Word: martenot
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...wonder, then, that Messiaen's compositions defy pigeonholing. Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presence Divine (1944), scored for soprano chorus, strings and a clattering assortment of percussion, celebrates God's omnipresence by mixing swatches of Gregorian chant with Hindu rhythms and the unearthly quavering of the Ondes Martenot (an electronic wave generator). The 77-minute Turangalila Symphony (1948), a thick layer cake of orchestral textures, is part of Messiaen's treatment of the Tristan legend, which he considers "the greatest myth of human love." Chrono-chromie (1960) echoes the sounds of nature in a complex tone poem...
OLIVIER MESSIAEN: THREE LITTLE LITURGIES OF THE DIVINE PRESENCE (Columbia). Scored for soprano chorus, strings, and a miscellany of soundmakers including a vibraphone, Chinese cymbals, gongs and the electronic instrument called Ondes Martenot, this 20-year-old work is a reminder of Messiaen's Orient-tilted talents. Like a preacher shaking his fist, the French composer uses wild, sliding sounds, surprise rhythms, and his own effusive text to insist that God is omnipresent. Leonard...
...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...