Ondes Martenot and 'Lawrence of Arabia'

The ondes Martenot is one of the oldest electronic instruments still in use today, invented by Maurice Martenot in 1928. Maurice Jarre featured three of them in his Lawrence of Arabia score alongside 60 strings and two grand pianos, using their ethereal tones to paint desert landscapes and tense sequences. That score won the 1963 Academy Award for Best Original Score. There's far more to this fascinating instrument's history than you might expect.

Key Takeaways

• Maurice Jarre used three Ondes Martenots alongside 60 strings and 11 percussionists to craft the exotic, otherworldly soundscape of Lawrence of Arabia (1962).
• The Ondes Martenot provided haunting desert themes, nighttime passages, and tense sequences, serving as a primary orchestral voice throughout the score.
• The track "Gasim Lost in the Desert" features a distinctive 3-note Ondes Martenot trill paired with snare and percussion.
• Jarre composed the entire Lawrence of Arabia score in just six weeks, weaving four distinct themes simultaneously in the overture's finale.
• The score, recorded at Shepperton Studios by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, won the 1963 Academy Award for Best Original Score.

What Is the Ondes Martenot?

The ondes Martenot is an early electronic musical instrument built around keyboard and oscillator technology, making it one of the oldest of its kind alongside the theremin. It's monophonic, meaning it produces only one note at a time, yet it offers remarkable expressive range.

You'll notice its unique playing method combines expressive ringwork — a metal ring worn on the right index finger that slides along a wire — with keyboard vibrato, achieved by shifting the keys slightly side to side. The left hand controls volume and timbre through a touch-sensitive glass lozenge.

Early models used vacuum tubes, while later versions switched to transistors. Despite its single-note limitation, the instrument can produce rich, otherworldly tones ranging from pianissimo to fortissimo. It was invented by Maurice Martenot and first presented to the public in 1928.

The instrument is played by a specialist musician known as an ondiste, and its repertoire has grown to encompass more than 1,500 works spanning classical and contemporary compositions.

The Invention That Changed Orchestral Sound in 1928

Maurice Martenot's path to invention wasn't straightforward — he'd spent World War I as a radio telegraphist, where he noticed that two radio transmitters operating near each other produced an audible tone through the heterodyne phenomenon. He even demonstrated radio-generated melodies to fellow soldiers, earning the nickname "le chien mexicain" for the chihuahua-like howls it produced.

After meeting Leon Theremin in 1923, Martenot refined his approach, favoring wire and ring controls over air gestures. He patented his design on April 2, 1928, and debuted it in Paris that same year. The instrument's evolution toward keyboard adoption distinguished it from the Theremin, giving orchestral musicians a familiar interface. That single decision helped it earn a permanent seat in concert halls worldwide. The instrument also features a pull-out drawer housing left-hand controls that allow performers to adapt articulation, dynamics and tone.

The ondes Martenot made its first public appearance on April 20, 1928, at the Paris Opera, where Martenot performed Dimitrios Levidis's Poème symphonique with the instrument. Much like the surreal and boundary-pushing imagery found in Hieronymus Bosch's triptychs, the ondes Martenot challenged conventional expectations of its medium, blending the familiar with the genuinely strange to forge something entirely new.

How the Ondes Martenot Creates Its Haunting Tone

Slide a metal ring onto your right index finger, draw it along a taut wire, and you've already grasped the core of how the Ondes Martenot works. This gestural modulation of pitch distinguishes it immediately from the theremin's contactless hovering. Your left hand controls the tactile interfaces independently — a touch-sensitive glass lozenge regulates volume while a leather bag filled with carbon powder shapes timbre.

Early models used vacuum tube oscillators; the seventh version switched to transistors. Heterodyning combines radio frequencies to generate tones, producing what Messiaen called an "extraterrestrial, enchanted voice." Four interchangeable diffuseurs dramatically alter the final sound — one replaces the speaker cone with a gong, another uses strings tuned to all 12 semitones. The instrument's monophonic output only deepens its haunting intimacy. The Palme speaker's strings, tuned to all 12 semitones, resonate sympathetically with in-tune notes to produce distinctly chiming tones.

Maurice Martenot was a former cellist whose background with strings and bows directly informed the instrument's expressive, gesture-based design, particularly its emphasis on nuanced control of vibrato, intensity, and attack.

Did Lawrence of Arabia Actually Feature the Ondes Martenot?

Few film scores have sparked as much curiosity about their instrumentation as Maurice Jarre's work on Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and the ondes Martenot sits at the center of that conversation.

You might wonder whether its presence is myth or fact — it's documented reality. Jarre incorporated the instrument throughout the score, deploying it across desert themes, contemplative nighttime scenes, and psychologically tense sequences.

His performance technique included pairing it with harp, cithara, and vibraphone, creating a distinctive hybrid sound palette. The film's cultural reception introduced the ondes Martenot to broad American cinema audiences, shifting how composers approached electronic instruments in orchestral scoring.

This wasn't a minor flourish — Jarre treated the ondes Martenot as a primary orchestral voice throughout the entire score. The instrument's mysterious, celestial timbres draw frequent comparisons to the theremin, another early electronic instrument that shaped mid-century orchestral composition.

