Description
The Dierstein Ondes Musicales is a contemporary reproduction of the final Concert (transistor) model of Maurice Martenot’s instrument introduced in 1928, the Ondes Martenot, or Martenot Waves. Martenot’s instrument appears in some one thousand compositions, film scores, and incidental music with diverse instrumental orchestrations in various stylistic genres. The original Ondes Martenot used vacuum tube technology inspired by Leon Theremin’s namesake instrument (known as the Aetherphone at the time), which Maurice Martenot heard at concerts in Paris during the late ‘twenties. Two supersonic oscillators create an audible difference tone when the controls of the ondes Martenot (or theremin) are played. The difference between these two oscillator frequencies- one fixed, the other moveable- creates the pitch we hear. This provides the ability to produce pitches continuously from lowest to highest, and provides both instruments with their characteristic gliding pitch, or portamento idiomatic expression. Both the theremin and Ondes Martenot are monophonic. Jean-Loup Dierstein services and restores instruments for Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and Daft Punk, and for studios throughout France. After two years in development, Dierstein presented his first production Ondes Musicales to Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead in 2011. Pitch is controlled either by keyboard, or by the ruban (moveable wire) just below the keyboard, which allows continuous changes of pitch. Sound is articulated by depressing a rectangular button with the left hand, and it is this separation of pitch selection and pitch articulation that provides the characteristic “un-keyboard-like” expression. Production of the three different speakers used by the Ondes Martenot, and now Dierstein’s latter day version, the Ondes Musicales are in process.
