Jean Michel Jarre - Theremin Memories (Space of Freedom - 2005)

Jean Michel Jarre used the instrument in his concerts Oxygen In Moscow and Space of Freedom in Gdańsk, providing also a short history of Léon Theremin's life.

Léon Theremin

          


Theremin Enthusiasts Club International: theremin-bible

Tones of New Stringless Cello Generated by Electricity (May, 1932)

Tones of New Stringless Cello Generated by Electricity

AN ELECTRIC cello without strings capable of producing tremendous volume and exquisite tone has been invented by Leon Theremin, who is shown in the photo on the left demonstrating how his new instrument is played.

Tones are varied by running the fingers of the left hand up and down the heavy black line which replaces the strings, while the right hand works the pump to control the volume.

An external oscillator, amplifier and loud speaker are used with this cello and the tones are generated by the oscillating tubes in the instrument. As the fingers are run up and down the black line, under which a coil is concealed, the player varies the capacity of the circuit which alters the frequency, or pitch, of the oscillating tubes.

Leon Theremin -1928 "Swan" Camille Saint-Saëns

Theremin (Poem) Gerhart Herrmann Mostar 1927

One way has ended.
Another way opens up and travels into Blueness.
White, over tracts and walls,
Flutter a scientist's sensitive hands
Like shrewd and knowing owls through the greyness.

One thousand human beings stare
Craning their necks
At the tiny foot of earthly iron
From which stretches out
The lonely guidepost of a space probe.
One thousand human beings listen to the grind
"Come into being"
By which somebody out there will rouse
The sound of the future,
One among them . . . they hear the music of his blood,
His blood, their blood . . .
They are seeking with souls outstretched
The singing of tomorrow . . .
And tremble to lose it.

One way has ended.
One way is entering the blueness.
A scientist's hands are fluttering in the greyness
That bears the future.

Gerhart Herrmann Mostar
Berlin, 1927

              

Leon Theremin: The man and the music machine

13 March 2012

By Martin Vennard BBC World Service

Ninety years ago this month a young Russian scientist and inventor, Leon Theremin, was summoned to the Kremlin to meet Lenin. It was the start of an incredible journey that laid the foundations for modern electronic music, from the Beach Boys to Pink Floyd. 

Leon Theremin had come to the Bolshevik leader's attention after inventing a revolutionary electronic musical instrument that was played without being touched.

Theremin was nervous before meeting Lenin, but later said the demonstration of his invention, which became known as the Theremin, had gone well.

"Leon Theremin was very impressed by the meeting with Lenin in the Kremlin. He was a young Bolshevik at that time and he was very excited by the changes in the country and he respected Lenin a lot," says his grand-niece Lydia Kavina.

"Lenin was so impressed he sent Theremin across Russia to show off his instrument"

"He saw Lenin as a very intelligent person and Lenin fully understood the wild and new ideas of the young inventor, and also Lenin was very skilled in music and tried to play the Theremin himself and with quite a good success and that impressed Leon Theremin a lot."

The instrument consisted of a small wooden cabinet containing glass tube oscillators and two antennae - one sticking out the side and the other out of the top - which produced electromagnetic fields.

Theremin played Lenin pieces including Saint Saens' the Swan. He then guided Lenin's hands - the right one moved to and from the vertical antenna, changing the instrument's pitch, the left one moved to and from the horizontal antenna, controlling the volume.

Theremin, an amateur cellist, had come up with the idea for his instrument shortly after the Russian revolution in St Petersburg.

He was developing an electronic device for measuring the density of gases and noticed the sound it made changed depending on the position of his hand.

Lenin was so impressed he sent Theremin across Russia to show off his instrument and promote the electrification of the country.

"He went all around Russia and gathered great crowds in squares and in halls and made a sensation," says Albert Glinsky, author of the Theremin biography Ether Music and Espionage.

He was then sent to Europe and the US to showcase Soviet technology and his performances received widespread coverage in the newspapers, with headlines about magical music being created out of the air.

Theremin in film soundtracks

  Spellbound (1945)
  The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
  It Came from Outer Space
  Ed Wood (1994)
  Batman Forever (1995)
  Mars Attacks!
  (1996 - pictured above)

"When he arrived in New York it was to great fanfare and he was celebrated as one of the great scientists and his invention was hailed as the equal of radio," Glinsky told the BBC World Service.

He performed at Carnegie Hall. His instrument also attracted the attention of the Radio Corporation of America, RCA, who offered him what was then the huge sum of $100,000 to manufacture it.
A contract was signed on 12 March 1929, making RCA the first mass producer of an electronic instrument.

"That moment was the beginning of a long progression that comes right up to this day when a young person goes into a store and says 'I want that electronic keyboard for my band,'" Glinsky says.

"RCA felt this was going to replace the parlour piano and anyone who could wave their hands in the air or whistle a tune could make music in their home with this device."

The Theremin went on sale in September 1929 at the relatively high price of $220 - a radio set cost about $30. It was also much more difficult to play than the advertising claimed. And just one month later came the Wall Street Crash.

"You took it home and found that your best efforts led to squealing and moaning sounds. So the combination of the fact that only the most skilled people could teach themselves how to play it and the fact that there was a downturn in the economy meant that the instrument really wasn't a commercial success," Glinsky says.

Theremin saw little of the $100,000 he was paid, Glinsky says, which most likely went straight into Soviet coffers. But he stayed in the US for a while working on other projects, and engaging in industrial espionage.

"His very reason for being sent over was his espionage mission," says Glinsky. Demonstrating the theremin instrument was just a distraction, a Trojan Horse, as it were.

"He had special access to firms like RCA, GE, Westinghouse, aviation companies and so on, and shared his latest technical know how with representatives from these companies to get them to open up to him about their latest discoveries.

Lydia Kavina 9 years and Theremin he was over 80 years of age.

"He also ran his own companies, which were fronts for industrial espionage, and he reported to Amtorg, the Soviet trading corporation in America, itself a front for espionage activities."

