the ribbon, which the player pulled and released with the right hand to
slide from one note to another. The performer stood a little way from
the unit and controlled the volume using a control in a drawer on a
table. The second model (1929) was more compact and included a dummy
keyboard with a pointer to indicate the pitch of the notes played on
the ribbon. The third model (1930) could be played from either a seated
or standing position and the ribbon was positioned above a dummy wooden
keyboard which worked as a visual reference. The next model had no
ribbon but had a working, sprung keyboard. Ribbon and functioning
keyboard finally appeared together in version five in 1937, the year in
which Messiaen composed his Fête des Belles Eaux for six ondes
Martenot (which was performed on a boat floating down the Seine as part
of Exposition Universelle). Martenot began giving classes in the
instrument at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de
Musique in 1947, and a dozen or so more courses were later established
in France and Canada, encouraging official recognition of the
instrument. Model six (1955) was smaller and lighter owing to progress
made in the field of electronics. The seventh and final version (1975)
replaced valves with transistors.
Around 370 instruments were
manufactured in Martenot’s workshop in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near
Paris, along with a number of non-professional models: simplified
versions for school use, chamber music versions, one combined with a
radio and turntable and one designed to play raga modes (built in 1932
for the Indian poet and musician Rabindranath Tagore), among others.
Production
ended in 1988 on the retirement of Marcel Manière,
Martenot’s assistant since 1951. Jean-Louis Martenot, one of
Maurice’s sons, worked on a digital version, but this was not
pursued. In 1995, engineer Ambro Oliva began work on the ondéa,
a close instrument, whose prototype was presented at the 2003 Frankfurt
Music Fair (Germany). Today, Jean-Loup Dierstein works on a new project.
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Playing with the ribbon
The keyboard and from left to right the "diffuseurs"
"principal" (D1), "résonance" (D2), "métallique" (D3)
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"Music for ondes Martenot"
Thomas Bloch's CD cover
Naxos - reference : 8.555779
- painting by Rémi Bloch -
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Today
the ondes Martenot repertoire comprises more than a thousand works, in
varying genres: contemporary music, pop songs, film scores, stage
music, dance, rock and pieces written for radio, TV and ads. Composers
of works for the instrument include Dimitri Levidis (whose Poème
symphonique of 1928 was the first work written for the instrument), Pierre Boulez (lui-même ondiste), Elmer Bernstein, Sylvano
Bussotti, Jacques Canteloube, Jacques Chailley, Jacques Charpentier, Marius Constant, Henri
Dutilleux, Nguyen Tien Dao, Arthur Honegger, Jacques Ibert, Maurice Jarre, André Jolivet, Charles
Koechlin, Marcel Landowski, Olivier Messiaen, Darius Milhaud, Tristan Murail, Nicolas Obouhow,
Bernard Parmegiani, François Rauber (the writer of
Jacques Brel’s songs), Maurice
Ravel (who authorised arrangements of a
few of his works - Ma Mère l’Oye, the String Quartet and
Sonatine for piano - saying they sounded as they did in his dreams),
Henri Sauguet, Giacinto Scelsi, Yoshihisa Taira, Henri Tomasi, Edgar Varèse, Pierre
Vellones... Also in pop music field : Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead), Damon Albarn (Gorillaz), Tom Waits...
Although
the ondes Martenot is a multifaceted instrument, it is sometimes
considered obsolete by those ignorant of its potential. Composer Michel
Redolfi quashes all such prejudice: “The ondes Martenot, whose
most celebrated patron was of course Olivier Messiaen, continues to be
used in weird and wonderful compositions. Seen as taboo, rejected by
those who fail to understand its qualities, thought of as too pure, out
of control, too free in its apparently effortless sound production,
without exaggerated physical movement, the ondes Martenot can, for
instance, create new chords for the human voice, free it from its
player’s flesh and breath and let it drift away towards new
soundworlds.”
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