| Léon Theremin |
| Born |
August 15, 1896(1896-08-15)
|
| Died |
November 3, 1993 (aged 97)
|
| Occupation |
Inventor |
| Known for |
Theremin |
Léon Theremin (born Lev Sergeyevich Termen, Russian: Лев Сергеевич Термен) (August 15, 1896[1] Julian calendar = 1896-08-27 Gregorian calendar – November 3, 1993) was a Russian inventor. He is most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments.
Léon Theremin was born in Saint Petersburg—renamed Leningrad from 1924 until 1991—and his family had French ancestry.[2]
Electronic inventions
He invented the theremin (also called the thereminvox) in 1919,citation needed when his country was in the midst of the Russian Civil War. Theremin invented the first motion detector for use as a "radio watchman",[3] and in 1925 he went to Germany to sell both the radio watchman and Termenvox patents to the German firm Goldberg and Sons. According to Glinsky this was the Soviet's "decoy for capitalists" to obtain both Western profits from sales and technical knowledge.
During this time Lev was also working on a wireless television with 16 scan lines in 1925, improving to 32 scan lines and then 64 using interlacing in 1926 and he demonstrated moving, if blurry, images on June 7, 1927.[4]
After being sent on a lengthy tour of Europe starting 1927 - including London, Paris and towns in Germany[5][6] - during which he demonstrated his invention to full audiences, Theremin found his way to the United States, arriving December 30, 1927 with his first wife, Katia Constantinova[7]. He performed the theremin with the New York Philharmonic in 1928. He patented his invention in the United States in 1928[8][9] and subsequently granted commercial production rights to RCA.
Léon Theremin set up a laboratory in New York in the 1930s, where he developed the theremin and experimented with other electronic musical instruments and other inventions. These included the Rhythmicon, commissioned by the American composer and theorist Henry Cowell.
In 1930, ten thereminists performed on stage at Carnegie Hall. Two years later, Theremin conducted the first-ever electronic orchestra, featuring the theremin and other electronic instruments including a "fingerboard" theremin which resembled a cello in use.
Theremin's mentors during this time were some of society's foremost scientists, composers, and musical theorists, including composer Joseph Schillinger and physicist (and amateur violinist) Albert Einstein.clarify At this time, Theremin worked closely with fellow Russian émigré and theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore.
Theremin was interested in a role for the theremin in dance music. He developed performance locations that could automatically react to dancers' movements with varied patterns of sound and light. After the Soviet consulate had apparently demanded he divorce Katia and while working with the American Negro Ballet, the inventor fell in love with and married the young prima ballerina Lavinia Williams.[7] His marriage to the African-American dancer caused shock and disapproval in his social circles, but the ostracized couple remained together.citation needed
Return to the Soviet Union
Theremin abruptly returned to the Soviet Union in 1938. At the time, the reasons for his return were unclear: some claimed that he was simply homesick, while others believed that he had been kidnapped by Soviet officials. Beryl Campbell, one of Theremin's dancers, said his wife Lavinia "called to say that he had been kidnapped from his studio" and that "some Russians had come in" and that she felt that he was going to be spirited out of the country.[10]
Many years later, it was revealed that Theremin had returned to his native land due to tax and financial difficulties in the United States[11], however Theremin told Bulat Galeyev that he decided to leave himself because he was anxious about the approaching war.[2] Shortly after he returned, on Joseph Stalin's order, he was imprisoned at Butyrka and later sent to work in the Kolyma gold mines.citation needed Although rumors of his execution were widely circulated, Theremin was, in fact, put to work in a sharashka, together with Andrei Tupolev, Sergei Korolev, and other well-known scientists and engineers.[7] The Soviet Union rehabilitated him in 1956.
Espionage
During his work at the sharashka, where he was put in charge of other workers, Theremin created the Buran eavesdropping system. It worked by using a low power infrared beam from a distance to detect the sound vibrations in the glass windows.[2][12] Lavrentiy Beria, head of the KGB used the Buran device to spy on the U.S., British, and French embassies in Moscow.[13] According to Galeyev, Beria also spied on Stalin; Theremin kept some of the tapes in his flat. In 1947, Theremin was awarded the Stalin prize for inventing this advance in Soviet espionage technology.