Theremin also developed a prototype drum machine and an instrument that responded to a dancer's movements, alarm systems and an electric door opener, but none of his inventions proved a commercial success, and he ended up in debt.

He met and married a young black American ballet dancer, Lavinia Williams, in 1938. Lydia Kavina says the relationship further compounded his financial problems.

"When he got married to the black woman, this event turned a lot of bankers and his sponsors away from him. It wasn't a time when such a marriage would be acceptable in American society."

Later that year he returned suddenly to the Soviet Union, leaving his wife behind. Some people suggested he'd been kidnapped by Soviet officials, but Glinsky says a combination of debt and homesickness led to Theremin returning voluntarily.

He returned to a Soviet Union in the grip of Stalin's purges. He was arrested and falsely accused of being a counter-revolutionary, for which he received an eight year sentence in 1939.


And in pop music

Good Vibrations - Beach Boys
(pictured above)
 Velouria - The Pixies
 Echoes - Pink Floyd
 Glory Box - Portishead
 Little People - The White Stripes

He was sent to the Gulag in Siberia, but with war looming he was taken back to Moscow and, while still a prisoner, made to work on aircraft technology. He also developed highly advanced bugging devices that were used against foreign embassies.

Theremin was released in 1947 but returned to work for the state security system as a free man, then worked at the Moscow Conservatory where he worked on, and taught his instrument.

In the US, the Theremin had been revived by Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Its eerie sound was used in films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound and sci-fi classics, such as The Day the Earth Stood Still.

A young Robert Moog, who went on to become a synthesizer pioneer, began making and selling Theremins. He later wrote that it was a "vital cornerstone of our contemporary music technology".
In the 1960s its sound made its way into popular music, most notably in the Beach Boys' song Good Vibrations - though it is believed the group may have used a Theremin-like instrument to mimic the sound, rather than the Theremin itself.

Glinsky says Theremin knew little of what had happened to his most famous invention in the US until shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union when he was able to go abroad again.

The author met Theremin on his trip to the US in 1991. "He was honoured not only in New York, but he was brought out to Stanford University. I'm sure deep inside he was very grateful to be recognised by people who knew the worth of what he'd one."

Leon Theremin died in Moscow in 1993 aged 97. His invention is still made and played by enthusiasts around the world.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk


Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage (Music in American Life)

Book Description

Publication Date: 12 Mar 2005 | Series: Music in American Life

Albert Glinsky's "Theremin" blends the whimsical and the treacherous into a chronicle that takes in everything from the KGB to Macy's store windows, Alcatraz to the Beach Boys, Hollywood thrillers to the United Nations, Joseph Stalin to Shirley Temple.

"Theremin"'s world of espionage and invention is an amazing drama of hidden loyalties, mixed motivations, and an irrepressibly creative spirit. Albert Glinsky is an award-winning composer whose music has been performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and the Far East.He holds degrees from The Juilliard School and a Ph.D. from New York University, and his work has been honored by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music at Mercyhurst College in Pennsylvania.

Robert Moog developed the original classic Moog electronic music synthesizer and has been designing and building theremins since 1954. Currently, he is the president of Moog Music Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of theremins. This is a volume in the series "Music in American Life".

Robert Moog: moogarchives.com
Albert Glinsky: albertglinsky

Clara Rockmore - Virtuoso performer of the theremin

Clara Rockmore studied violin in Leningrad with Leopold Auer, and both emigrated in the mid 20s to the USA. 

Her violin career was stopped due to muscular problems, but due to the fact that she knew Leon Theremin, who had recently developed his Theremin, she soon became a virtuoso on this new electronic instrument, performing with the premier orchestras of the USA and enjoying many commissions and a close collaboration with Leopold Stokowski.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Clara Rockmore (born Clara Reisenberg, Vilnius, Lithuania, March 9, 1911; d. New York City, May 10, 1998) is generally considered to be the most accomplished performer ever of the theremin electronic musical instrument.

Born Clara Reisenberg, Rockmore was a child prodigy on the violin and entered the Imperial conservatory of Saint Petersburg at the age of five. She studied violin under the virtuoso Leopold Auer, and remains to this day the youngest student ever to be admitted to the institution. Unfortunately, bone problems due to childhood malnutrition forced her to abandon violin performance past her teen years. That however led her to discover the newborn electronic instrument and arguably become the greatest ever virtuosa of the theremin.

Rockmore had several gifts that enabled her to play the theremin so well. Her classical training gave her an advantage over the many theremin performers who lacked this background, including the instrument's inventor. She possessed absolute pitch from birth, helpful in playing an instrument that generates tones of any pitch throughout its entire range, including those that lie between the conventional notes. She had extremely precise, rapid control of her movements, important in playing an instrument that depends on the performer's motion and proximity rather than touch. She also had the advantage of working directly with Léon Theremin from the early days of the instrument's commercial development in the United States.
Rockmore, as the mature musician she was, saw the limitations of the original instrument and helped to develop the instrument to fulfill her needs, making several suggestions to improve the theremin as a performing instrument. Such suggestions, like a faster volume antenna, wider musical range, and control over the instrument's tone colour were i ncorporated by the inventor in later versions. She had a special theremin tailored by Léon Theremin himself to meet her unique requirements.

She developed a whole technique for playing the instrument, including a fingering system, which allowed her to accurately perform fast passages and large note leaps without the much known glissando on theremin.

 Rockmore was without peer as a performer in the early decades of the instrument's use. While many listeners have heard the theremin played poorly or used mostly as a spooky special-effects device, Rockmore used it to perform classical works. Under her control, the theremin sounded like a blend of the cello, violin and human voice.

