Léon Theremin
Léon Theremin | |
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![]() Lev Termen demonstrating Termenvox, c. December 1927
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Born | Lev Sergeyevich Termen 15 August 1896 Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire |
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Moscow, Russia |
Occupation | engineer, physicist |
Known for | Theremin, The Thing |
Lev Sergeyevich Termen (Russian: Ле́в Серге́евич Терме́н) (27 August [O.S. 15 August] 1896 – 3 November 1993), or Léon Theremin in the United States, was a Russian and Soviet inventor, most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments and the first to be mass produced. He also devised the interlace technique[1] for improving the quality of a video signal, still widely used in video and television technology. His listening device, "The Thing", hung for seven years in plain view in the United States Ambassador's Moscow office and enabled Soviet agents to eavesdrop on secret conversations. It is considered a predecessor of RFID technology.[2]
Contents
Early life
Léon Theremin was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire in 1896 into a family of French Huguenot[3] and German ancestry.[4] He had a sister named Helena.[5]
In the seventh class of his high school before an audience of students and parents he demonstrated various optical effects using electricity.[6]
By the age of 17, when he was in his last year of high school, he had his own laboratory at home for experimenting with high frequency circuits, optics and magnetic fields. His cousin, Kirill Fedorovich Nesturkh, then a young physicist, and a singer named Wagz invited him to attend the defense of the dissertation of professor Abram Fedorovich Ioffe. Physics lecturer Vladimir Konstantinovich Lebedinskiy had explained to Theremin the dispute over Ioffe's work on the electron. On 9 May 1913 Theremin and his cousin attended Ioffe's dissertation defense. Ioffe's subject was on the elementary photoelectric effect, the magnetic field of cathode rays and related investigations. In 1917 Theremin wrote that Ioffe talked of electrons, the photoelectric effect and magnetic fields as parts of an objective reality that surrounds us everyday, unlike others that talked more of somewhat abstract formula and symbols. Theremin wrote that he found this explanation revelatory and that it fit a scientific – not abstract – view of the world, different scales of magnitude, and matter.[5] From then on Theremin endeavoured to study the Microcosm, in the same way he had studied the Macrocosm with his hand-built telescope.[6] Later, Kyrill introduced Theremin to Ioffe as a young experimenter and physicist, and future student of the university.
Theremin recalled that while still in his last year of school, he had built a million-volt Tesla coil and noticed a strong glow associated with his attempts to ionise the air. He then wished to further investigate the effects using university resources. A chance meeting with Abram Fedorovich Ioffe led to a recommendation to see Karl Karlovich Baumgart, who was in charge of the physics laboratory equipment. Karl then reserved a room and equipment for Theremin's experiments. Abram Fedorovich suggested Theremin also look at methods of creating gas fluorescence under different conditions and of examining the resulting light's spectra. However, during these investigations Theremin was called up for World War I military service.[7]
World War I and Russian Civil War
Despite Theremin being only in his second academic year, the deanery of the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy recommended him to go to the Nikolayevska Military Engineering School in Petrograd (renamed from Saint Petersburg), which usually only accepted students in their fourth year. Theremin recalled Ioffe reassured him that the war would not last long and that military experience would be useful for scientific applications.[8]
Beginning his military service in 1916, Theremin finished the Military Engineering School in six months, progressed through the Graduate Electronic School for Officers, and attained the military radio-engineer diploma in the same year.[citation needed] In the course of the next three and a half years he oversaw the construction of a radio station in Saratov to connect the Volga area with Moscow, graduated from Petrograd University, became deputy leader of the new Military Radiotechnical Laboratory in Moscow, and finished as the broadcast supervisor of the radio transmitter at Tsarskoye Selo near Petrograd (then renamed Detskoye Selo).[8]
During the Russian civil war, in October 1919 White Army commander Nikolai Nikolayevich Yudenich advanced on Petrograd from the side of Detskoye Selo, apparently intending to capture the radio station to announce a victory over the Bolsheviks. Theremin and others evacuated the station, sending equipment east on rail cars. Theremin then detonated explosives to destroy the 120 meter-high antennae mast before traveling to Petrograd to set up an international listening station. There he also trained radio specialists but reported difficulties obtaining food and working with foreign experts who he described as narrow-minded pessimists.[9]
Theremin recalled that on an evening when his hopes of overcoming these obstructing experts reached a low ebb, Abram Fedorovich Ioffe telephoned him.[10] Ioffe asked Theremin to come to his newly founded Physical Technical Institute in Petrograd, and the next day he invited him to start work at developing measuring methods for high frequency electrical oscillations.[10]
Under Ioffe
The day after Ioffe's invitation, Theremin started at the institute. He worked in diverse fields: applying the Laue effect to the new field of X-ray analysis of crystals; using hypnosis to improve measurement-reading accuracy; working with Ivan Pavlov's laboratory; and using gas-filled lamps as measuring devices.[11] He built a high frequency oscillator to measure the dielectric constant of gases with high precision; Ioffe then urged him to look for other applications using this method, and shortly made the first motion detector for use as a "radio watchman".[note 1][12][13]
While adapting the dielectric device by adding circuitry to generate an audio tone, Theremin noticed the pitch changed when his hand moved around.[14] In October 1920[15] he first demonstrated this to Ioffe who called in other professors and students to hear.[16] Theremin recalled trying to find the notes for tunes he remembered from when he played the cello, such as the Swan by Saint-Saëns.[12][14] By November 1920 Theremin had given his first public concert with the instrument, now modified with a horizontal volume antenna replacing the earlier foot-operated volume control.[16][17] He named it the "etherphone",[17] to be known as the Терменвокс (Termenvox) in the Soviet Union, as the Thereminvox in Germany,[18] and later as the "theremin" in the United States.
