Mark Russell: “There is the Ondes Martenot on this album, you can hear it, and it's an instrument that's associated with Messiaen, of course. Was he an influence on what you were doing?”
Jonny Greenwood: “When I was at school, and studying music, I just got very excited as a teenager to hear of this composer who was still alive, and still writing music, and music that was so exciting and fascinating, and mysterious and had all these sounds in it. Partly I find it so wonderful because it's often just violins, it's often just standard instruments that are creating these wonderful new textures and sounds. So the Ondes Martenot was something that I just... my adolescent dream was to find one. I didn't even know what they looked like, I just knew... I used to read descriptions of them, and one day dreamed of finding one, and did amazingly.”
Robert Sandall: “Where did you find one?”
Jonny: “The grandson of Mr. Martenot, who invented the original one in like... sorry, it's all getting all very Encyclopaedia Britannica, but in 1928 it was first invented, and the grandson started to make them again, and made a few, and I managed to get hold of one, and it's a wonderful invention, great instrument.”
Mark: “So what's your 'desert island' piece of Messiaen, then?”
Jonny: “Probably the first thing I heard, the Turangalîla-Symphony, the first thing that fascinated me.”
Jonny Greenwood: “When I was at school, and studying music, I just got very excited as a teenager to hear of this composer who was still alive, and still writing music, and music that was so exciting and fascinating, and mysterious and had all these sounds in it. Partly I find it so wonderful because it's often just violins, it's often just standard instruments that are creating these wonderful new textures and sounds. So the Ondes Martenot was something that I just... my adolescent dream was to find one. I didn't even know what they looked like, I just knew... I used to read descriptions of them, and one day dreamed of finding one, and did amazingly.”
Robert Sandall: “Where did you find one?”
Jonny: “The grandson of Mr. Martenot, who invented the original one in like... sorry, it's all getting all very Encyclopaedia Britannica, but in 1928 it was first invented, and the grandson started to make them again, and made a few, and I managed to get hold of one, and it's a wonderful invention, great instrument.”
Mark: “So what's your 'desert island' piece of Messiaen, then?”
Jonny: “Probably the first thing I heard, the Turangalîla-Symphony, the first thing that fascinated me.”