        

Albums

Biography: Clara Rockmore

Theremin World - Clara Rockmore: clara-rockmore

The Art of the Theremin:  The Art of the Theremin
 
The Nadia Reisenberg and Clara Rockmore Foundation

The Pastorale from Anis Fuleihan's Concerto for Theremin. (1942) is to be found on Clara Rockmore's Lost Theremin Album. Bridge Records 2006

Лев Термен и Клара Рокмор 1991

В 1991 году, через пятьдесят с лишним лет, Лев Термен вернулся в Нью-Йорк, в места своей необыкновенной славы и успеха 30-х годов. Теперь ему уже 95 лет. В Нью-Йорке Термен после многих десятилетий разлуки встретился с Кларой Рокмор, своей давней возлюбленной, самой знаменитой терменвоксисткой мира. Документальные съемки, фрагмент из фильма "Лев Термен: электронная одиссея" (1995), режиссер Стивен М. Мартин.


              


In 1991, fifty-odd years, Leon Theremin returned to New York, in place of his extraordinary fame and success of the 30-ies. Now he is 95 years old. In New York Theremin after decades of separation, met with Clara Rockmore, his longtime lover, the most famous termenvoksistkoy world. Documentaries, a fragment from the movie "Leon Theremin: Electronic Odyssey" (1995), directed by Steven M. Martin.

Leon Theremin and Clara Rockmore...

  Theremin: an Electronic Odyssey

 

 

Theremin-An-Electronic-Odyssey

Just viewed this fascinating documentary. Made around 1994 it tells the story of the theremin or rather the story of Leon Theremin the Russian inventor and Clara Rockmore the instruments greatest exponent.

 

Starting with early footage of Theremin and Rockmore in the 1920s there's some great archive footage of the introduction of the theremin to American audiences. The video also has interviews with such luminaries as Bob Moog who designed and built his own theremins in his teenage years using designs in a popular hobby magazine.

There's footage of the use of the theremin in classic movies and songs by the Beach Boys etc. Brian Wilson has an embarrassing interview and he sounded like he was talking in a foreign language, he's so off the planet.

The film is marred by not telling us who is being interviewed and there's no subtitles for some portions in Russian.

Clara is simply stunning in concert footage taken for the film and she plays classical pieces flawlessly even though she must have been in her nineties. She uses the original Theremin valve driven instruments from the twenties because, as she explains, the newer models just don't have the same sound quality and I believe her.

Theremin was unbelievably kidnapped from his New York home in the late 30s on Stalin's orders and it was assumed he died in 1947. He survived however and even was awarded a medal for inventing a spy bug for the Soviets.

The most poignant sequences are when Leon now in his late nineties is brought back to New York and has a meeting with his early protege Clara Rockmore. To see Leon as a bent old man wandering the glittering streets of his younger days like a child wandering around Santa's workshop is a sight to behold.

His meeting with Clara is emotional as she seems to be surrounded by the same instruments and photographs of the 20s and she plays beautifully for Leon on one of the antique instruments. Sadly Leon, nearly 100, died a couple of years after his visit.

His meeting with Clara is emotional as she seems to be surrounded by the same instruments and photographs of the 20s and she plays beautifully for Leon on one of the antique instruments. Sadly Leon, nearly 100, died a couple of years after his visit.


TRAILER

Theremin Construction Article by Ernest J. Schultz from RADIO & TELEVISION NEWS, October, 1949

(Editor's Note: This is one of the earliest published articles for Theremin construction, originally appearing in the October, 1949 issue of "RADIO AND TELEVISION NEWS." The text has been reformatted for monitor viewing, and appears in the first two images, followed by images of the schematic, parts list, and photographic illustrations. If extant, the content remains the copyrighted property of its owner.)

 

Source: Schultz/Schultztheremin

Leon Theremin - a short memoir...

12 January, 1983, by Lev Termen

I started learning music at the age of 9 and electricity at 7. During my childhood I loved music, I felt it was something alive and real. When I started playing the cello, I was uneasy about the contradiction between the music and the manner in which it was obtained: by the movement of the bow, resembling a saw and by pressing the fingers against the strings. I have always wanted to find a way of uniting my passion for electricity with that of music.

At the age of 13, I became interested in high frequencies and the transformers of Tesla. I took in one hand a medium sized metal rod and I got a high voltage spark with a high pitched sound. A change in distance caused a variation in the pitch of the sound. In 1920, by invitation of A. F. Yoffe, I returned to the institution of Physics, Technology and Radio sciences (which was run by Yoffe himself).

Afterwards I became responsible for the electric oscillation laboratory. I devised a technique which allowed the measurement of gas temperature and electric signaling which detected the movement of a man who drew near, (to within 4 or 5 meters). This method allows the measurement of a change in distance of about 0.0001.

My electrical instrument is based on the same principle. Bringing the hand against the electrode changes the pitch of the sound over approximately 3 to 4 octaves. The first person I demonstrated the instrument to was Yoffe. He was so pleased that he immediately invited into my laboratory members of the institute and I received an unexpected ovation. This was September, 1920. In November I gave my first public concert to students from the Faculty of Mechanics. At that time my instrument was already perfected. The volume change, which was previously controlled by a foot pedal, was now controlled using the left hand, the gestures required being reminiscent of the conductor of an orchestra.

On the 23rd June, 1921, I asked for a patent for my invention which I received on the 15th September, 1924. On the 5th October, 1921, I did an exhibition at the 8th congress of the electromechanical union, which was devoted to the electrification of the entire country. (GOERLO).

The congress was held at the Poytechnic's museum until the 4th October, 1921. It was a great success and journalists from `Pravda' and `Izvestiya' christened my instrument the `Termenvox' from `a voix de Termen', the voice of the Termen.

During the month of May (1922), I had great delight of personally meeting Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin. He invited me to the Kremlin to demonstrate my musical instrument. The demonstration was held in his office. He approved of my research and played with the instrument himself (He has a good ear for music). Lenin talked at length with me inexhaustibly on the new energies, (electricity and the others), on prospects for research and the need for the electrification of the entire U.S.S.R. To this end he gave me the right to travel freely throughout the entire country to do my exhibitions. ``Come to see me if you need help'' he told me at the end of our conversation.

