LE CHANT DES ONDES / WAVEMAKERS

In the organizer's words:

LE CHANT DES ONDES / WAVEMAKERS
Caroline Martel | Canada 2012 | 94' | OmenglU

Maurice Martenot, a young French musician, discovers his fascination for electrically generated humming and noise as a telegraph operator during the First World War. He then invented the Ondes Martenot (Martenot waves), one of the very first electronic instruments, which he built and developed himself throughout his life, while at the same time working as a recognized music teacher.

The film not only documents the history of the Ondes' creation, but also sheds light on how this special chapter in the early history of electronic music continued: we meet an heir, a specialist in repairing the rare instrument (of the fewer than 300 instruments Martenot made himself in various designs, just under 70 are still in existence), but also musicians who have dedicated themselves to the active care of the instrument, especially the female quartet of the Martenot Quartet.In particular the female quartet Ensemble d'Ondes de Montréal with its repertoire ranging from Bach to Milhaud, from Ravel to Messaien.

But we also meet a representative of successful pop music in the person of Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, who is having a new Ondes Martenot built - all in all a story of interest in modern techniques, love of sound, the burden of legacies and never-ending connections that arise from a continent-spanning curiosity about other forms of music.

All films & dates: www.unerhoert-filmfest.de