The ‘Orgue des Ondes’ Armand Givelet & Edouard Eloi Coupleux, France. 1929

Organist Charles Tournemire at the Orgue Des Ondes in the église de Villemomble 1931
Organist Charles Tournemire at the Orgue Des Ondes in the église de Villemomble 1931 (Image: 1931 / A. Boukelion)

In 1929 the radio engineer Armand Givelet began a long collaboration with the organ builder Edouard Eloi Coupleux with the ambition to build on his experience with the Clavier à Lampe to create a popular electronic organ for use in churches, cinemas and concert halls. The resulting instrument, the Orgue des Ondes or ‘Wave Organ’ was based on vacuum tube technology but implemented the RC oscillator design rather than the heterodyne principle of the the Theremin, Ondes-Martenot  and others. Uniquely for its time, the Orgue des Ondes had an oscillator for each key therefore the instrument was polyphonic, a distinct advantage over its rivals – despite the amount of room needed to house the huge machine.

The Orgue Des Ondes installed at the Poste Parisien, Paris, France c 1928
The Orgue Des Ondes installed at the Poste Parisien radio station, Paris, France c 1928

The organ had over 700 vacuum oscillator tubes to give it a pitch range of 70 notes and ten different timbres – for each different timbre a different set of tubes was used. The Organ may have used as many as 1,000 tubes in total for oscillators and amplifiers. These tubes were housed in a separate rack ten feet long and six feet wide, out of sight of any audience.

Multiple vacuum tubes of the Orgue Des Ondes
Multiple vacuum tubes of the Orgue Des Ondes

The sound of the organ was said to be particularly rich due to small variations in the tuning between each note creating a chorus like effect – in fact, the organ was capable of an early type of additive (addition of sine or simple waveforms) and subtractive (filtering complex waveforms) synthesis due to its number of oscillators and distortion of the sine waves produced by the LC oscillators.

Marshal Pétain reviews the inauguration of the Orgue Des Ondes at the Poste Parisien radio station. Image; 'Le Petit Parisien' 27 October 1932.
Marshal Pétain reviews the inauguration of the Orgue Des Ondes at the Poste Parisien radio station. Image; ‘Le Petit Parisien’ 27 October 1932.

Le Petit Parisien 27th October 1932

Le Post Parisien soon to inaugurate the “Wave Organ”

The organ which has been installed at the Post Parisien will be inaugurated in a few days, on 26 October. The organ, not a typical orchestral instrument used by numerous radio broadcasters, is the result of the latest perfections of technology. This organ, whose powerful voice will soon be broadcast on the waves, has little resemblance to the monumental organs of Notre Dame, Saint-Eustache and Saint-Etienne du Mont. One searches in vain for the forest of pipes which previously would show the instrument’s personality. Instead, two mahogany chests flank the organ, which, pierced with loudspeakers resembling portholes, replace the hundreds of slender colonnades of pipes, evoking the appearance of a harmonium.

This revolution however is not just decorative. The ‘Orgue Des Ondes’, which has just been installed in the large auditorium of the Post Parisien on the Champs Elysees, can be considered one of the most remarkable contributions of current science.

Eloy Coupleux, its inventor and manufacturer (with Armand Givelet) gave me a description of the instrument which, today can rival the the most venerable consecrated instruments. To establish his instrument, Mr. Coupleux started from the principle that every note was to be a transmitter, creating an oscillation at the same frequency of each note. Each of these positions corresponds to a key keyboards or pedal which when pressed trigger an oscillating circuit corresponding to an oscillating frequency of the note and the sound – thus creating all the vibrations of the musical scale. As for sounds, which in the classical organ, are dependent on the shape, length and mouth of the pipes, they are here created by and electrical circuit. The instrument, which has many advantages (over a classical organ. ed ), has three keyboards, pedals and seventy-six stops. The organ is insensible to temperature changes – unlike a classical organ – and is perfectly flexible, offering the possibility of indefinite virtuoso repetitions of high-speed lines. Similarly, the sound can, thanks to the amplified speakers, reach everywhere at the same time – and with radio transmissions of the movement of the keys, at a speed of 300,000 kilometers per second, an organist could play the organ of the Poste Parisien perfectly to the borders of Japan.

Rejuvenated by the miracle of the waves, the instrument will generate new interest in organs due to the vast increase in it’s abilities.
Maurice Bourdet.