Afterwards, without interrupting my work at the institute of Physics and Technology at GIMN, the Poulkoff observatory and at the military medical school, I gave around 150 conferences and concerts with the `Termenvox' in different towns and villages in the USSR

In the same period, I created a number of radio technology installations and amongst all these inventions I created was the first television set in the world. I always wanted to meet Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin again but he died at 6:50pm on the 21st January, 1924. On the 10th April, 1925, at the Leningrad Philharmonic Concert Hall, I demonstrated the possibilities for electronic musical instruments. The management of different sound parameters by the movement of the arm, controlling micro reflections by movements of the eyes, the different possibilities of combining sounds and colors, geometric shapes, gestures, dance movements and the senses of touch and smell. Already, much time was spent on structures in accordance with their natural order.

On July 20th, I was sent abroad with the intention of scientific research as well as a grand tour of international concert halls with the `Termenvox'. My first concert was held at the Frankfurt musical exhibition in Germany. The following concerts took place in Soviet embassies and grand concert halls; Berlin, Dresden, Munich and Hamburg. These concerts attracted a large number of researchers, writers and musicians. I had the opportunity to speak with Albert Einstein, G'erard Gadinmann, Machko Valter etc.

In Paris, the concerts were held in the Gaveau Hall at the Grand Opera House. In London, my concert was held in the Albert Hall with 8000 listening. At that occasion, I met Bernard Chou, Olivier Lodman and Bruno Walter.

I arrived in the United States on December 30th, 1927 where the new USSR diplomatic service fought to be accepted. Our country was considered to be backwards and condemned to political downfall. The concert, at the Metropolitan Opera, was organized under the initiative of `Wurlitzer' organs and the committee of patrons. I stipulated as an essential condition that in all advertising they put `Leningrad' instead of `Moscow' next to my name to stop people thinking I was a White Russian. After much discussion I finally won my case. This certainly helped to increase the prestige of the USSR in the United States. Afterwards I stayed in New York to set up the musical workshop and laboratory on West 54. Here I started a new stage in the development of the Termenvox which was christened the Theremin in the United States. The companies Radio Corporation, General Electric and RCA constructed 2000 examples of the Theremin for sale. Many students worked in my studio. Amongst many figure Lusi Rossent and Klara Rocmor. I gave several concerts in different cities: Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit etc. I played 1 In the Russian revolution, White Russians fought against the Red Russians at the triumphant reception in the United States for the Soviet aviators: Tchkalov, Beliakov and Baydoukov.

A new version of the Theremin was created for dancers. The sound was controlled by movement. Four dancers giving 4 polyphonic voices. Our laboratories were visited by the cinematographer Eisenstein. After having seen my students dance, he wanted the first demonstration of this new instrument to be held inside the USSR I had decided to realize the idea when in 1939 I arrived in Leningrad.

Family Photo Album Family Theremin: theremin.name

Theremin Cello or Fingerboard Theremin

Invented in the late 1920's by Lev Termen, known as the Fingerboard Theremin or Theremin Cello, instead of strings, it has a flexible plastic film fingerboard which, when touched, produces a tone.

As long as the finger remains depressed, a tone is sustained. The volume is controlled by a lever on the player's right and the tone color is controlled by knobs, and the sound is amplified by an external amplifier. It was also used by the great Stokowski to reinforce his orchestra's bass section, it is said that the subsonic rumblings made some of the orchestra members complain of sickness.
The instrument was used throughout the 1930's by a number of musicians most notably Leopold Stowkowski who commissioned Termen to design and build a bass Theremin Cello which was later abandoned due to the side effects caused by subharmonic frequencies on the orchestra's string section. The Theremin Cello was another adaptation of Leon Termen, who was originally a cellist himself.

All images courtesy of the National Music Museum
University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD.

Theremin Orchestra at Carnegie Hall - circa 1932

In the 1930s Leon Theremin set up a laboratory in New York. There he further developed the theremin and experimented with other electronic musical instruments. In 1930 he demonstrated ten theremins on the concert stage at Carnegie Hall, and in 1932 he conducted the first-ever electronic orchestra there, featuring the theremin and the Rhythmicon and the Fingerboard Theremin, also known as the Theremin Cello, detailed on the next page. Theremins associates during this time were societys foremost scientists, composers, and musical theorists, including composer Joseph Schillinger and famous physicist (and classical violinist) Albert Einstein.

What is a Theremin?

             

"I wanted to invent some kind of an instrument That would not operate mechanically, as does the piano or the cello and the violin, bow Whose movements Can Be Compared To those of a saw. I conceived of an instrument That would create sound without using any mechanical energy, like the conductor of an orchestra "
- Leon Theremin

The Theremin is one of the earliest electronic instruments, and is played without ever physically touching it. Outfitted with two antennas, a magnetic field surrounds the instrument, and when the hands of the player enter the field, changes in pitch and volume occur. The left side controls the volume, and the right controls the pitch.

Sound futuristic?

The Theremin was patented in 1921. The instrument was invented by Russian physicist Lev Sergeivitch Termen. The sound is produced by two oscillators that "beat" together. One oscillator operates in a frequency range above the level of human hearing, while the other is varied when the hands enter the magnetic field. The "beat frequency" is the difference between the two oscillators, which is the sound that is heard. The Theremin was originally patented and called the Ætherphone, which means "music from the ether".

The Theremin and its workings caught the attention of Soviet leader Vladimir Il’yich Lenin when it was shown in Moscow in 1922.

Termen, whose "westernized" name is Leon Theremin, arrived in the US in 1928, and much interest surrounded his new invention in New York society. Albert Einstein was a frequent house guest, interested in the more technical nature of the Theremin's phenomena. Theremin's were produced by the RCA Victor company. A full 10 piece Theremin-only orchestra even played Carnegie Hall. Being an instrument that is very easy to make sound with, but quite difficult to play well, the Theremin did not enjoy mass appeal from musicians, and only a few great players were ever produced. The most notable being his protégé Clara Rockmore (1911-1998), who played solo and with symphony orchestras around the world.

