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Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania

As this weblog post is being published, my son, Alasdair, and I are in Estonia, visiting Tallinn, as well as the islands of Hiiumaa and Saaremaa. We have plans to visit Latvia and Lithuania is 2026. This weblog post is to provide context to the political situation these countries face.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are small Baltic states with an area of 45 335, 64 589 and 65 300 km2 and populations of 1 331 824 (2021 census), 1 842 226 (2022 census) and 2 897 430 (2025 estimate) people, respectively. They been inhabited since at least 9 000 BC, 3 000 BC and 8 000 BC, respectively. These countries became part of the Soviet Union in 1944, but regained their independence 1991-08-20, 1991-08-21 and 1990-03-11, respectively. They do not want to be affiliated politically with Russia again.

The three countries have armed themselves and became members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the same day, 2004-03-29, along with Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia. Currently, continued participation or the dependability of USA in the alliance has been questioned. NATO has changed since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Finland and Sweden have joined, and Poland has increased its influence. Russian President Vladimir Putin (1952 – ) is unhappy with the participation of the Baltic states in NATO, referring to it as a serious provocation for Russia. His feelings for these three countries are similar to those he has for other former Soviet states suck as Georgia and Ukraine. They should submit to the will of Russia.

Because of Donald Trump’s vascilations about NATO, Europeans are starting to understand that nobody outside of Europe is prepared to resolve Europe’s challenges with Russia. The Baltic States, in particular, have to defend themselves, being adjacent to Russia and/ or Belarus.

Between 2001-09-12 and 2001-10-02 in response to 9/11 attacks in the United States, NATO’s collective self-defense provisions were undertaken at NATO’s own initiative, without a request by the United States, and occurred despite the hesitation of Germany, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands. The United States accepted contributions on a bilateral, non-NATO basis from 14 of NATO’s then 19 member states as well as non-NATO members Russia, Latvia, Estonia and Slovakia. These ranged in size from Estonia’s contribution of a five-man explosives detection team, to the UK’s commitment of an infantry brigade and naval task force. It is the only time in NATO’s history its collective defense provisions have been invoked.

The Baltic States have legitimate concerns, particularly about the state-directed destruction of other places, supervised by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s. Historian Robert Conquest (1917 – 2015) wrote an account of this in The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purges of the 1930s (1968). It was revised as The Great Terror: A Reassessment (1990) and The Great Terror: 40th Anniversary Edition (2008). A more appropriate book for people living in the 21st century written with Jon Manchip White (1924 – 2013), is the fictional book What to Do When the Russians Come: a Survivor’s Guide (1984) which was intended to be a real survival manual in case of Soviet invasion.

These Baltic republics have supported Ukraine vigorously since the 2022 Russian invasion, they have supported citizen preparedness, encouraging citizens to stock enough food in their home to weather an emergency, and to have plans for family rendezvous outside the capitals. There is also a need for a mental preparation for a Russian invasion.

Many military analysts have assured European nations that the era of war in Europe had passed, and that their concerns no longer applied. Thus many Europeans assumed that a full-scale brutal war, like what occurred during the Second World War, was possible. With the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, followed by the invasion and annexing of Crimea in 2014, and then other parts of Ukraine in 2022, Europeans are slowly realizing their error. This has resulted in increased military spending, and in the stationing of NATO forces in other Baltic countries.

Europeans seem to be understanding the Russian threat, almost as fast as the American administration is repeating Kremlin propaganda. Because of the current American attitudes, NATO may devolve into a European defense alliance. There may be a need for something larger, a democratic alliance with other members such as: Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan. It should be noted that American troops have been in all three Baltic countries since the annexation of Crimea. There used to be about 120 000 Russian troops along the Estonian-Russian border. These are not there now, possibly because they were sent to Ukraine. On the other hand Putin declared that Narva, Estonia’s third-largest city, is historically part of Russia. It is closer to St. Petersburg than to Tallinn. Of its roughly 56 000 inhabitants, 96 percent speak Russian and a third hold a Russian passports. Indeed, about a quarter of Estonia’s population is ethnic Russian.

While the Russian military was able to seize territory in Georgia and Crimea, it has not had much success in this second invasion of Ukraine. One person suggested that Russia has gone from being the second-strongest army in the world, to being the second strongest in Ukraine. In the Baltic states, there have always been nebulous plans to mobilize their populations. These were never activated until the second Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine was supposed to accept defeat in a couple of days/ weeks/ possibly months. However, the Ukrainian people rose up. This influenced Baltic strategy. Every adult citizen knows what to do in time of war. Often they bring their civilian capabilities for a potential war effort.

Here is a list of countries bordering Russia, from longest to shortest, with their border length in km: Kazakhstan = 7 512.8; China = 4 209.3; Mongolia = 3 485; Ukraine = 1 925.8; Finland = 1 272.8; Belarus = 1 239; Georgia = 875.5; Azerbaijan = 372.6; Estonia = 294; Latvia = 270.5; Lithuania = 266; Abkhazia = 255.4; Poland = 204.1; Norway = 195.7.

Today, troops and personnel from NATO Allies serve, train and exercise together in the east of the Alliance, representing a strong expression of unity and solidarity. Forces from contributing nations rotate in and out of the battlegroups; at any given time, they may be deployed to the battlegroups or stationed in their home countries with the ability to deploy rapidly, if needed.NATO is also integrating Finland and Sweden, in part by developing a presence in Finland, which has the longest border with Russia.

The Russian/ Belarus border with Europe is with NATO members, from north to south: Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. This means that Russian plans to reincorporate the Baltic states into Russia has become increasingly complicated. An attack on any of these Baltic states, will be met with a response from Poland, Finland and others.

At the 2016 NATO Summit in Warsaw, there was agreement to establish a eight Forward Land Forces (FLF) multinational battlegroups, provided by framework nations and other contributing Allies on a voluntary, fully sustainable and rotational basis. The battlegroups operate in concert with national home defence forces and are present at all times in the host countries. All eight battlegroups are fully combat-capable formations. While NATO forward presence in both the northeast and southeast of the Alliance, the emphasis here is on the northeast.