Theremin invented another ingenious listening device called The Thing. Disguised in a replica of Great Seal of the United States carved in wood, in 1945 Soviet school children presented the concealed bug to U.S. Ambassador as a "gesture of friendship" to the USSR's World War II ally. It hung in the ambassador’s office in Moscow residential office, and intercepted confidential conversations there during the first seven years of the Cold War, until it was accidentally discovered in 1952.[14]
Later life
After his "release" from the sharashka in 1947, Theremin volunteered to remain working with the KGB until 1966.[2] By 1947 Theremin had remarried, to Maria, and they had two children: Lena and Natalia.[7]
After working for the KGB, Theremin worked at the Moscow Conservatory of Music[15] for 10 years where he taught and built Theremins, electronic cellos and some Terpsitones.[10] There he was discovered by a visiting New York Times correspondent, but when an article by Christopher Walker appeared, according to Lydia, the Vice President of the conservatory said "The people don't need electronic music. Electricity is for killing traitors in the electric chair",[7] fired Theremin[16], closed his laboratory[7] and had his instruments destroyed.[10]
In the 1970s, Léon Theremin began training his nine-year-old niece Lydia Kavina on the theremin. Kavina was to be Theremin's last protégé. Today, Kavina is considered one of the most advanced and famous thereminists in the world.
After 51 years in the Soviet Union Léon Theremin started travelling, first visiting France in June 1989[2] and then the United States in 1991, each time accompanied by his daughter Natalia,[17][7] where he was reunited with Clara Rockmore who performed a number of concerts at this time. He also made a demonstration concert at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in early 1993[2] before dying in Moscow in 1993 at the age of 97[18].
Documentary film
Léon Theremin is the subject of the documentary film, Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, written, directed, and produced by Steven M. Martin. The documentary was a winner at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994. The film features legendary thereminists Clara Rockmore and Lydia Kavina as well as electronic instrument pioneer Robert Moog, Nicolas Slonimsky, The Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson, and Theremin himself. In the documentary Lydia Kavina reported that Stalin, when he saw that Theremin was to be given the Second Level Stalin Awards, changed it to the First Level.[10][19][20]
Some of Theremin's inventions
References
- ^ Glinsky 2000, p. 10
- ^ a b c d e f Bulat Galeyev LMJ6
- ^ Glinsky 41, "patent ... radio watchman and the Termenvox ... By December 8, 1924, Len had two German Empire patent applications pending"
- ^ Glinsky 43-44
- ^ Leon Theremin - a short memoir Lev Termen, 1983-01-12
- ^ Glinsky 340
- ^ a b c d e f g Mattis 1989
- ^ Glinsky 346
- ^ U.S. Patent 1,661,058
- ^ a b c d Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, written, directed and produced by Steven M. Martin. Orion/MGM, 1994: 26mins Beryl Campbell reports Lavinia's call; 50mins Lydia Kavina reports Stalin's award
- ^ Glinsky, Albert (2000). Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02582-2
- ^ Glinsky 261
- ^ Glinsky 261
- ^ George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1950-1963, Volume II (Little, Brown & Co., 1972), pp. 155, 156.
- ^ Glinsky 341, "where Lev Sergeyevich had constructed musical instruments"
- ^ Glinsky 341, "his rough dismissal in 1967"
- ^ Glinsky 339
- ^ Jolly, James, general editor (January, 1994). "Obituaries". Gramophone Magazine 71 (848): 17. Middlesex, UK: General Gramophone Publications Limited. ISSN 0017-310X.
- ^ Bulat Galeyev LMJ6, "while still in prison, Theremin was granted the most prestigious Soviet scientific award, the First Class Stalin Prize (the Soviet analogue of the Nobel Prize) in 1947"
- ^ Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Theremincello Peter Pringle
See also
External links
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