Leon Theremin disappeared from the free world in in 1938, and was "escorted" to Communist Russia, he did not emerge for 51 years. A victim of Stalinism and the Cold War, he was thrown into a gulag and later put to work in a secret KGB lab. There, he invented listening devices (the bug), alarm systems, one of the first televisions, and other non-musical devices that used technology similar to the Theremin. He was not allowed to leave Russia until 1989 at the age of 93. In 1989, the first interview with Leon Theremin since his disappearance was conducted by Olivia Mattis in France upon his arrival, which we are pleased to reprint on this website.

The Theremin's sound enjoyed cult status in many sci-fi movies of the 1950's, being used for spooky sounding effects, but Clara Rockmore refused to play in any those soundtracks, because she played the Theremin as a "serious classical instrument" and felt it demeaned the instrument. Theremin, being sequestered in Russia, was completely unaware of this usage of the instrument.

 The Theremin is still a popular instrument today, used in movies, and by a number of musicians, and has undergone a new resurgence, used by bands from Led Zeppelin to Radiohead to Nine Inch Nails, and also played in more traditional and classical styles. His last protégé, and grand-niece Lydia Kavina is now one of the leading classical Thereminists today.

While finding an original vacuum tube RCA Theremin is nearly impossible, more modern Theremin's are manufactured today. One which most captures the classic Theremin sound, along with other features, is the late Robert Moog's EtherWave Pro. Moog built homemade Theremin's in his teens, and later created the famous Moog synthesizer in the 1960's and the company he founded still thrives, making Theremin's, analog synthesizers and effects units.

"Do not forget That you are dealing with air! Think of your fingers as delicate butterfly wings, and you will get much further than if you use strength"
- Clara Rockmore

Demonstrating the precise playing
position in the year 1927

Clara Rockmore - the worlds most renowned Theremin virtuosa

"I was interested in making a different kind of instrument. And I wanted, of course, to make an apparatus that would be controlled in space, exploiting electrical fields, And that would use little energy. Therefore I used electronic technology to create a musical That instrument would Provide greater resources "
- Leon Theremin

In the 1930s Leon Theremin set up a laboratory in New York. There he further developed the theremin and experimented with other electronic musical instruments. Theremins associates during this time were societys foremost scientists, composers, and musical theorists, including composer Joseph Schillinger and famous physicist Albert Einstein.  

Pulling Music Out of Thin Air: An Interview with Leon Theremin

By Olivia Mattis and Robert Moog

This article first appeared in the February 1992 issue of Keyboard Magazine.

Leon Theremin, the 95-year-old Russian titan of electroacoustic music technology, spent three weeks in the United States early last fall.  The visit was an extraordinary event; Theremin has long been the subject of myths and musical lore, yet he has been a virtual prisoner in the Soviet Union until glasnost and perestroika made possible his travel abroad.  Theremin had lived in New York from 1927 to 1938, at which time soviet authorities summoned him back to Russia.  He was then immediately arrested and imprisoned, for reasons that even today are not clear.  There were rumors that he was shot as a German spy during World War II, and his name disappeared from the Soviet musical press for decades.  Leon Theremin’s very existence was top secret because, as he admitted at a press conference at Stanford University, he was on the development team that devised the Soviet surveillance device – the bug. ”We tested it out on an American building," he said, "but all we heard was everyday chatter -- no government secrets."

Theremin returned to the United States on September 23, 1991, for the first time in 53 years. He came, with daughter Natasha and granddaughter Olga, at the invitation of John Chowning and Steve Martin. Chowning is director of Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), and Steve Martin is not the actor, but a filmmaker who is making a full-length documentary on Theremin with the working title Good Vibrations. A historic outdoor concert at Stanford's Frost Amphitheater on September 27, which was planned around Theremin’s visit, inaugurated Stanford’s Centennial Celebration. Chowning began the tribute by talking briefly about electroacoustic music and introducing some well-known instrument designers who were in the audience of 1,500: Don Buchla, Roger Linn, Bob Moog, Tom Oberheim, and Dave Smith. When Chowning introduced Theremin to the audience and the Dean of Humanities and Sciences presented him with the Stanford Centennial Medal, the audience responded with a standing ovation that lasted for several minutes.

Although the other six pieces on the program were composed in 1991, the highlight of this concert was the performance of a 1917 work: Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, played by Natasha Theremin on her father’s instrument, and accompanied by Max Mathews playing the new Radio Drum, a computer-age controller that Mathews designed and built. Picture this: Natasha Theremin is playing a flowing melodic line by moving her hands gracefully around an instrument that has vacuum tubes at its heart. To one side of her Max Mathews is conducting the sampled sounds of a string ensemble with gestures that a timpanist might use when playing softly. To the other side of her, Lev Sergeyevich Termen (Leon Theremin’s correct Russian name) -- a man who was born 95 years ago, received his musical and technical education in Czarist Russia, and built his first analog electronic musical instruments just after the Bolsheviks came to power -- is listening approvingly.  The stage bristles with monitor screens, synthesizer modules, MIDI cables, and Don Buchla's Thunder and Lightning controllers, while Meyer speaker arrays flank the stage.

For the audience, the thread of continuity and tradition linking Theremins early instruments with the world of synthesizers and MIDI is clear and strong. If you looked hard, you could almost see the spirits of Maurice Martenot, Friedrich Trautwein (inventor of the Trautonium), and Laurens Hammond joining the audience in frenzied applause.