This forward presence was first deployed in 2017, with the creation of four multinational battalion-size battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, led by the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and the United States, respectively. In the southeast, there was increased NATO activity. However, it was only after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022-02, that NATA reinforced its existing battlegroups and established four more in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. At the 2022 Madrid Summit, NATO agreed to scale up beyond the battalion-size multinational battlegroups to brigade-size units, if needed. In 2024-07, Latvia scaled up to forming NATO Multinational Brigade Latvia. In 2024-10, the existing multinational battlegroup was transferred to this brigade. The battlegroups are not identical; their sizes and compositions are tailored to specific geographic factors and threats. Overall, military requirements guide each battlegroup’s composition.

As of February 2025, there were eight battlegroups on the eastern front. Those in the three Baltic states had the following participants: Host nation: Estonia; Framework nation: United Kingdom; Contributing nation: France. Host nation: Latvia; Framework nation: Canada; Contributing nations: Albania, Czechia, Iceland, Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Host nation: Lithuania; Framework nation: Germany; Contributing nations: Belgium, Czechia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway.

Trumpism seems to focus on making America great again, or at least reconstructing America so that it looks as if it had not left the 1950s, possibly due to Donald Trump’s (1946 – ) age. I keep wondering when GM will resurrect 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Aires? The building of alliances is the antithesis of Trumpism, so the world is isolating USA. Russia may have had large-scale plans for the future of the world after subduing Ukraine, but its military campaign has proved so underwhelming, that it is resorting to hybrid warfare, including: sabotage, espionage and information operations. People have to be prepared for this.

To end on a more positive note. I am an eager reader of the annual Happiness reports. Lithuania ranked highest for people under the age of 30 in 2024. Latvia and Estonia are ranked 31st and 44th for their under-30 populations. More generally, Lithuania was ranked 19 for all age groups, ahead of Estonia in 34th place and Latvia in 46th. Unlike its neighbours, Lithuania has been steadily climbing up the happiness rankings since 2017, when it placed 52nd.

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World Goth Day #17

A Saab JAS 39 Gripen over Gotland

For decades, there have been two unsinkable aircraft carriers in the Baltic. Kaliningrad has served Russia, while Gotland served Sweden. That changed on 2024-03-07, when Sweden officially joined NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization = Organisation du traité de l’Atlantique nord = OTAN. Strategically, Gotland is one of the most important military locations in the world. This island is the alleged original location of the Goths. This post is probably less about the history of the Goths, and more about how Fårö became a film mecca for about forty years!

Jordanes was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, widely believed to be of Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life. He wrote two works, Romana (551 or 552) about Roman history and Getica (551) about the Goths. The only other contemporary work about the Goths was written by Isidore of Seville’s (c. 560 – 636), Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum (624) = History of the Kings of the Goths, Vandals and Suevi. These are three distinct works, with only the first one about the Goths.

The accuracy of Jordanes account is disputed, but he states that the Goths originated in southern Scandinavia, on the island of Gotland. In the 1st century, the Gutones – possibly early Goths, with their Wielbark culture – live near the lower Vistula River in current Poland. From the 2nd century, this culture expands southwards towards the Black Sea. By the late 3rd century it morphs into the Chernyakhov culture. By the 4th century, there are several distinct Gothic groups including: Thervingi, Greuthungi and Wulfila. were the most powerful. During this time, Wulfila began the conversion of Goths to Christianity.

In the late 4th century, the lands of the Goths were invaded from the east by the Huns. In the aftermath of this event, several groups of Goths came under Hunnic domination, while others migrated further west or sought refuge inside the Roman Empire. Goths who entered the Empire by crossing the Danube inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. These Goths would form the Visigoths, and under their king Alaric I, they began a long migration, eventually establishing a Visigothic Kingdom in Spain at Toledo.[3] Meanwhile, Goths under Hunnic rule gained their independence in the 5th century, most importantly the Ostrogoths. Under their king Theodoric the Great, these Goths established an Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy at Ravenna.

When my children were younger, I took them both on a trip to Gotland, taking the ferry from and to Oskarshamn. For me, one of the highlights of the trip was to take another ferry to the Fårö Island. Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918 – 2007) lived (from about 1960) and died on Fårö. Several of his films were made there: Through a Glass Darkly (1961) = Såsom i en spegel = As in a Mirror (literal translation), Persona (1966), Hour of the Wolf (1968) = Vargtimmen , Shame (1968) = Skammen, The Passion of Anna (1969) = En passion = A passion (literal translation), and Scenes from a Marriage (1973) = Scener ur ett äktenskap, a television miniseries in 6 episodes. Liv Ullmann’s Faithless (2000) = Trolösa, based on a Bergman screenplay, was also filmed there. Fårö is the subject of Bergman’s documentary films Fårö Document (1970) and Fårö Document 1979.

The first Bergman film I experienced was The Virgin Spring = Jungfrukällan (1960, Swedish) set in medieval Sweden, filmed at Styggforsen = Ugly Falls (literal translation), Dalarna, a county on mainland Sweden bordering Norway, south of Trøndelag. It is close to the Swedish town of Mora, which is about 500 – 560 km south east of Cliff Cottage, depending on the route taken. The story was adapted by historical novelist/ screenwriter Ulla Isaksson (1916 – 2000), yes, a woman, from a 13th-century Swedish ballad. For me, this fact remained in the foreground when I viewed the film. Isaksson was interested in the conflict between paganism and Christianity. This conflict is ongoing, but reduced as more of the Scandinavian population becomes atheistic, or at least agnostic.

