Messiaen, Oliver - Oraison (1937)

YouTube via bajistarojo. follow-up to this post. NOTE the image actually is not the Ondes Martenot, you can click on the label below for prior posts including videos and images.

Video description:
"Written for the early electronic instrument, the Ondes Martenot (above), Olivier Messiaen's "Oriason" is a beautifully mellow and plaintive piece of music. The Ondes Martenot is a close relation of the theremin, and like the theremin was frequently used (and abused) on sci-fi film and tv soundtracks throughout the 40's, 50's and 60's, but also gained a foothold in many "serious" orchestras. I first heard "Oriason" on the box set "Ohm;The Early Gurus of Electronic Music", as recorded by Ensemble d'Ondes de Montreal.
(From "Thespoiledmetropolis.blogspot.com")."

via Richard Lainhart on AH regarding the Ondes Martenot:
"The whole instrument is monophonic, with one sound engine for both controllers (in other words, you can't play both at once.) The Ondes was the first electronic instrument with a direct vibrato keyboard that I know of - as you can see in the video, the whole keybed shifts laterally slightly when he vibrates his hand.

Messiaen is one of my favorite composers, and he wrote a lot of music for the Ondes. There are a series of "Feuillet Inedit" works for Ondes and piano, of which the video is one, that are quite lovely, and he also wrote a suite of pieces for 6 Ondes Martenot called "Fete des Belle Eaux" that is just stunning. One of the works from that suite, "Oraison", is not only possibly the first piece of purely electronic music intended for performance, but also (IMO) one of the most beautiful pieces of electronic music ever. (I'm working on a transcription of that piece for Continuum and Buchla.)

The instrument shown in the image isn't an Ondes, though."