1 Le Petit Parisien : journal quotidien du soir, 27 Octobre 1932,1.

The organ was controlled in the usual way with two manual keyboards, drawbars or stops and foot pedal controls for volume and expression. The instrument was said to accurately reproduce the sound of a large pipe organ as well as flutes, brass, and woodwind. The amplified sound from the organ was fed into a large array of thirty loudspeakers spaced around the performance room.2La Nature 1930, ‘Nouveaux instruments de musique Radio électriques, piano et orgue radioélectriques Givelet-Coupleux’, Cinquante huitième année, deuxième semestre – n. 2836-2847, 258-262.

The Orgue Des Ondes installed at the Poste Parisien radio station, Paris, France c 1928
The Orgue Des Ondes installed at the Poste Parisien radio station, Paris, France, 1932

It is unclear how many of the instruments were built – sources put the number at four or perhaps eight, however, the first Orgues Des Ondes was installed at thr Église de Villemomble in the Parisian suburbs of Saint-Denis – inaugurated by the famous organist Charles Tournemire on the 6th December 1931. The second and more famous instrument was installed at the Poste Parisien radio station and auditorium on the Champs Elysees, Paris, inaugurated on 25th of October 1932.3Science et monde : tout pour tous : des idées, des faits.1932-11-17, 8. The high-profile inauguration event  was lead by the famous organist and composer Maurice Duruflé who’s repertoire of the evening included:

    • Mendelssohn: ‘6th Sonata’
    • Bach: ‘I cry to you Lord’
    • Buxtehude: ‘modal Fugue in C’
    • Vierne: ‘Allegrro perennial of the 1st Symphony ‘
    • Duruflé: ‘Sicilian’
    • Gigout: ‘Toccata ‘
    • Franck: ‘Pastorale’ Schumann ‘Canon in B Minor’

Duruflé thereafter performed every Sunday from August 1932 to January 1933. Both instruments seem to have later been removed and replaced with more modern organs.

The Orgue Des Ondes was met with praise from the scientific community and some musicians – including a young Olivier Messiaen – but also came under fierce criticism as being a frivolous invention or ‘fairground toy’ competing in the serious world of religious music (even the President of the Republic, Albert Lebrun joined in the critical affray). Part of the problem was that Coupleux and Givelet had created a futuristic instrument but placed it in a ‘traditional’ and conservative environment unwilling to countenance the replacement of the ‘sacred’ and timeless pipe organ with a synthetic newcomer. For example, it was only in the 1960s that The Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church admitted the use of electronic organs in sacred music but emphasised the preeminence of the pipe organ;

“with the knowledge and consent of the competent territorial authority, provided that the instruments are suitable for sacred use.”4 Bush, Douglas and Kassel, Richard, The Organ, An Encyclopedia, Taylor & Francis, 2004, 165.

Despite its initial warm reception, the Orgue Des Ondes eventually succumbed to the practicality and portability of the American built Hammond Organ which also targeted the religious market as well as domestic music making. This competition bankrupted the Givelet-Coupleux partnership in 1935.

Images of the Orgue Des Ondes and othe Coupleux-Givelet instruments.

The Coupleux brothers, Paul, Leon and Eloi
The Coupleux brothers, Paul, Leon and Eloi

Eloi Coupleux Biographical notes

The Coupleux piano manufacturing business was founded in 1865 originally as a modest watchmaking workshop based in Rue Carnot, Tourcoing, Lille, France by Pierre Coupleux . On Pierre’s death in 1904 the Coupleux sons – Eloi, Paul and Leon took over the business and, extending their knowledge of watchmaking, they began to manufacture music boxes, phonographs, devices for optical illusions, fairground equipment and early cinema equipment. The Coupleux’s soon began selling Pianos and other stringed instruments fired by the new middle class demand for the instrument. The Coupleux fuelled this fire by giving promotional concerts around France and Europe, recording their own records and eventually launching their own radio station ‘Radio Flanders’ in 1923 – five years before the existence of French national state radio.

Coupleux brothers working at their fathers watchmaking shop c1900
Coupleux brothers working at their fathers watchmaking shop c1900

In 1908, having secured the French monopoly of imported American Pianolas, Paul Coupleux, by then an established piano dealer and tuner, opened a second shop in one of Lille’s most affluent shopping street 24 bis, rue Esquermoise, Lille selling their own manufactured pianos.