The film’s violence is unpleasant to watch, yet the father’s merciless response to the rape and murder of his young daughter, is understandable. The film has left a lasting impression. Yet, the reason for Bergman selecting Isaksson as the screenwriter, probably has to do with the criticism of a his previous film, the Seventh Seal = Det sjunde inseglet (1957). It was called metaphorical and allegorical, but historically inaccurate.

The second Bergman film I saw was The Magic Flute = Trollflöjten (1975) a film version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756 – 1791) opera Die Zauberflöte. The work is widely viewed as one of the most successful films of an opera ever made, and once again left a lasting impression on me. Again, this work was not made on Gotland, Originally, Bergman had wanted to film the production at Drottningholm Palace Theatre, but because of concerns about its fragility, the stage, including wings, curtains, and wind machines, was copied and erected in the studios of the Swedish Film Institute, in Stockholm.

Of the Bergman films made on Fårö, Persona has left the most lasting impression. It has been called many things including: controversial and experimental. It is a reflection of Carl Jung’s (1875 – 1961) theory of persona, including references to abortion, filmmaking, homosexuality, motherhood, vampirism and other subjects. The plot involves a young nurse named Alma = Bibi Andersson (1935 – 2019) and her patient, well-known stage actress Elisabet Vogler = Liv Ullmann (1938 -), who has suddenly stopped speaking. They move to a cottage, where Alma cares for Elisabet. The film then examines the situation where the care giver has difficulty distinguishing herself from her patient.

World Goth Day #18 will look at Gothic writing and fonts. It will be published on Thursday, 2026-05-22.

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Mount Saint Helens revisited

I remember 1980-05-18 clearly. I was living with Trish at her parents’ house in Vancouver, contemplating a move to Norway, or perhaps New Zealand. That day, however, was focused on Mount Saint Helens.

Mount St. Helens’ eruption sent a 2.5 billion cubic meters of debris into the upper Toutle Valley, millions of tons of sediment still pour into the Cowlitz River each year. 45 years after blast, Mount St. Helens’ sediment still causing costly problems. Mount St. Helens’ sediment still causing costly problems. Cities grapple to maintain drinking water and deep ports. In 2024, the Port of Longview spent more than half a million dollars dredging about 5 600 cubic meters of Mount St. Helens’ sediment from the mouth of the Cowlitz River and nearby port berths.

A sediment retention dam has been in place since 1989, but it needs updating. That work has been delayed, leaving nearby cities to find their own solutions to drinking water needs and maintain deep draft levels at ports.

Kelso is looking to update its water system due to impeding sediment, while Castle Rock and Longview have changed their systems in light of the blast. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues to monitor sediment levels.

The problem

Mountain runoff carries ashen remains of what was the volcano’s peak into the North Fork Toutle River and down to the Toutle. From there, the lower Cowlitz River ferries an average of nearly 3 millions tons of sediment through Castle Rock, Kelso and Longview, where it dumps into the Columbia River

On this post’s publication, 45 years after the destruction, there are suggestions that Mount Saint Helens may explode again.

Some Geography

I am learning that providing a mountain’s height is sometimes not enough. So I am now including prominence where it is relevant. Prominence measures the height of a mountain or hill’s summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling it but containing no higher summit within it. It is a measure of the independence of a summit. The key col = saddle around the peak is a unique point on this contour line. A parent peak is some higher mountain, selected according to various criteria.

This illustration shows the concepts of topographic isolation and prominence. Artwork: Andrew pmk.

As the forty-fifth anniversary of the eruption of Mount Saint Helens approaches there are two other volcanoes attracting my attention.

Mount Spurr

However, there are suggestions that Mount Spurr, in Alaska, will be the American volcano that erupts first. It has a height of 3 370 m, with a prominence of 585 m. It has been active: swelling, quaking and venting noxious gases. Fortunately, communities do not live on its slopes that would be destroyed by lava. Unfortunately, lots of ash could be produced, which could affect Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage about 130 km away.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory raised Mount Spurr’s Level of Concern Color Code from Green to Yellow, on 2024-10-23. The mountain is known aboriginally by the Dena’ina Athabascan name K’idazq’eni = that which is burning inside.

Axial Seamount Volcano

One of the most active volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest is the Axial Seamount. It sits on the Juan de Fuca Ridge about 480 km off the coast of Astoria, Oregon. In the recent past, Axial has erupted three times, in 1998, 2011 and 2015. After the 2015 eruption, the volcano saw a period of decreased earthquake activity and seafloor rise, which has since ramped up around late 2024. Earthquakes are an important proxy for volcanic activity. Axial saw hundreds, then thousands of earthquakes every day in the months leading up to its eruption in 2015. On the day of its last eruption 9 000 earthquakes occurred.

Cascadia Day

Some people are wanting to call 05-18 Cascadia Day, because of the eruption of Mount Saint Helens. People realized that the earth is (figuratively) alive! Alfred Wegener (1880 – 1930) proposed the idea of continental drift in 1912. This led to Arthur Holmes (1890 – 1965) to gain an understanding of the mechanical and thermal implications of mantle convection, which led eventually to an understanding of plate tectonics. This led to an understanding of the Cascadia Subduction Zone by the mid 1980s. Gradually, there was an awareness that massive forces including volcanic eruptions, mountain building, mega-earthquakes, tsunamis and more can be regarded as an interacting system working beneath the surface of the earth.

Below is the Doug = Douglas fir = Pseudotsuga menziesii Flag. Its designer, Alexander Baretich, describes it as a tricolor consisting of three horizontal stripes of blue, white and green, with a single Douglas fir tree in the center. The blue stripe represents the sky, Pacific Ocean and Salish Sea, as well as the myriad of rivers in the bioregion including the Columbia, the Snake and Fraser Rivers. The white represents clouds and snow and the green represents the region’s countless fields and evergreen forests. The tree symbolizes endurance, defiance and resilience against fire, flood, catastrophic change, and ever increasingly against the anthropocentric man.

