Wavetrain

National Concert Hall, Dublin

Wavetrain is a new duo featuring ondes Martenot (Nathalie Forget) and piano (Matthew Schellhorn) which was heard for the first time at the NCH’s Kevin Barry Room on Wednesday evening.

The ondes Martenot, named after its inventor Maurice Martenot (1898-1980), is an electronic instrument which was first demonstrated in Paris in 1928, and which has been immortalised in the sound worlds of Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonieand Trois petite liturgies de la Présence Divine.

It’s an instrument full of paradoxes. Its tone ranges from the simple to the highly complex – the right hand plays the pitches, the left hand works controls on a drawer that protrudes from the left-hand side to alter colour, dynamics and articulation.

Composers seem to favour a mode which is readily evocative of the human voice. But that voice can be used over a range of pitch and volume so wide that it loses all associations with singing. Its pitch range exceeds that of the piano. It can play loud enough to dominate an orchestra. And it can also whisper in fascinating ways.

It can bark and flutter and use vibrato, and it can be played via a keyboard or using a mechanism at the front of the keys which facilitates glissandos that can slide and swoop with extraordinary freedom.

Given the rarity of the ondes Martenot in concert, interest in Wednesday’s programme inevitably focused on that instrument.

The transcription of Takemitsu's Distance de fée(originally for violin and piano) was anything but effective, and Allain Gaussin's Ariane(originally for cello and electronics) also lacked a necessary dimension.

Yassen Vodenitcharov's Pièce cinétique(mostly in moto perpetuo style) and Rika Suzuki's L'égrenéeboth explored intersections, overlaps and contrasts between the worlds of the piano and the electronic instrument. And Nguyen-Thien Dao's Bâi-Tâpwith table tennis balls and a metal ruler lying on the piano strings, might best be described as a cartoonish mixture of rattles, whistles and grunts.

The potential of the two instruments in combination was best suggested in the revealing timbral explorations of Tristan Murail's Tigres de verre.And the voice of the ondes Martenot itself made its deepest expressive impact in Oraisonfrom Messiaen's Fêtes des belles eaux(originally for an ensemble of six ondes Martenot), the material of which was later used in the Quartet for the End of Time.

Schellhorn’s piano playing may have sounded a bit uncouth at times, but the ondes itself was sublime.