The Theremin (or “Thereminvox”), designed just after the Russian Revolution and demonstrated to Lenin in 1920, consists of a wood cabinet on which are mounted two antennas: one to control pitch, the other volume. Its tone resembles a cross between a stringed instrument and the human voice. The instrument’s circuit uses a beat frequency oscillator, in which an audible musical tone is derived from the beating between two high-frequency oscillators. The frequency of one of the oscillators is fixed, while the frequency of the other is altered by the performers proximity to the pitch antenna, thus creating changes in the pitch of the beat frequency over a range of several octaves. The player does not actually touch the instrument, but waves her hands, like a conductor. The Theremin is considered the ancestor of many of today’s electroacoustic instruments. Bob Moog, developer of the Moog synthesizer, has been building Theremins throughout his career, and Max Mathews, pioneer of computer music, considers his Radio Drum to be a direct descendant of Professor Theremins invention.

Shortly after Theremin arrived in New York in 1927, he licensed RCA to build instruments of his design. RCA built Theremins for a short period, then discontinued production. The Theremin was later played in many Hollywood thrillers, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, Billy Wilders Lost Weekend, and

The Day the Earth Stood Still. More recently, the Theremin was featured prominently in the Beach Boys' hit song ”Good Vibrations."

Composers from Edgard Varese to Percy Grainger were convinced that Theremin’s space-controlled instrument pointed the way to an ideal “free” music of the future. Theremin also invented other instruments; an electronic cello with no strings; the Rhythmicon, for playing multiple rhythmic patterns simultaneously; the Terpsitone, a dance platform equipped with antennas that enabled a dancer to control music with her body movements; and a polyphonic version of the basic space-controlled Theremin.

Theremin’s recent visit to the United States was actually his third emergence from the Soviet Union in as many years. In June of 1989 he went to France for four days, to participate in the Bourges International Festival of Electronic Music; and in October of 1990 he went to Sweden to take pan in the weeklong Stockholm Electronic Music Festival.

But this time it was different. New York had been Theremin’s home for 11 years, so his return to the United States was almost like a homecoming. During his stay he was reunited with portions of his erstwhile American life, including places where he had lived and worked, and people that he had known.  At Stanford he was reacquainted with 97-year-old music encyclopedia author Nicolas Slonimsky, whom he’d known as a young conductor. Then, at a New York reception given in his honor; where his arrival was greeted with tumultuous applause, he saw former students and colleagues, all in their 80s and 9Os, including Henry Solomonoff, Suki Baden Beryl Campbell, and composer Otto Luening.

But the most important reunion was with Clara Rockmore, the pre-eminent Thereminist whose virtuosity on the instrument legitimized it in musical circles (in the same way that the inspired playing of Ieanne Loriod promoted Maurice Martenot’s Ondes Martenot). Theremin has always thought of Clara as his greatest student, and their meeting last fall was like closing a circle.

On September 28, 1991, we talked with Theremin for several hours, asking him questions about his enigmatic life and career, and following up on the interview that one of us (Mattis) had conducted in Bourges on June 16, 1989. The following are edited excerpts of both interviews. For the careful translation of Theremin’s detailed Russian prose, we would like to thank Patrick Lemoine, Nina Boguslawsky, and most especially Alejandro Tkaczevski.

Please tell us about your early life, and about your scientific and musical training.

I was born in Leningrad, which was then called St. Petersburg, in 1896. My father was a lawyer, and my mother was interested in the arts, especially music and drawing. Even before high school I was interested in physics, in electricity, and in oscillatory motions like those of a pendulum.  In high school I was interested in physics, and after playing the piano I started studying cello.  While in high school, I entered the conservatory on the cello, and I graduated with the title of "free artist on the violoncello.” Then I entered the university, and majored in physics and astronomy.

When did you first conceive of your instrument?

The idea first came to me right after our Revolution, at the beginning of the Bolshevik state. I wanted to invent some kind of an instrument that would not operate mechanically, as does the piano, or the cello and the violin, whose bow movements can be compared to those of a saw. I conceived of an instrument that would create sound without using any mechanical energy, like the conductor of an orchestra.

Why did you make this instrument?    

         

I became interested in bringing about progress in music, so that there would be more musical resources, I was not satisfied with the mechanical instruments in existence, of which there were many. They were all built using elementary principles and were not physically well done, I was interested in making a different kind of instrument. And I wanted, of course, to make an apparatus that would be controlled in space, exploiting electrical fields, and that would use little energy. Therefore I used electronic technology to create a musical instrument that would provide greater resources.

How did Lenin find out about your instrument?

In the Soviet Union at that time everyone was interested in new things, in particular all the new uses of electricity: for agriculture, for mechanical uses, for transport, and for communication. I decided to create a musical use for electricity. I made the first few devices based on me principles of the human interference of radio waves in space, first for electronic security systems, then applied to musical purposes.

There was a big electronics conference in Moscow, and I showed my instruments there. The conference was a great success; it was written up in the literature and the newspapers, of which we had many at the time, and many doors were opened for me in the Soviet Union. And so Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the leader of our state, learned that I had shown an interesting thing at this conference, and he wanted to get acquainted with it himself. They asked me to come with my apparatus, with my musical instrument, to his office, to show him. And I did so.

What did Lenin think of it?

He was very gracious, and I was very pleased to meet him. I showed him and his colleagues the control system of my instrument, which I played by moving my hands in the air, and which at that time was called the Thereminvox. I played a piece of music, after which they applauded, including Vladimir Ilyich, who had been watching very attentively. I played Glinka's The Lark, which he loved very much. After all this applause, Vladimir Ilyich said that I should show him, and he would try to play it himself.

He stood up, moved to the instrument, stretched his hands out, right hand to the pitch antenna and left to the volume antenna. I took his hands from behind and helped him. He started to play The Lark. He had a very good ear, and he felt where to move his hands to get the sound - to lower or raise the pitch.

In the middle of this piece I thought that he could, independently, move his hands. So I took my hands off his and he completed the whole thing independently, by himself, with great success and with great applause following. He was very happy that he could play on this instrument all by himself.

Incredible! In what year did you arrive in New York?

At the end of 1929, approximately. [In fact, the exact date was December 22, 1927.]

What brought you to New York?

When l was working in Leningrad in the Ioffe Institute for Physics and Technology, I had a lab. I was the inventor of this instrument, the first instrument. I was also the first in the world to invent a television device; this was in 1926.

