For whatever reason, most likely the plants decided they couldn't produce fully formed flowers, the lilies decided for you that it wasn't worth the expenditure of energy to produce flowers this year. Frankly, I look at that as a good sign. I know the lilies won't be struggling to meet the demands of flowering, and that next year's flowers will then be that much better and bloom with no excess stress on the plants.
It would be like running a marathon without training: you can do it, but you'll pay for it later, and you won't place as well as if you had trained.
Remember martagons don't have the propensity to produce the fast growing stem roots that asiatics do that feed themselves in the same year. Martagons take it slow, and are in for the long haul. They take no extra care, just more time, and it's well worth it.
Other reasons might be that the buds were infected, perhaps with botrytis or an insect, or maybe they were exposed to abrupt adverse environmental conditions, like a particularly hot and/or droughty day or strtetch of days.