On 24 May 1924 Theremin married 20-year-old Katia (Ekaterina Pavlovna) Konstantinova, and they lived together in his parents' apartment on Marat street.[19]
In 1925 Theremin 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.[20]
During this time Theremin 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 7 June 1927.[20]
United States
After being sent on a lengthy tour of Europe starting 1927 – including London, Paris and towns in Germany[16][21] – during which he demonstrated his invention to full audiences, Theremin found his way to the United States, arriving on 30 December 1927 with his first wife Katia.[22] He performed the theremin with the New York Philharmonic in 1928. He patented his invention in the United States in 1928[23][24] and subsequently granted commercial production rights to RCA.
Theremin set up a laboratory in New York in the 1930s, where he further refined the theremin and experimented with other inventions and new electronic musical instruments. 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.[clarification needed] 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.
The Soviet consulate had apparently demanded he divorce Katia. Afterwards, while working with the American Negro Ballet Company, the inventor married a young African-American prima ballerina Lavinia Williams.[22] Their marriage caused shock and disapproval in his social circles, but the ostracized couple remained together.[25]
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.[26]
Many years later, it was revealed that Theremin had returned to his native land due to tax and financial difficulties in the United States.[27] However, Theremin himself once told Bulat Galeyev that he decided to leave himself because he was anxious about the approaching war.[4] Shortly after he returned he was imprisoned in the Butyrka prison and later sent to work in the Kolyma gold mines. Although rumors of his execution were widely circulated and published, Theremin was, in fact, put to work in a sharashka (a secret laboratory in the Gulag camp system), together with Andrei Tupolev, Sergei Korolev, and other well-known scientists and engineers.[22] 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. A precursor to the modern laser microphone, it worked by using a low power infrared beam from a distance to detect the sound vibrations in the glass windows.[4][28] Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the secret police organization NKVD (the predecessor of the KGB), used the Buran device to spy on the British, French and US embassies in Moscow.[28] 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 listening device called The Thing. Disguised in a replica of the 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 residential office in Moscow, and intercepted confidential conversations there during the first seven years of the Cold War, until it was accidentally discovered in 1952.[29]
Later life
After his "release" from the sharashka in 1947, Theremin volunteered to remain working with the KGB until 1966.[4] By 1947 Theremin had remarried, to Maria Guschina, his third wife, and they had two children: Lena and Natalia.[22]
Theremin worked at the Moscow Conservatory of Music[30] for 10 years where he taught, and built theremins, electronic cellos and some terpsitones (another invention of Theremin).[26] There he was discovered by Harold Schonberg, the chief music critic of The New York Times, who was visiting the Conservatory. But when an article by Schonberg appeared mentioning Theremin,[31] the Conservatory's Managing Director declared that "electricity is not good for music; electricity is to be used for electrocution" and had his instruments removed from the Conservatory.[22] Further electronic music projects were banned, and Theremin was summarily dismissed.[32]
In the 1970s, Léon Theremin was a Professor of Physics at Moscow State University (Department of Acoustics) developing his inventions and supervising graduate students.
After 51 years in the Soviet Union Theremin started travelling, first visiting France in June 1989[4] and then the United States in 1991, each time accompanied by his daughter Natalia. Theremin was brought to New York by filmmaker Steven M. Martin where he was reunited with Clara Rockmore. He also made a demonstration concert at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in early 1993[4] before dying in Moscow, Russia in 1993 at the age of 97.[33]
Media
The feature-length documentary film, Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey was released in 1993.