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International Telecommunications Union

Today, 2025-05-17, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is 160 years old. When it started out in 1865, the T stood for telegraph. Since then other technologies have become important for communication, so it appropriate that a more generic term has replaced telegraph.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin (1966 -), born in Monmouth, New Jersey, USA is the current Secretary-General of the ITU, elected at the 2022 Plenipotentiary Conference in Bucharest. She is the first woman to become ITU’s Secretary-General. She is fluent in English, French and Spanish.

So one area where the ITU works is in assigning radio frequencies for different purposes and call signs for various categories of radio frequency communication, including commercial stations and radio amateurs.

Call Signs

American call signs begin with K or W. For commercial radio and television stations K is in the west, while W is in the east. Currently, the Mississippi River is the dividing line. Thus, in my childhood, I watched KVOS television, on channel 12, broadcast from Bellingham, in Washington state. In New York state, WMHT is a Public Broadcasting System affiliate, on channel 17, broadcasting from Schenectady. Closer to, but west of the Mississippi River, KSDB-FM is a frequency modulated (FM) radio station broadcasting on 91.9 MHz. It is located in Manhattan = the Little Apple, Kansas. It is operated by Kansas State University, providing modern rock, urban, & local content. East of the Mississippi River, WAPL is another FM station, operated by Woodward Communications, Inc., in Appleton, Wisconsin. It broadcasts at 105.7 MHz and provides classic rock music.

Not all radio decisions are made by the ITU. Many decisions are national. For example, Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) is a digital radio standard for broadcasting digital audio radio services in many countries around the world. Currently, 55 countries are actively running DAB broadcasts as an alternative platform to analogue FM. Norway is in the process of transitioning all radio stations away from FM broadcasting to Digital Audio Broadcasting only. The country’s national radio outlets transitioned to DAB on 2017-12-13. Local radio stations remain available in FM, but will have to transfer to DAB on or before the end of 2031. Only six years to go.

ITU secretary-general Doreen is an active amateur radio operator holding call sign KD2JTX. For amateur radio, the above geographical rules do not apply. K indicates USA, the second letter in the prefix used to indicate competence levels, now it seems that every new operator is place at the lowest level = D. The 2 indicates a location in the states of New York or New Jersey. Other locations include 6 = California, and 7 = north-western states. The suffix, here JTX, identifies the particular person holding the license.

In Norway, all amateur radio call signs used to begin with LA. When that sequence was used up, they started with LB, such as my LB2XJ, and Alasdair’s LB6HI. However, for people who insist on having a LA call sign there are some workarounds. In Canada, amateur radio call signs vary with the province/ territory. In British Columbia they start with VA7 or VE7. Details are shown in the map below.

Map showing prefixes for amateur radio call signs in Canada

CBUT-DT, a digital television station in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, has served as the West Coast flagship of CBC Television since 1953-12-16. In my childhood, it was known as channel 2, and ended in TV, to distinguish it from the amplitude modulation (AM) radio station, CBUT. It is part of a twinstick = duopoly with Ici Radio-Canada Télé station CBUFT-DT on channel 26. The two stations share studios at the CBC Regional Broadcast Centre in downtown Vancouver. Their transmitters are located on top of Mount Seymour in the district municipality of North Vancouver. CBUT is the first and oldest television station in Western Canada. Call sign rules are not followed by everyone. Most CBC stations use call signs assigned to Chile!

Time

In this post, I would like to emphasize ITU’s role as gatekeeper of timing on planet Earth. It is not the only organization concerned with time. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) = Union astronomique internationale, (UAI, in French) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and development through global cooperation. It was founded on 1919-07-28 in Brussels, Belgium and is based in Paris, France.

Universal Time (UT) = mean solar time of the Greenwich meridian (0° longitude), replaced Greenwich Mean Time in 1928; it is now used to denote the solar time when an accuracy of about one second suffices. In 1955 the International Astronomical Union defined several categories of Universal Time of successively increasing accuracy. UT0 represents the initial values of Universal Time obtained by optical observations of star transits at various astronomical observatories. These values differ slightly from each other because of the effects of polar motion.

Universal Time (UT or UT1) is a time standard based on Earth’s rotation. Originally, it referred to mean solar time at 0° longitude. Because precise measurements of the Sun are difficult, UT1 is computed from a measure of the Earth’s angle with respect to the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF), called the Earth Rotation Angle (ERA, which serves as the replacement for Greenwich Mean Sidereal Time). UT1 is the same everywhere on Earth. UT1 is obtained by correcting UT0 for the effects of polar motion. Finally, an empirical correction to take account of annual changes in the Earth’s speed of rotation is added to UT1 to convert it into UT2. Coordinated Universal Time, the international basis of civil and scientific time, is obtained from an atomic clock that is adjusted so as to remain close to UT1; in this way, the solar time that is indicated by Universal Time is kept in close coordination with atomic time.

One would think that time would not be problematic in a relatively skinny country running north to south. That was generally not the case. Before universal time Norway was comparably late to introduce an official standard time, mainly due to the lack of a railway network connecting the country in an east–west direction. With the existence of a telegraph between Kristiania (Oslo) and Drammen, starting in 1855, the local time of Copenhagen, Denmark was used to measure time. That lasted until 1866 when it was replaced by Oslo local time, which was 7 minutes later.

In 1885 and then again in 1893 there were proposals to adopt a standard Norwegian time. Denmark, Germany and Sweden had adopted standard time = Central European time. Since the western and eastern Norwegian railways were planning to be interconnected ( it happened in 1909), Norway adopted Central European time on 1895-01-01. Since then, it has remained Greenwich + 1. Most church clocks were either moved backward (east of 15°E), or forward (west of 15°E) to use this time. Yes, previously, church clocks were the go-to time telling instrument.

Summer time

Summer time In Europe = Daylight Savings Time , in north America. From now on, DST will be used as an abbreviation for both of these terms.

