ondes Martenot [õd martəno]
While not generally familiar to the musically-interested public, the ondes Martenot has enjoyed a quiet success as a musical innovation of the 20th Century. Created in 1928 by Maurice Martenot, the instrument was soon recognized as superior to the theremin with its abstracted hand-waving. The ondes Martenot, like the theremin, uses a vacuum tube oscillator to create pitch, but that is the end of their similarities. The instrument itself consists of a keyboard, alongside which lies a ribbon fitted with a finger-ring, used for glissandi and pitch bend purposes, as well as controls for timbral contrast and volume.
Several important composers, chiefly Messiaen, have composed for the ondes Martenot, including it in large orchestrations (i.e. Turangalîla-Symphonie), as well as in solo and concerto settings, including Boulez, Honegger, Milhaud, Martinů, Varèse, and Tomasi. Messiaen was also to include the instrument in several other works (not coincidental was the fact that his sister-in-law, Jeanne Loriod, was an ondes virtuoso): Feuilles inédits, Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine, and the late opera Saint François d’Assise, which calls for three ondes Martenots.
Additionally, the instrument superceded the theremin as the predominant creator of “spooky” and “outer-space” noises in horror and sci-fi films, starting as early as Berthold Bartosch’s 1932 movie The Idea, with score by Arthur Honegger.
In the recent past, the ondes Martenot has resurfaced again as a viable instrument after a few decades of relative disuse, primarily through the interest and collaboration of Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead) and British music equipment manufacturer Analogue Systems who revamped and revitalized the instrument into the latter’s instrument called the French Connection.
To see a demonstration of the ondes Martenot by Jean laurendeau click here.
YouTube resources
An extract from the sixth movement of Turangalîla-Symphonie.
Radiohead's Pyramid Song live.
Helpful how-to should you find yourself in possession of a new French Connection (good for closeups of instrument).
Contemporary virtuoso piece for ondes called Formule by composer and performer Thomas Bloch.
Sources
Description from the website '120 Years of Electronic Music'.
Description from the Electronic Music Foundation.