Maurice Louis Eugène Martenot (; October 14, 1898 – October 8, 1980) was a French cellist, a radio telegrapher during the first World War, and an inventor. Born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, he is best known for his invention of the

ondes Martenot The ondes Martenot ( ; , "Martenot waves") or ondes musicales ("musical waves") is an early electronic musical instrument. It is played with a keyboard or by moving a ring along a wire, creating "wavering" sounds similar to a theremin. A player ...

, an instrument he first realized in 1928 and spent decades improving. He unveiled a

microtonal Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones— intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of t ...

model in 1938. He also was responsible for teaching the first generation of ondes Martenot performers, including

Karel Goeyvaerts Karel August Goeyvaerts (8 June 1923 – 3 February 1993) was a Belgian composer. Life Goeyvaerts was born in Antwerp, where he studied at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory; he later studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analys ...

, Jeanne Loriod, Georges Savaria, Gilles Tremblay, and his sister

Ginette Martenot Ginette Martenot (1902–1996) was a French pianist, and an expert and leading performer on the twentieth-century electronic instrument the ondes Martenot, which was invented by her brother Maurice. At the age of sixteen, she entered the Paris Con ...

. Martenot himself performed as an 'ondist' with the Philadelphia Orchestra under

Leopold Stokowski Leopold Anthony Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra and his appear ...

in 1930. The 1937 World's Fair in Paris awarded him "Le Grand Prix de l'Exposition Mondiale". He taught lessons at the Paris Conservatoire during the 1940s. A Martenot biography, in French, has been written by ondist Jean Laurendeau. His invention of the

is the subject of the 2013 Quebec documentary '' Wavemakers'', in which Laurendeau also appears.

Sources

Info.com
* Sadie, S. (ed.) (1980). ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' ol. # 11

External links

The Theremin And The Ondes Martenot.

SOS article, Feb. 2002.

Musicians from Paris 1898 births 1980 deaths 20th-century French musicians 20th-century French inventors Ondists Conservatoire de Paris alumni Conservatoire de Paris faculty Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery {{france-engineer-stub