Word: instrumentations
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...sisters. He has been caught up in radio broadcasts, interviews, medical examinations. His missionary spirit is undimmed. Said Father Leoni last week: "Naturally, I am happy to be back in my dear, free Italy, but I do not regret the terrible years in Russia during which I was the instrument used by God to carry the comfort of religion to many poor unfortunates. If I could go back and choose freely, I would want to relive those ten years of inferno exactly as I did live them...
...Ondes Martenot, a less versatile but considerably simpler instrument, is the brainchild of Maurice Martenot, a slight, bespectacled Frenchman with a bumblebee mustache and a practical outlook. The Martenot has been manufactured and sold (190 models at about $700 each), can be mastered in a few months, is already used by the Paris Opera and theaters. It has had 518 compositions written for it, some by such first-rate composers as Honegger and Milhaud. It utilizes a keyboard and a metalized ribbon that produces slithery glissandos, can control color and volume through other accessories, but cannot play chords...
Incoherent Themes. His introduction of the Martenot in 1928 made Maurice Martenot a pioneer of electronics in music.* His argument: the orchestra can be made more subtle by use of an instrument capable of sounds that bridge the tonal gaps between strings and winds, give pitch to the dull thud of the bass drums, play lower than a double bass and higher than a piccolo. The idea has caught on: dozens of electronic instruments have been developed, the latest of which is RCA's Synthesizer, unveiled four months ago, which can reproduce the sound of any musical instrument...
...Basel concert opened, Mlle. Ginette Martenot, sister of the instrument's builder, started off with the Ondes Martenot. With remarkable technique, she coaxed from the instrument a synthetic cascade of notes, often shrill, occasionally pleasant, accompanied by a wildly modernistic orchestral background. She got a big hand from the audience. After intermission, Oskar Sala sat down before his Mixturtrautonium. To a tape-recorded background of shrill whistles, gongs, rattles and electronic drum sounds, he compounded the cacophony with his wildly incoherent themes. A third of the audience left before the end; those who stayed filled the hall with whistles...
...other free nations banded together in a trade pact called GATT. To many a plain citizen, GATT is nothing but a baffling set of initials. Actually, its meaning is simple. It stands for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and it is the chief instrument for expansion of world trade and the amicable settlement of trade disputes among the 34 nations-controlling 80% of world trade-that are now members...