According to the niftily named website, Obsolete.com, the Ondes Martenot was the first successful electronic instrument. (Named for its inventor, Maurice Martenot, a cellist and radio telegraphist.)

Jean Laurendeau is one of the best known "ondists," and he here he demonstrates its many charms:

Tonight on The Signal (10 p.m.) you can hear the instrument as the voice of a whale in a composition by Michel Gonneville, played by Laurendeau. (The voice of the whale's lover comes from Max Christie's clarinet.) The piece is performed by the New Music Concerts Ensemble at Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, and The Signalites describe it as music that "plumbs the depths of the ocean, communes with nature, and explores the farthest reaches of the creative process."