The Journal de Paris, existed from 1777 to 1840. In 1784, it famously published an anonymous satirical letter written by Benjamin Franklin (1706 N.S. – 1790) encouraging Parisians to rise earlier to reduce candle usage. Through overreach, this has been credited with introducing the concept of DST.

One of the challenges with the current time system, is that many people have to change clocks twice a year. Even if computing devices = 9 units at Cliff Cottage, do that without intervention, I find no joy in having to change manual clocks = 12 units, twice a year. On a population level, that one hour transition results in unnecessary stress, including medical emergencies.

In Norway, DST was observed in 1916, 1943–45, and 1959–65. The last arrangement was controversial and it was discontinued. Sweden did not use DST during this period. When we first visited Scandinavia in 1979, DST was not in use. However, when we moved to Norway in 1980, DST had been reintroduced there and in Denmark and Sweden. Since 1996 Norway has followed the European Union regarding transition dates. Finland observed DST in 1942 and since 1981. Iceland has only observed summer time DST in 1917–1918 and in 1939–1968.

In North America, Yukon, most of Saskatchewan, and parts of British Columbia, Nunavut, Ontario and Quebec do not observe DST. Yukon and most of Saskatchewan use time zones equivalent to permanent DST. In USA, Hawaii does not observe DST. Neither does Arizona, but the Navajo Nation, which is mostly in Arizona but also partly in Utah and New Mexico, does. Inside the Navajo Nation is the Hopi Reservation, which does not observe DST.

Year-round DST was observed in 1942–1945 and 1974–1975.

Time changes fallow the old adage: spring forward = add an hour; fall back = subtract an hour. In north America the start of DST is the second sunday in March at 02:00. It ends on the first sunday in November at 02:00. In Europe, summer time starts last sunday in March at 01:00 UTC, and ends on the last sunday in October at 01:00 UTC.

In polls, most Europeans are opposed to DST. The European Commission tabled the draft directive on seasonal clock changes on 2018-09-12. This proposes: a) an end to biannual clock changes in all EU countries; b) a notification system to be used by an EU country if it wishes to change its standard time. DST was supposed to stop in 2021, but the Council of the European Union asked the European Commission for a detailed impact assessment before countries would decide on how to proceed. This has created meaningless delays.

Here is the latest consensus: support for permanent winter time in Denmark, the Netherlands (UTC+01:00) and Finland (UTC+02:00) while permanent summer time was supported in France, Germany and Poland (UTC+02:00) and Cyprus (UTC+03:00) excluding Northern Cyprus. Portugal, Spain, and Italy are in favour of keeping the current DST regime. In other words, there is no consensus.

Meanwhile in Norway, on Sommerøy = summer island, islanders in 2019 petitioned the Norwegian parliament to become a time-free zone. Yes, there are a few practical and legal challenges to be worked out. The island is part of Tromsø municipality, the largest city in Northern Norway. It is almost at 70° N, which experiences continuous daylight from 05-20 to 07-25, its midnight sun period. Conversely its midwinter dark period, lasts from 11-27 to 01-15.

The folly of DST and irregular time zones remains with the world today. Thus, on 2025-03-09 at precisely 02:00:00, Saint Pierre et Miquelon (population < 6 000) switched to DST, which is UTC -2 / Saint Pierre and Miquelon Daylight Time (PMDT), lost an hour in the process. Newfoundland and Labrador, followed half an hour later, changing to UTC -2:30 / Newfoundland DST (NDST). On 2025-11-02 at 02:00:00, in the respective time zones, time will revert back to standard or winter time, UTC -3/ in Saint Pierre and Miquelon Standard Time (PMST), duplicating an hour in the process. Latecomer, Newfoundland and Labrador, followed half an hour later to UTC -3:30. My hope – if only for health and safety reasons – is to avoid changing time twice a year.

Even worse that Newfoundland/ Labrador is Eucla/Australian Central Western Time. It’s UTC+8:45. It is the easternmost locality in Western Australia, located in the Goldfields-Esperance region, along the Eyre Highway, approximately 11 kilometres west of the South Australian border. According to the 2016 Australian census, Eucla had a population of 53.

Perhaps the best place to end is to enjoy the situation in Kiribati (pronounced kiribass), with its 21 inhabited islands, an area of 811.19 km2, and an estimated population of 121 388 in 2021. It occupies time zones UTC+13 and UTC+14. This puts it on the same days as Australia and New Zealand, but increases the nominal duration of a day to 26 hours. This is because before they switched time zones, they were in UTC-11 and UTC-10 respectively.

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Letters and Papers from Prison

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The Ordeal (2004), a Sculpture by Edith Breckwoldt (1937 – 2013) in Hamburg, Germany. “The ordeal. No man in the whole world can change the truth. One can only look for the truth, find it and serve it. The truth is in all places.” Text by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Photo: Emma7stern, 2011-04-29.

Often, I am just a little too late. I began writing this post on 2025-04-12, eighty years and three days after the execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I accept that I am imperfect, and missed the opportunity to publish this post on the anniversary of his death. So I will attempt to make this reflection more relevant to the current age, and publish it on the 80th anniversary of the official end of World War two, 2025-04-08.

In case anyone believes that only the Axis side of the war acted with evil intent, let me remind people that early in 1945-04, the first Allied-governed Rheinwiesenlager camps = Rhine meadow camps, a group of 19 concentration camps built in the Allied-occupied part of Germany by the U.S. Army to hold hundreds of thousands of captured or surrendered Axis Forces personnel. Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force reclassified all prisoners as disarmed enemy forces, not prisoners of war. The legal fiction circumvented provisions under the Geneva Convention of 1929 on the treatment of former combatants. By 1945-10 thousands had died in the camps from starvation, exposure and disease.

A reflection about Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945).

Bonhoeffer lived a short and anonymous life. He was arrested in 1943-04 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison in Berlin for 1½ years. His letters (and other papers) originate from here, but were smuggled out of prison. This correspondence contained provocative concepts about the world and the church. He was then transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria, where he met his death by hanging.