Then I was sent abroad. I was sent to an international conference in Frankfurt. My wife Katia joined me in Paris, where I went next, and we stayed with my relatives. After that we went to America.

Katia was interested in medicine, and she wanted to enter a medical institute that was about 35 kilometers from New York. So she entered this medical school, and she slept there in the dormitory, but she visited me once or twice a week in New York.

I’ll tell you what happened afterwards. One fine day a young man came to me and said, "You know," (he gave me his calling card), “I have a request to make of you and of your wife too. We love each other. Let us marry each other.” It was not quite pleasant for me, but I said, "Of course I cannot forbid - well, in the Soviet Union we have freedom. Divorce is legal.” But I told him that things could not happen in this way. He left, and I felt terrible.

I tried to reach my wife, but the phones weren't working well. After a while, maybe three days later, I received from my embassy -- because at the time I was working under the leadership of our consulate - a magazine that was published by German representatives of a fascist organization in America. In this article it was written that, ”The wife of Theremin is sympathetic to our work, and we accepted her into our society, but Theremin doesn’t want to pay money, because he's probably a Jew, and he is afraid to give money. That’s why he won’t become a member of our society." Well, there was such a magazine.

At the embassy, the people said, "We cannot allow this.” Then in a few days, they said something more definite. The embassy called me and demanded that I get a divorce from her. They gave us a divorce without her presence or consent, I talked to her on the telephone about it. She said, ”It’s my friends, but I was never a member of any such society," and that was it, This was my first divorce. She continued to live there and to study at that institute.

Are you Jewish?

No.

Do you remember meeting Edgard Varese in New York?

No, I couldn’t tell you. I met so many people. It was long ago, decades ago. I met a lot of people. I remember well a lot of my good students. I had a wonderful student Clara Rockmore, and also Lucie Rosen. These were the better ones whom I remember who worked in my studio.

There was one who was interested in the color of music, the connection between light and music, and that was [Albertl Einstein. His wife played piano very well, he could play the violin, and he tried to play the Thereminvox. He asked me if he could use my studio. I had a big, big house that I rented in New York.

Einstein was interested in the connection between music and geometrical figures: not only color, but mostly triangles, hexagons, heptagons, different kinds of geometrical figures. He wanted to combine these into drawings. He asked whether he could have a laboratory in a small room in my house, where he could draw, So I gave him a study not very big. I found him an assistant, one of my co-workers who was a painter, to help him draft these sketches, and he would come and do his work. However, it was not the field that I was interested in, these geometrical figures.

I can’t say that from my point of view the figures had a psychological effect on the colors of the music.

As for him personally, Einstein was a physicist and theorist, but I was not a theorist - I was an inventor- so we did not have that much in common. I had much more kinship with someone like Vladimir Ilyich [Lenin], who was interested in how the whole world is created.

Varese came to you to ask you to build him an instrument for his piece Ecuatorial, an electronic cello. Do you remember that?

I made my electronic cello, not only for Varese, but for all those who were interested. It was not just the instrument played with hands in the air It was a different instrument, like a cello, that had a fingerboard. But instead of pressing down on strings, it was necessary just to place one’s fingers in different places, thereby creating different pitches. I have photographs of the instrument. It was also called the Thereminvox. There was one man who was very much interested in this instrument. He was the conductor Leopold Stokowski, who had ordered instruments especially for the Philadelphia orchestra. I made ten instruments especially for Stokowski. They used it in concerts, and it created a great impression.

Please tell us about Stokowski.

About Stokowski I can say yes, I remember him. He was of course a great conductor.

He was very interested in technical resources, of course: not in the electronics specifically, but in what new sounds, what new timbres, what new characters of sound could be obtained.

Do you remember Joseph Schillinger?

Schillingen yes, I knew him. I had many conversations with him, but I cannot say anything about his work. I recognize has name; he was famous, after all.

You worked together and you performed the solo part in one of his compositions. [First Airphonic Suite for Theremin and orchestra, 1929.l

Yeah, he was a composer, but from my point of view he was one of many interesting good people who were interested in old-fashioned ideas and viewpoints that were not suitable for the development of musical art.

Tell us about your dance instrument, the Terpsitone.

This is a platform that a person dances on. When the dancer’s body is low, you hear the lowest pitch. When the dancer raises her body, the pitch also goes up. It’s also possible to dance without changing the sound. For instance, if the dancer raises one arm and lowers the other there will be no change in pitch. But if the dancer raises both arms, then the pitch will go up.

How about the loudness, the volume?

If the dancer goes more forward, it gets louder. When she steps back, the sound gets quieter. I had a Terpsitone dance studio in New York. I had many pupils dancing there.

There was another instrument, the Rhythmicon?

This was an instrument that produced one pitch, plus all of its harmonics. Each of the harmonics was heard as a series of repeating notes separated by silences. For each harmonic, the repetition speed was related to the number of the harmonic. For instance, when you have the pitch three times higher [the third harmonic], it will repeat three times as fast as the fundamental pitch. You could select which harmonics you wanted to hear.

Do you have anything more to add about your life in New York?

There are many interesting things connected with my work, with the composers I had to see. But anyway, I felt lonely. I sometimes called my wife on the telephone, but I couldn’t get her attention - well, we really didn’t argue - but I felt lonely that I had no wife. I had my studio, where I was conducting many studies on the Terpsitone. I had a very beautiful student, a black woman. She danced well. And it happened that we liked each other very much. When I said in my consulate that

I liked a black woman, they said, "Okay, marry her.” Then we went to the consulate, where we were married, and that was my marriage number two. Her name was Lavinia Williams. When I left America - I had to leave America - she was to be sent in a few weeks.

Why did you leave New York?

I left New York because at that time the war was coming. The military troops of the fascists were approaching Leningrad, and so on. I asked to be sent to the Soviet Union so as to make myself useful, I asked many times. For a whole year I asked to be sent back. The war had already started, and they didn’t send me, they didn’t send me. Then at last they permitted me. They assigned me to be an assistant to the captain of a large motor ship. So I went home, but they did not take my wife.

