ONDES MARTENOT SYLVETTE ALLART CDN LP FRANCOIS DOMPIERRE+LUC ANDRE MARCEL-AVANT

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SYLVETTE ALLART / THEODORE PARASQUIVE / FRANCOIS DOMPIERRE / EDOUARD MICHAEL / GEORGES-LEONCE GUINOT / LUC-ANDRE MARCEL

 DE L'ONDE A L'INFINI LP

Private - Dompierre 

Very rare original canadian album from the 70's with excellent pieces for Ondes Martenot from 4 canadian composers, performed by the virtuoso Sylvette Allart.

Some info on the release:  Rare original issue, released privately in Canada sometime in the 70's. De l'Onde a l'infini is one of the last albums devoted to the Ondes Martenot musical instrument, one of the first electronic instruments to be invented that dissapeared with the passage of time and the evolution of new electronic music instruments andgadgets. Notable composers who have employed the ondes Martenot in their works include Charles Koechlin, Edgard Varèse (as a replacement for two theremin instruments in his work Ecuatorial), Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Cemal Re?it Rey, Maurice Jarre, Sylvano Bussotti, Giacinto Scelsi, Marcel Landowski, Karel Goeyvaerts, Pierre Boulez, Tristan Murail, Henri Tomasi, and Frank Zappa.

From the Prognotfrog blog about this album: "The ondes martenot were invented by (who else) Maurice Martenot in 1928, one of the first electronic instruments created. The sound is very similar to the theremin: eerie, soundtrack type stuff, and is mostly associated with Olivier Messiaen, who went overboard with it in the early twentieth. The sound is actually produced by oscillations in vacuum tubes, believe it or not. A vacuum tube was a big glass tube that functioned the same as one transistor -- just one. I remember my dad's big laptop-sized homemade radio made of vacuum tubes, one of which would blow like a light bulb every time you turned it on. In Canada, Quebec has long had a tradition for playing and using this instrument. So, in 1974 a group of classical composers worked together to create a more accessible introduction to the instrument and compositions for it for popular enjoyment. Considering the degree of open-mindedness and willingness to experiment in music in the early 70s this idea was not as crazy as it seems today.  The instrument is still played and practiced in France, though it is considered a historical curiosity, its rarity due mostly to the legendary difficulty of playing the instrument -- it uses a normal keyboard, there is a sliding ruler or ring worn on the finger which is used for vibrato or glissando effect, but no sound is produced until yet another set of controls is pushed to increase volume. Sounds ridiculous? I think so, and today we would have no patience for an instrument like that, especially considering it is not quite as pleasurably melodious as the mellotron, which few can resist.  On this record Sylvette Allart plays the ondes, backed by piano and harp. Four classical composers, including the famous Dompierre (who wrote soundtracks for Quebec films), Eduard Michaels, Georges Guinot, Luc-Andre Marcel contribute pieces which they wrote in the past (mostly from the 50s). The compositions range widely, overall level is comparable to Julverne, Conventum, bearing in mind the unusual instrumentation, i.e. chamber progressive. The first composition by Dompierre is a sonata with some ravel movements around a very beautiful rachmaninoff like middle adagio movement. Eduard Michaels contributes a gorgeous piece called "Through a small window" a duet with harp I think. Several pieces relate to birds, which I believe is an homage to Messiaen's obsession with ornithology. The last, "l'oiseau de java" is the standout virtuoso piece, using many ondes together, making the instrument sound at different times like flutes, violins, cellos, bassoons, clarinet, and that crazy lady who plays variously-filled wineglasses with her fingers. Check out the review from rateyourmusic (which actually misses the point of the album entirely): "Who would've thought that after so much crate-digging, after enormous efforts that the ProgQuebec label is doing to promote the progressive music of the French-Canadian scene of the 1970s, there'd still be treasures to unearth in this particular region? And then out of the blue appears this little gem of an album, full of chamber rock elegance and weird experimental twists..." In fact it's not out of the blue, being very much a part of modern classical music, but I agree that it's shocking that crate-digging still produces such amazing gemic surprises for us fans.  As I've said before the abandonment of this beautiful music is a tragedy for the world and human culture which has become swamped in mediocrity-- think of how many fewer people, especially proportionate to the current population, can enjoy this now, than did in the seventies when it appeared. One in a million people? Ouch.

Condition: Vinyl lies in very good+ condition, looks super clean, close to mint-, but plays with light surface noise, while cover lies in very good+ shape, with age wear, slight ring & minor corner creasings (see picture).

Tracklist

Sonate Pour Ondes Martenot Et Piano

9:42

• Composed By – Édouard Michael (tracks: A4), François Dompierre (tracks: A1 to A3), Georges-Léonce Guinot (tracks: B1 to B6), Luc-André Marcel (tracks: B7)
• Design [Graphics], Photography – Ronald Labelle
• Ondes Martenot – Sylvette Allart
• Piano – Théodore Parasquive

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