Much of Bonhoeffer’s appeal relates to his radical thoughts about the future of Christianity in the postwar world. It is a world of religionless Christianity, a world without God. These thoughts appealed to the many for whom the old ideas and institutions of the church no longer seemed adequate. My interpretation is that God had died, or at the very least, failed people, by not suppressing the second world war. God was unwilling to intervene on the side of truth or fairness. God was willing to let might rule, and to sacrifice the innocent. This is the situation in every war since then.

Many theologians see a breach in Bonhoeffer’s thought, a demarcation that separates his later life, where he abandons almost everything that he had previously affirmed and confessed as a Christian. Others see a continuity between these later, radical concepts and what he had believed and written before.

Much of Bonhoeffer’s appeal related to Christology, the branch of theology that concerns Jesus. Such as whether Jesus was human or divine or both; Christ’s role as a messiah, including a role in the freeing of the Jewish people from foreign rulers. There are also questions about salvation, and the consequences of sin.

Much of Letters and Papers from Prison, involves a correspondence with Eberhard Bethge (1909 – 2000). Bethge carefully preserved most of what he received, collected additional materials from others after the war, then published the first edition in German in 1951, followed by an English language translation in 1952. Since then, new editions with additional content and improved translations have been published.

It appears that Bethge took years to conclude that these scattered and seemingly random scraps should be published. In postwar Germany there were many who considered Bonhoeffer a traitor because he conspired against Hitler. Bon­hoeffer was not regarded as a proper academic, so his opinions were easy to dismiss. The book was regarded as dangerous, because it discusses the end of religion and living in a godless world. In addition, the book was esoteric and fragmentary. Upon its publication, it overcame all these obstacles and now stands as a landmark of theology.

The most relevant part of Bonhoeffer’s writing today deals with stupidity. He writes:

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.

If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid. We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them. We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem. It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like, that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.

Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity.

But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.

The other writing of Bonhoeffer, that I would like to include here, has to do with cheap and costly grace. He writes:

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. […] Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son …. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (2003), pp. 47-9. 

One of the world’s challenges in 2025 and beyond, is related to hybrid warfare. Frank Hoffman (? – ) defined hybrid warfare in 2007 as: the emerging simultaneous use of multiple types of warfare by flexible and sophisticated adversaries who understand that successful conflict requires a variety of forms designed to fit the goals at the time. Much of it is related to creating then enhancing divisions within a population. A popular way of doing this is through getting people with different religious affiliations to enter into conflicts with each other.

It is particularly easy for enemy agents to recruit different groups to oppose other groups. Imagine enemy agents pretending to be Protestants, attempting to recruit real Protestants to oppose people of other religions, which might include Jews, Catholics, Muslims and others, including non-believers. These same agents could then pretend to be members of these other religions, once again to recruit others. In this way, a country becomes increasingly split along religious lines.

It is important for everyone to know how hybrid warfare works. Its purpose is simple: to divide a nation into factions opposed to other factions.

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Ondes Martenot

Ondes Martenot is an electronic music instrument invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. Photo: 30rKs56MaE from Japan, taken in 2006-05-23 at The Atelier Jean-Louis Martenot in Neuilly (near Paris).

Ondes Martenot = Martenot waves = ondes musicales = musical waves is an early electronic musical instrument played with a keyboard or by moving a ring along a wire, creating wavering sounds similar to a theremin.

The ondes Martenot was invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot (1898 – 1980) who, working as a radio operator in World War I, and was inspired by the accidental overlaps of tones between radio oscillators. He wanted to replicate these and hoped to bring the musical expressivity of the cello to this new instrument.

Units were manufactured to order. Over the following years, Martenot produced several variants/ versions/ models, introducing the ability to produce vibrato by moving the keys. Martenot was interested in mass-producion, which may have contributed to the instrument’s declining popularity following initial interest.

The ondes Martenot is unique among electronic musical instruments in its methods of control. It can be played with a metal ring worn on the right index finger. Sliding the ring along a wire produces theremin-like tones, generated by oscillator circuits using vacuum tubes, or transistors in the seventh model.

Martenot first demonstrated the ondes Martenot 1928-04-20, performing the Greek-French composer Dimitrios Levidis’ (1885/ 6 – 1951) Poème symphonique at the Paris Opera.

The third model, unveiled in 1929, had a non-functioning simulacrum of a keyboard below the wire to indicate pitch. This model also had a “black fingerguard” on a wire which could be used instead of the ring. It was held between the right thumb and index finger, which was played standing at a distance from the instrument. When played in this way, the drawer is removed from the instrument and placed on a bench next to the player. Maurice Martenot’s Pedagogical Manual for the ondes Martenot (1931), offers instruction on both methods of playing.

Later versions added a functioning keyboard; the keys produce vibrato when moved from side to side. This was introduced in the 1930s with the 84-key fourth version of the instrument. Subsequent versions had 72 keys. Combined with a switch that transposes the pitch by one octave, these instruments have a range from C1 to C8. A drawer allows manipulation of volume and timbre by the left hand. Volume is controlled with a touch sensitive glass lozenge.

Early models can produce only a few waveforms. Later models could simultaneously generate sine, peak-limited triangle, square, pulse, and full-wave rectified sine waves, in addition to pink noise, all controlled by switches in the drawer. The square wave and full-wave rectified sine wave can be further adjusted by sliders in the drawer. On the Seventh model, a dial at the top of the drawer adjusts the balance between white noise and the other waveforms. A second dial adjusts the balance between the three speakers. A switch allows a performer to select between the keyboard and the wire.

Further adjustments can be made using controls in the body of the instrument. These include several dials for tuning the pitch, a dial for adjusting the overall volume, a switch to transpose the pitch by one octave, and a switch to activate a filter. The drawer of the seventh version also includes six transposition buttons, which change the pitch by different intervals. These can be combined to immediately raise the pitch by up to a minor ninth.