What Maurice Jarre Really Used to Score Lawrence of Arabia

When you examine what Maurice Jarre actually assembled for Lawrence of Arabia, the orchestral blueprint reveals a composer reaching well beyond conventional means.

His orchestration timeline was remarkably compressed — just six weeks to complete the entire score. Despite that pressure, his recording techniques produced extraordinary complexity.

The instrumentation included piano, synthesizer, two harps, cithara, timpani, six percussionists, and a violin soloist. He also incorporated the Ondes Martenot alongside a full string, brass, and woodwind ensemble featuring contrabassoon and E-flat clarinet.

The woodwinds alone required three clarinets plus the E-flat addition.

Jarre didn't simply layer instruments — he wove four distinct themes together simultaneously in the overture's finale. That structural ambition, combined with his tight deadline, makes the score's cohesion genuinely remarkable. South Korea's global electronics industry has since become one of the leading forces behind modern music technology, including the digital tools composers use today. The sheet music for this score is available as an official licensed version for piano on MuseScore.

How the Ondes Martenot Shaped the Sound of Lawrence of Arabia

Three Ondes Martenots wove through the Lawrence of Arabia score alongside 60 strings, 11 percussionists, two grand pianos, and two harps, and their presence transformed what could've been a conventional epic orchestration into something genuinely unearthly.

Their electronic mystique gave Lawrence's desert theme a celestial, theremin-like quality that purely acoustic instruments couldn't replicate. You'll hear this clearly in "Night and Stars," where the Ondes Martenot carries the desert theme above flute accompaniment, and in "The Beach at Night," where it pairs with harp arpeggios for a deeply mystical effect.

The instrument deepened the desert atmosphere by blending Western and Eastern melodic ideas into sweeping, exotic passages. That distinctive otherworldliness ultimately helped Jarre's score capture the 1963 Academy Award for Best Original Score. The entire soundtrack was recorded at Shepperton Studios by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, giving the Ondes Martenot's ethereal tones an acoustically rich environment in which to resonate.

Jarre's effectiveness with the Ondes Martenot is particularly evident in "Gasim Lost in the Desert," where a haunting 3-note Ondes Martenot trill combines with snare and percussion to evoke the relentless heat and lurking threat of the desert landscape.

Messiaen, Jolivet, and the Composers Who Made It Orchestral

The composers who truly embedded the ondes Martenot into orchestral life weren't chasing novelty — they heard something irreplaceable in it. Messiaen pioneers like Olivier Messiaen built entire soundworlds around it, most famously in his 1949 Turangalîla-Symphonie, where the instrument isn't decorative — it's essential. His sister-in-law Jeanne Loriod performed all his ondes Martenot works, cementing a personal legacy around the instrument.

Jolivet integration looks different but equally deliberate. His 1943 Delphic Suite blends chamber orchestra timbres with the ondes Martenot across eight movements, using its eerie tones for dramatic energy rather than mere effect. Honegger even argued it should replace the contra-bassoon in standard orchestras. Together, these composers didn't just write for the instrument — they made it indispensable. The name itself points to its origins, as Ondes Martenot translates to "Martenot Waves" in English, a nod to the wave-based electronic sound at its core.

Maurice Martenot, the instrument's inventor, drew direct inspiration from overlapping tones of military radio oscillators he encountered as a WWI radio operator, which shaped the instrument's distinctive electronic voice from its very conception. Much like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which explored scientific ethics and creation, the ondes Martenot raises its own questions about how technology and human artistry combine to produce something entirely new.

How the Ondes Martenot Moved From French Orchestras to Hollywood

Ondist networks reinforced this spread. Barry Gray studied directly with Maurice Martenot in Paris before bringing the instrument into British film and television work. Elmer Bernstein learned it through Richard Rodney Bennett. These weren't coincidental adoptions — they were deliberate transfers of knowledge between composers who understood exactly what the instrument could do onscreen.

Is the Ondes Martenot Still Used in Modern Orchestras?

Far from fading into obscurity, the ondes Martenot still holds a genuine place in modern orchestral programming. A tight-knit performer network keeps it alive, with skilled players bringing it into concert halls worldwide. You'll find it anchoring a rich modern repertoire that spans decades.

Key performers currently active include:

• Cécile Lartigau, scheduled with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie in April 2026
• Cynthia Millar, featured at BBC Proms in 2024 performing the same iconic work
• Jonny Greenwood, touring with the instrument for contemporary acts like Radiohead

Over 100 orchestral compositions feature the ondes Martenot, and composers like Tristan Murail continue expanding its repertoire. Boutique instrument production guarantees serious players can access quality instruments, sustaining its presence in evolving musical landscapes. Scholars have also taken notice, with Dorien Schampaerts completing a 2018 PhD thesis examining how the instrument and its users have shaped each other across the twenty-first century.

Classic Film Scores Featuring the Ondes Martenot

You'll also recognize its presence in There Will Be Blood (2007), Hugo (2011), and Amélie. These scores confirm the ondes Martenot's enduring versatility across dramatically different film genres. Franz Waxman first brought the ondes Martenot to Hollywood audiences in The Bride of Frankenstein in 1936. Danny Elfman's score for *Mars Attacks!* features Jeanne Loriod performing high-level ribbon techniques, creating a musical tone described as both grandiose and sarcastic.