Martenot waves in 20th-century composition: From Edgard Varèse to Pierre Boulez and Tristan Murai

Abstract

This article explores the history of the electronic instrument, the Martenot waves, and the development of its repertoire. Composers have used this instrument with varying degrees of intensity throughout various periods. The article focuses on three composers: Edgard Varèse, Pierre Boulez, and Tristan Murail. It describes the instrument's pivotal role in the creative career of Pierre Boulez, who found himself at the crossroads of different aesthetics, radically shifting his attitude toward the instrument from acceptance to a sharp rejection of its use in his work. The instrument’s subsequent life and fate were linked to the French spectral movement and the work of Tristan Murail, one of its leading composers. The study concludes that, throughout the various periods of new music in the 20th century, composers’ interest in the instrument was driven primarily by aesthetic factors. This interest is presented as a dilemma between the expressive and the anti-expressive.