Maurice Martenot

Maurice Martenot ( born October 14, 1898 in Paris, † October 8, 1980 in Clichy ) was a French musician and inventor who developed one of the most common analog electronic musical instruments with the Ondes Martenot.

Life and work

Maurice Martenot studied at the Paris Conservatory cello and piano with Alfred Cortot. During the First World War he served as a radio operator, from the heard noises in this activity, he headed the idea from, to use it in music. Following a meeting with Leon Theremin in 1923, he began at an electronic musical instrument to work. The first model of his instrument as he let Perfectionnements aux instruments de musique électriques patented on April 2, 1928 it became known as Ondes musicales or ondes Martenot.

On 20 April of the same year the instrument was first presented publicly in a performance of Dimitrios Levidis ' Poeme Symphonique under Rhené Baton at the Paris Opera. Martenot developed several variants of the instrument, including one that was playable on the micro-intervals and a process called Ondioline smaller instrument.

Martenot played his instrument itself, inter alia, at a performance of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski. The main performer on the instrument was his sister Ginette Martenot in the 1930s. At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937 he was awarded the Le Grand Prix de l'Exposition Mondiale. From 1947 he taught Ondes Martenot - game at the Paris Conservatory.

1949 Martenot was knighted in 1975 appointed an Officer of the Legion of Honour. Composed for his instrument musicians such as Edgard Varèse, Olivier Messiaen (including Turangalîla Symphony, Fete Des Belles Eaux for six Ondes Martenot and Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presence Divine ), Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Pierre Boulez ( Quartet for Ondes Martenot, 1945), Maurice Jarre, André Jolivet and Charles Koechlin.