Martenot produced four speakers, called diffuseurs, for the instrument. The Métallique features a gong instead of a speaker cone, producing a metallic timbre. It was used by the first ondes Martenot quartets in 1932. Another, the Palme speaker, has a resonance chamber laced with strings tuned to all 12 semitones of an octave; when a note is played in tune, it resonates a particular string, producing chiming tones. It was first presented alongside the sixth version in 1950.

The ondes Martenot was promoted by performance tours in Europe, North America and elsewhere in the world. In 1937, the ondes Martenot was displayed at the Exposition Internationale de Paris with concerts and demonstrations in an ensemble setting with up to twelve ondists performing together. Beginning in 1947, the ondes Martenot was taught at the Paris Conservatory, with Martenot as the first teacher.

This post began, not by examining the ondes Martenot, but by reading about ondist Jeanne Loriod (1928 – 2001), a French musician, regarded as the world’s leading exponent of the ondes Martenot. Yes, a player of the ondes Martenot is called an ondist. Her most notable performances included the Turangalîla-Symphonie. Her repertoire included 14 concertos, some 300 works with concertante parts for ondes and another 250 chamber works. She also performed in numerous film soundtracks, and published a definitive work on the instrument, Technique de l’onde electronique type Martenot (1987) in three volumes.

Olivier Messiaen (1908 – 1992) French composer, organist, teacher of composition and musical analysis as well as an ornithologist, was responsible for creating the most interesting music for l’ondes Martenot. A Wikipedia biographical article about Messiaen details his work, including his interest in birdsongs. Much of the fame associated the ondes Martenot is because of Messiaen’s compositions. After his death, his widow, Yvonne Loriod (1924 – 2010), Jeanne Loriod’s sister, arranged and edited four unpublished Feuillets inédits for ondes Martenot and piano which were published in 2001.

Others who used the instrument include: French composer, teacher and musicologist Charles Koechlin (1867 – 1950); French composer and music critic Florent Schmitt (1870 – 1958); French and American composer Edgard Varèse (1883 – 1965) described by Henry Millar (1891 – 1980) as the Stratospheric Colossus of Sound, did not use the ondes Martenot often, but it did appear in the premiere of Amériques in Paris (1918 – 1921, revised 1927); French composes Jacques Ibert (1890 – 1962); French composer, conductor and teacher Darius Milhaud (1892 – 1974) enjoyed the unusual nature of the ondes Martenot, used it several times in the 1930s for incidental music; Swiss composer Arthur Honegger (1892 – 1955), whose most notable work including the ondes Martenot was his dramatic oratorio, Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher (1935) in which the ondes Martenot’s unique sonority was used to augment the string section; British-Hungarian composer Mátyás Seiber (1905–1960); French composer, biographer and arts administrator Marcel Landowski (1915 – 1999); John Morton (1931-2014), performed works by Messiaen, Milhaud, Honegger and Bartok, amongst others at the Royal Albert Hall and elsewhere in the 1970s, as well as on television and radio; Québécois (Canadian) composer, pianist, poet and ethnomusicologist Claude Vivier (1948 – 1983); British composer Thomas Adès (1971 – ) made extensive use of the ondes Martenot in his opera, The Exterminating Angel (2016) stating that the ondes Martenot could be considered the voice of the exterminating angel.

Today, people are most likely to encounter l’onde Martenot in the sound tracks of science fiction and horror films. It has also been used by: Musicologist and rare instrument musician Thomas Bloch (1962 – ) who also uses other instruments such as the glass harmonica, and cristal baschet (both to be topics of future weblog posts); Daft Punk, formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter (1975 – ) and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (1974 – ), Damon Albarn (1968 – ) of Blur and Jonny Greenwood (1971 – ) of Radiohead, who described it as “a very accurate theremin that you have far more control of … When it’s played well, you can really emulate the voice.”

Douglas Martin (? – ) in 2001 described its sound as a haunting wail. David McNamee (? – ) in 2009, said the ondes Martenot can be as soothing and moving as a string quartet, but nerve-jangling when gleefully abused.

The English musicologist, composer and inventor of experimental musical instruments Hugh Davies (1943 – 2005). estimated that more than 1 000 works had been composed for the ondes. Jeanne Loriod estimated that there were 15 concertos and 300 pieces of chamber music. The instrument was used in French theatres such as the Comédie-Française, the Théâtre National Populaire and the Folies-Bergère.

Thomas Adès’s opera The Exterminating Angel makes extensive use of the Ondes Martenot, which Adès says “could be considered the voice of the exterminating angel”.

The Guardian described Jonny Greenwood of the English rock band Radiohead as a champion of the ondes Martenot. He first used it on Radiohead’s 2000 album Kid A, and it appears in Radiohead songs including The National Anthem, How to Disappear Completely and Where I End and You Begin.

The ondist Thomas Bloch toured in Tom Waits and Robert Wilson’s show The Black Rider (2004–06)[36] and in Damon Albarn’s opera “Monkey: Journey to the West” (2007–2013).[37] Bloch performed ondes Martenot on the 2009 Richard Hawley album Truelove’s Gutter and the 2013 Daft Punk album Random Access Memories.[13] In 2020, the French composer Christine Ott released Chimères (pour Ondes Martenot), an avant-garde album using only the ondes Martenot.[38]

Film and television

The first uses of electronic music in film was probably in 1934, when Arthur Honegger (1892 – 1955) used an ondes Martenot in his soundtrack for the 1932 French animated film L’Idée = The Idea, by Austro-Hungarian filmmaker Berthold Bartosch (1893-1968). In 1936 Adolphe Borchard (1882–1967) used an ondes Martenot in Sacha Guitry’s (1885-1957) Le roman d’un tricheur = Confessions of a Cheat. The instrument was, played by Martenot’s sister, Ginette. It was used by composer Brian Easdale in the ballet music for The Red Shoes.[40][better source needed] French composer Maurice Jarre introduced the ondes Martenot to American cinema in his score for Lawrence of Arabia (1962).[41] Composer Harry Lubin created cues for The Loretta Young Show, One Step Beyond and The Outer Limits featured the instrument, as did the first-season Lost in Space (1965) theme by John Williams. The English composer Richard Rodney Bennett used it for scores for films including Billion Dollar Brain (1967) and Secret Ceremony (1968).[42] Elmer Bernstein learned about the ondes Martenot through Bennet, and used it in scores for films including Heavy Metal,[43] Ghostbusters,[44][45] The Black Cauldron,[45] Legal Eagles, The Good Son, and My Left Foot.[45]