The Coupleux shop at 24 bis, rue Esquermoise, Lille France c 1920
The Coupleux shop at 24 bis, Rue Esquermoise, Lille France c 1920

During the First World War Lille was occupied by the Germans and much of the Coupleux brothers shop and warehouse was destroyed. However in 1919 they realised that there was a new demand for church organs; most of the churches of Northern France and Belgium had been destroyed or damaged and soon their order books were full due to the demand for Coupleux pipe Organs. By 1923 the business was thriving with 150 staff and a production of 150 pianos per month.

The Coupleux company continued to thrive until 1935 when the simultaneous and combined forces of the commercial failure of their electronic musical instrument and the economic crisis of the 1930s closed the business. The rue Esquermoise shop continued as a music store until 1997 long after the closure of the instrument manufacturing business.

Workers at the Coupleux frères piano and organ workshop at 100 rue du Moulin-Fagot, Tourcoing, Lillle, France c1920
Workers at the Coupleux frères piano and organ workshop at 100 rue du Moulin-Fagot, Tourcoing, Lillle, France c1920

Eloi Coupleux was a self taught engineer, he had left school at fifteen and began working in his father’s watchmaking shop where he soon discovered his mechanical talent. His inventions included a dual disk phonograph for stereo audio, the Télépiano (1922) – a device for transmitting piano vibration magnetically down a telephone wire and numerous audio reproduction machines. And it was this obsession with new technology that lead him to meet the physicist and engineer Armand Givelet in 1927.

Louise Coupleux (sister of Eloi) playing an amplified Télépiano in c1922
Louise Coupleux (sister of Eloi) playing an amplified Télépiano in c1922

This meeting was the beginning of a long collaboration between the duo designing new electronic musical instruments. Their first device was a larger, polyphonic version of Givelet’s ‘Clavier à lampe designed for use as a large church organ. The resulting instrument the Orgue Des Ondes was premiered at the 1929 exhibition in Paris and was one of the first electronic organs. Despite international publicity only four of the huge instruments were sold – all to churches in Northern France. 5 Carpentier, Oliver. L’Aventure industrielle des frères Coupleux, 1900-1935, Préface de Douglas Heffer, éditions de l’Inoui, 2004.

Sheet music book and the Orgue Des Ondes
Sheet music book and the Orgue Des Ondes


References

  • 1
    Le Petit Parisien : journal quotidien du soir, 27 Octobre 1932,1.
  • 2
    La Nature 1930, ‘Nouveaux instruments de musique Radio électriques, piano et orgue radioélectriques Givelet-Coupleux’, Cinquante huitième année, deuxième semestre – n. 2836-2847, 258-262.
  • 3
    Science et monde : tout pour tous : des idées, des faits.1932-11-17, 8.
  • 4
    Bush, Douglas and Kassel, Richard, The Organ, An Encyclopedia, Taylor & Francis, 2004, 165.
  • 5
    Carpentier, Oliver. L’Aventure industrielle des frères Coupleux, 1900-1935, Préface de Douglas Heffer, éditions de l’Inoui, 2004.

 

8 thoughts on “The ‘Orgue des Ondes’ Armand Givelet & Edouard Eloi Coupleux, France. 1929”

    1. Bonjour Christian,

      Merci pour votre commentaire. Est’que c’est le même livre de cette publication; ‘ L’Aventure industrielle des frères Coupleux, 1900-1935 Préface de Douglas Heffer, éditions de l’Inoui, 2004.’?

      Simon

      (malheuresement mon Française c’est très mal)

      1. excusez le retard à répondre
        Les références : Les instruments de Coupleux et Givelet 1920-1935, une origine française de la musique électronique
        Université Paris-Sorbonne, Musicologie, informatique et nouvelles technologies, Observatoire musical français, Série Musique et nouvelles technologies, n°1-2004, ISBN 2-84591-096-7
        épuisé

  1. Unfortunately, the statement implying that the Hammond organ was “designed for the Jazz age and home use rather than the limited religious market” is inaccurate.
    The organ was originally marketed and sold by the Hammond Organ Company to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, or instead of a piano. The company started marketing it as a home instrument or for the jazz scene when sales on the church market started to dwindle, but at that time tens of thousands of churches had bought the organ. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammond_organ

  2. I share here the synthesis of my recent research about the Givelet and Coupleux instruments :

    1927 – “Clavier à lampe” [“Valve/Tube Keyboard”] (name in 1933 Givelet article) = “Piano radio-électrique” (name in 1927 French patent) (can be seen as prototype #1). It is the first instrument by Armand Givelet. It was a very simple and monophonic instrument with only one oscillating valve, one loudspeaker and a two octaves keyboard. Demos were given in Paris at “Trocadéro” and “Grand Palais” in 1927. A first experience of direct broadcasting was realised on 27 March 1928 at the “Société des Ingénieurs Civils” in Paris. No picture available.

