Villa-Lobos & Electronic Music

In 1955, H. De Carsalade Du Pont published an article called "Regards sur Villa-Lobos", in the Paris periodical Études, (1955/07, pp. 94-103). I'm slowly making my way through this interesting article with my cereal-box French (helped, of course, by Google Translate). In the meantime, here are some interesting words about Villa's involvement in the early electronic music scene:

Apres les instruments classiques, il s'interessa a ceux que l'electronique venait de faire naitre. Il connut l'Onde Martenot lors de son premier sejour a Paris en 1923, mais l'appareil etait encore si imparfait que, malgre l'insistance de M. Gaveau, Villa-Lobos refusa de composer pour un instrument sur lequel on ne pouvait pas encore placer une note avec precision. Il ne cessa pas pour autant de s'interesser aux inventions nouvelles et il fut un des premiers a ecrire pour le Novacorde, le dernier ne a ceux dont le son resulte des oscillations d'un circuit electrique.

Villa-Lobos was always interested in new instrument technologies, and hung out with avant-garde composers in Paris in the 1920s, most notably Edgard Varèse and Olivier Messiaen. I was unaware, though, that he was exposed to the Onde Martenot as early as 1923.  Messiaen's use of this interesting instrument came more than a decade later.

As to the Novacorde, I wonder if this is the same as the Sonovox/Solovox that Villa-Lobos included in his score for Amazonas?

This issue of Études is available from the Gallica Digital Library, a valuable resource.