Composer Danny Elfman used the instrument in the soundtrack to the comedy science fiction film Mars Attacks!: he had originally intended to use a theremin, but was unable to find a musician who could play one.[46]

Director Lucille Hadžihalilović decided to use the instrument in her film Evolution (2015) as it “brings a certain melancholy, almost a human voice, and it instantly creates a particular atmosphere”.[47] Other film scores that use the ondes Martenot include A Passage to India, Amelie, Bodysong,[2] There Will Be Blood (2007), Hugo (2011)[48] and Manta Ray.[49]

The ondes Martenot is the subject of the 2013 Quebec documentary Wavemakers.[50] It is used in a performance of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time in an episode from the third season of the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle, where a musician plays the ondes Martenot to inmates on Rikers Island.[51][52]

The British composer, arranger and conductor Barry Gray (1908–1984) studied the instrument with Martenot in Paris, and used it in his soundtracks for 1960s films including Dr Who and the Daleks (1965) and Doppelgänger (1969) as well as his scores for English television and film producer, director, writer and occasional voice artist Gerry Anderson’s (1929 – 2012) TV series. One of Gray’s instruments (a model 6 from 1969) was inherited and restored by film composer François Evans (1965 – ) who used it in Edgar Wright’s (1974 – ) first feature film, A Fistful of Fingers (1995). , and occasionally records with this instrument in his soundtracks. Evans studied ondes Martenot under Pascale Rousse-Lacordaire (? – ), who was a student of Maurice Martenot and Jeanne Loriod.

The ondes Martenot is sometimes claimed to have been used in the original Star Trek theme; the part was in fact performed by a singer.[2]
Legacy

In 2001, the New York Times described the ondes, along with other early electronic instruments such as the theremin, teleharmonium, trautonium, and orgatron, as part of a “futuristic electric music movement that never went remotely as far as its pioneers dreamed … proponents of the new wired music delighted in making previously unimaginable noises”. The French classical musician Thomas Bloch said: “The ondes martenot is probably the most musical of all electric instruments … Martenot was not only interested in sounds. He wanted to use electricity to increase and control the expression, the musicality. Everything is made by the musician in real time, including the control of the vibrato, the intensity, and the attack. It is an important step in our electronic instrument lineage.”

Journalist Alex Ross (1968 – ) estimates that fewer than 100 people have mastered the ondes Martenot. Mark Singer (1950 – ) wrote in 1997 for The Wire that it would likely remain obscure: “The fact is that any instrument with no institutional grounding of second- and third-raters, no spectral army of amateurs, will wither and vanish: how can it not? Specialist virtuosos may arrive to tackle the one-off novelty … but there’s no meaningful level of entry at the ground floor, and, what’s worse, no fallback possibility of rank careerism if things don’t turn out.”

One of the quirks/ features of ondes Martenot’s electronics is its use of a powder to transfers electric currents. Martenot would mix in different quantities according to musicians’ specifications; the precise proportions are unknown. Attempts to construct new ondes Martenot models using Martenot’s original specifications have had variable results.

Because of the inherent fragility of l’ondes Martenot, there have been attempts to construct more robust functional equivalents.

In 2000, Jonny Greenwood commissioned Analogue Systems, a synthesizer manufacturer, to develop a replica, because he was nervous about damaging his instrument on tour. This replica, called the French Connection, imitates the ondes Martenot’s control mechanism, but does not generate sound directly. Instead, it controls an external oscillator.

David Kean (? – ) is a musician, composer and audio engineer. In 1995 he founded Audities Studios in Seattle. In 1996 he relocated to Los Angeles. In early 2000 he relocated to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He collects electronic instruments and owns the Mellotron Company. In 2000 he created an improved replica version of l’ondes Martenot.

Jean-Loup Dierstein (? – ) maintained an Ondes Martenot at the Conservatoire de Paris from 2006. This sometimes required him to manufacture new parts to replace the defective and obsolete parts. Thus, it was able to restore fully unusable instruments. In 2011 he decided to manufacture his own variant. These reproduction instruments can be bought for about € 12 000. In 2012, the Canadian company Therevox began selling a synthesizer with an interface based on the ondes Martenot pitch ring and intensity key. In 2017, the Japanese company Asaden manufactured 100 Ondomo instruments, a portable version of the ondes Martenot.

Perhaps the best introduction to ondes Martenot is a short (3m51s) video of Thomas Block, playing improvisations at Fisher Lane studios, in 2010-12.

Notes

I have previously mention ondes Martenot, in a weblog post about the Therevox, published 2022-10-08.

Content from several Wikipedia articles, and other sources, have been reproduced here, without any form of acknowledgement! These weblog posts are not intended to be cited in academic articles. Hopefully, most of the content is correct, but that is not guaranteed. At breakfast on 2025-01-26, I was reminded of this by Trish, who handed me an article about the fallibility of Wikipedia. A Norwegian author had corrected some factual mistakes in a Wikipedia biography about him. The next day he received a life-time editing ban from Wikipedia. The perpetrator of the incorrect information had reported him for vandalism. For example, I find it increasingly difficult to find correct birth and even death years. For some reason, people are reluctant to provide this information. I find these dates are important, because circumstances change. Someone born in Europe in, say. 1935, will have a very different experience of life in their early years, than that of someone born in North America in 2005.