    1929 – “Automatic Electrical Musical Instrument” (name in 1930 patent) (can be seen as prototype #2). It is the first instrument resulting from the collaboration between Armand Givelet and Eloy Coupleux. Its principle is described in the 1,957,392 American patent (filed in April 1930 / May 1929 in France). The prototype was in fact the union of a player piano mechanism (the company Coupleux Frères was an importer of Pianola in France) and five Givelet “clavier à lampe” devices (tuned as a string quintet). A successful demo was given in Paris at “Salle Pleyel” on 16 November 1929 during the “Congrès National de Radiodiffusion”. It can be seen on the herein photograph named “givelet” (with Eloy Coupleux on the left and perhaps Armand Givelet on the right).

    1930 – “Orgue radio-électrique” (name in 1930 La Nature article) (can be seen as prototype #3). It is the first Coupleux-Givelet organ. Its principle is described in the 1,905,996 American patent (filed in July 1930 / July 1929 in France). The prototype was a limited demonstration device but was a fully polyphonic and multi-timbral organ with 2 manuals and pedal. A successful demo was given at the “Académie des Sciences” on 6 October 1930. It can be seen on the herein photograph named “wave_organ” (with Eloy Coupleux).

    After 1931 – “Orgue des ondes” [“Wave Organ”] = “orgue Coupleux-Givelet” (or sometimes “orgue Givelet-Coupleux” or “orgue Givelet” or “Givelet”). It is the true Coupleux-Givelet organ. The improvements are described in the 1,980,911 and 1,980,912 American patents (filed in 1932 and 1933 / 1931 and 1932 in France). The number of built organs is unclear : 4, 5, “8 or 9”… according to different sources… including or not the 1930 prototype…
    – The first one was built in the church of Villemomble (near Paris) and was inaugurated on 6 December 1931 with the presence of the Paris Cardinal and the participation of the famous organist Charles Tournemire. Two manuals and pedal, 23 stops, 288 valves (just for oscillators), 7 loudspeakers. It can be seen on the herein photograph named “coupleux_20” (with Eloy Coupleux).
    – The most famous was built in the radio station “Le Poste Parisien” and was inaugurated on 26 October 1932 with the presence of several ministers and the participation of the organists Maurice Duruflé and Louis Vierne. Three manuals and pedal, 76 stops (some of them being accessories like cymbals or bells), 400 valves (just for oscillators), 15 loudspeakers. From August 1932 (before inauguration) to January 1933, successful concerts were broadcasted every Sunday, in most cases by the organist Maurice Duruflé.
    – The pictures on this page show at least two other organs in churches. I have read somewhere that other organs were implanted in Northern France and Switzerland churches but it is unclear.
    – Coupleux Frères went bankrupt in 1934 or 1935 (but it is possible that the last organs were built until 1937 ?)

    Other remarks :
    – The oscillators of all these instruments were not based on heterodyne principle (used by Theremin and Martenot) but were LC oscillators made with only one valve each.
    – The patents evoke several means to build different timbres. In practice, however, timbres were primarily obtained by saturation of the oscillators (to create oscillations richer in harmonics) and then by several filters. The additive synthesis principle is mentioned in all the patents but it seems that it was not used in practice. Thus it was rather a primitive substractive synthesis.

    My sources :
    * American patents as mentioned above. (they are freely available on internet)
    * “Piano et orgue radioélectrique Givelet-Coupleux”, in La Nature, 1930. (available on the page “Clavier à lampes”)
    * “L’orgue électronique, système Coupleux-Givelet”, Armand Givelet, in Le Génie Civil, Tome C n°10, 5 March 1932
    * “L’orgue électronique Coupleux-Givelet”, Armand Givelet, in Bulletin de la Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale, February 1933
    http://cnum.cnam.fr/CGI/fpage.cgi?BSPI.147/85/100/688/37/662
    * “L’orgue, son histoire de l’antiquité à nos jours“, René Delaunay, 1932
    * Conference by Christophe d’Alessandro “L’orgue et la lutherie électronique à Paris dans les années 1930”, 8 March 2018, Philharmonie de Paris
    https://pad.philharmoniedeparis.fr/doc/CIMU/1085410/colloque-international-les-lutheries-electroniques-l-orgue-et-la-lutherie-electronique-a-paris-dans-

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