Wednesday 14 March 2012

Leon Theremin: The man and the music machine

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.
"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...
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