So what happened then?            

I was arrested, and I was taken prisoner. Not quite a prisoner, but they put me in a special lab in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. There I worked in this lab just as others worked. [Airplane designer] Andrei Tupolev was imprisoned in such a way too, if you know about that. He was considered to be a prisoner, and I was considered a prisoner too.

So what did you do in that lab?

Electronics and other things that were mostly associated with military matters: television and other types of communication.

Weren’t you in a camp?

At one time, on the way to the laboratory, I was sent to a camp, where they did road construction. I was assigned to be supervisor over the prisoners. From there, after eight months on road construction, I was sent with Tupolev to the Aviation Institute. Many important people worked there: [Missile designer] Sergei Korolyov worked there for me.

Why were you arrested?       

     

We were all under suspicion, all the people, and I as a suspicious person was assigned to be under investigation. The investigator was occupied with my case for a month or more. He and the magistrate asked me all kinds of questions. This was all very formal, and they congratulated me and said that everything was okay, but they said that unfortunately there would be a second investigation. There was a second investigator, who also asked questions, and they wrote down that everything would be fine. But after that, together with the other prisoners, I went with Tupolev. Officially I was considered a prisoner, but as soon as I arrived they made me the supervisor of a group of prisoners.

Why was your name not mentioned in the West? We have one book that says that you died around 1945. [Andy Mackay Electronic Music: The Instruments, the Music & the Musicians, Control Data Publishing, 1981.]

Because at that time my arrival was kind of secret, At the end of the long situation, a longtime passed, about half a year, and then there was a procedure that was standard with many people who were under suspicion. At that time it was quite acceptable for people to be detained in such a way. I was appointed to be in charge of the laboratory, but it was written that they could detain me as a prisoner. They used a word not as terrible as "prison,” but I was imprisoned there for eight years.

What did you do after you became free?

I stayed in my lab. First I was under some supervision, and then I became the director of the lab. I remained in the same place, I had some new things that I invented, I received a big bonus; I received an apartment. It was at that time that I got remarried, to Maria. Eight years elapsed while I was there.

Even when I was interned I was treated very well. I was not considered to be in prison, but I worked as a normal person. I was the head of the lab, and when they liberated me I was still working in the same lab. It turned out that when I was free it was much more difficult to work in the lab. When I was considered to be imprisoned I had a supervisor, and they would say to me that I had to do this and that. Then, when I was freed, I had to do it myself. Then I had to fuss, do much more paperwork, keep an office in order. The work became much worse.

I went on pension in I966 or ’67. Then I started to look for an organization where

I could work, the first place I came to work was at the Moscow Conservatory. They gave me a space, and I started to work on the electronic musical instrument and the dancing instruments at the conservatory.

There was a very unpleasant situation at the conservatory that I’m going to tell you about. One of the journalists from The New York Times came to Svishnikov, the director, and said, “We thought Theremin was dead, but it turns out that he’s working here. I would like to meet him, to see him, to find out what he’s been doing.” Svishnikov called me to his office, and I talked to the journalist. I showed the man the musical instrument, a good Thereminvox that I had made, and the dancing instrument. He liked them very much.

And then it happened that in a month, the newspaper arrived, containing an article that Theremin is doing this and that, electrical musical instruments in the conservatory, instruments for dancing. [“Music: Leon Theremin” by Harold C. Schonberg, The New York Times, April 26, 1967.1 This very newspaper got into the hands of Svishnikov’s assistant; his name was Nuzhin, and he did not know what I was doing there, This is how he learned that electrical musical instruments were being made in the conservatory. He announced that, “Electricity is not good for music. Electricity is to be used for electrocution.” So he ordered that all these instruments be removed from the conservatory, and Theremin too, and to throw all these things out, and that there be no more projects at the conservatory.

Then how did you live? How did you survive?

Later on I had some other kinds of inventions. I was working in the university.

Which university was that?

Moscow University, department of acoustics.

You spoke about a polyphonic instrument, Did it exist?

Yes, I did make such an instrument. A person could regulate one voice, or at the same time could add two or three more voices which would be in some sort of correct intervallic, I mean chordal, relationship in some natural pitch system. You change the pitch with the right hand just as it was with my other instruments, and the amplitude with the left hand. But then if you move the left hand from left to right, you can select 12 or I3 different intervals in exact relation to the melody - 3:4, 5:7, and so on.

So there were two antennas for the left hand, one for the volume and one to select the chords.

That is correct.

Does the instrument still exist?

I had the instrument in the university in a special place where I demonstrated it for my lectures. But the university was reorganized and rooms reassigned. The instrument was left in a room for four years, where people could come and gradually dismantle it. So now it is in a completely dismantled and ruined condition at the university somewhere.

After that I started working on a new instrument. The old instrument was made using “radio lamps,” but the new instrument I started making was based on semiconductors. The project was going well. It was partially completed when l had to clear out the place where the instrument was located because there were other projects going on that were unrelated to music. The chairman of the physics department considered music not to be a science, that this should not be taking place at the university, and I had to vacate the room that I was occupying at the university.

In what year was this?

Approximately - I am afraid to say - '78, It was about 78.

Do you have a message now that you would like to convey to the Western World?

What words! The only thing I wanted to ask, if it were allowed by the Soviet government, is that I be allowed to promote my instruments. You must make the impression that I was allowed to come here. It seems that there will be no punishment for me if you write in the newspaper about all I have told you. I hope nothing will happen, We’ll see what happens. The same with my invention. I want to stress to you that all this needs to he done in a disciplined way, and that when people will be asking about me and writing; about me, that all this be done in a responsible way. But if you write that I have said something; against the Soviet government and that I have said that it is better to work elsewhere, then I shall have difficulties back home [ironic laughter].

Text and photos courtesy of Keyboard Magazine.