Frank Théodore [Frank] Martin (15/09/1890 - 21/11/1974), a Swiss composer, born in Geneva, who received a commission to write a work for a twelve-voice magrigal choir in 1938. The result, Le Vin herbé (The Doctored Wine), was based on Joseph Bédier's retelling of the Tristan story, for which Martin evolved a twelve-tone system which has been described as 'tonal or harmonic dodecaphony.' This work, first performed in Zurich in 1942, won world-wide attention for the then fifty-two year-old composer and was followed by other successes, including his setting of Hoffmannsthal's version of Jedermann (Everyman). In 1946 Martin moved to the Netherlands, finally settling in Naarden, a few miles east of Amsterdam. He continued to compose for the remainder of his eighty-three years, and died in Naarden in 1974.
Martin's music is described as 'adopted Schoenberg serialiam. . . (with) an extended tonal harmony that looked to Debussy' which matured 'into a style marked by dissonant chords, smooth part-writing, and gliding tonality' after the dramatic oratorio Le vin herbé of 1941 and the music that followed during the '40's, including the song cycle Jederman, written in 1943 and orchestrated in 1949. The texts for these songs are taken from Jedermann, a religious play by Hugo von Hoffmannstahl, itself an adaptation of the English play from the Middle Ages, Everyman. Jedermann is performed every year during the Salzburg Festival on the steps of the Cathedral.