His life story and his Great Seal bug invention were featured in a 2012 episode of the Dark Matters: Twisted But True.
In 2000, University of Illinois Press published Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage by Albert Glinsky, with a foreword by Robert Moog.
In 2014, Canadian writer Sean Michaels published the novel Us Conductors, which was inspired by the relationship between Léon Theremin and Clara Rockmore. The novel won the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Some of Theremin's inventions
- Theremin – the classic Theremin (1920)
- Burglar alarm, or "Signalling Apparatus" which used the Theremin effect (1920s)
- Electromechanical television – Nipkow disk with mirrors instead of slots (ca. 1925)
- Terpsitone – platform that converts dance movements into tones (1932)
- Theremin cello – an electronic cello with no strings and no bow, using a plastic fingerboard, a handle for volume and two knobs for sound shaping (ca. 1930)[34][35][36][37]
- Keyboard theremin (ca. 1930), looking like a small piano, "with hornlike tones"[38]
- Rhythmicon – world's first drum machine (1931)
- The Buran eavesdropping device (1947 or earlier)
- The Great Seal bug, also known as "The Thing" – one of the first passive covert listening devices; first used by the USSR for spying (1945 or earlier)
See also
- Raymond Scott
- Robert Moog
- Bruce Haack
- Brian Wilson
- Spharophon, a Theremin-like instrument made by Jörg Mager around 1921
- Maurice Martenot, inventor of the Ondes Martenot, a keyboard-based instrument using the heterodyning method
Footnotes
Notes
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. pages 41-45
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Bulat M. Galeyev, LMJ 6.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Glinsky p. 41, "patent ... radio watchman and the Termenvox ... By December 8, 1924, Len had two German Empire patent applications pending".
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Glinsky p. 24.
- ↑ Glinsky p. 26; but Theremin in 1983 recalled it was September.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Leon Theremin – a short memoir Lev Termen, 1983-01-12.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Glinsky p. 26.
- ↑ Glinsky p. 53.
- ↑ Glinsky p. 36.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Glinsky pp. 43–44.
- ↑ Glinsky p. 340.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 22.4 Mattis 1989
- ↑ Glinsky p. 346.
- ↑ U.S. Patent 1,661,058.
- ↑ Glinsky p. 177.
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 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.
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 Glinsky p. 261.
- ↑ George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1950–1963, Volume II (Little, Brown & Co., 1972), pp. 155, 156.
- ↑ Glinsky p. 341, "where Lev Sergeyevich had constructed musical instruments"
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Glinsky p. 310.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (demonstration playing of a theremincello)
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (slideshow including internal details of a theremincello replica)
- ↑ "Radio Squeals turned to Music", Popular Science, June 1932, p. 51, available on popsci.com
References
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Linked from LMJ 6
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- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. copied here [1]
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Sections translated by Felix Eder from the Russian originals in: Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to [[commons:Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 506: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).|Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 506: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).]]. |
- Find A Grave Kuntsevo Cemetery, Moscow RU
- Portals and general information
- Theremin Times – first russian portal about theremin (Russian only)
- Andrey Smirnov – theremin sensors workshop (selected demonstrations of Theremin sensors and laser bugging.) Retrieved 2009-09-11
- Theremin Centre, Moscow, holds Lev Sergeivitch Termen archives (Russian only)
- Further information
- Lev Sergeivitch Termen: The Inventor of The Great Seal Bug, aka The Thing
- Lev Sergeivitch Termen: The Inventor of the theremin. (4 page history dated February 6, 2001)
- An Introduction to Leon Theremin at the Wayback Machine (archived October 8, 2007). (five paragraph introduction)
- A Theremin Bibliography (List of publications and films about the man and the instrument)
- Theremin International Resource Directory compiled by Matthias Sauer for Leonardo/ISAST
- An encounter with Léon Theremin. (1991 video of Theremin in Moscow with Paul)
- Inventor of the Week Archive – Leon Theremin (1896–1993) (one page brief biography)
- Lev Sergeyevich Termen (1896–1993) (in French, 4 paragraph summary in context of early electronic music)
- History of the theremin from Moog Music (one page)
- Lua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). Theremin – An Electronic Odyssey at IMDb from The History Channel
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (Moog talks about Theremin's work on television, bugging)
- "Between “Bad Things” and Good Vibrations: Leon Theremin and his T-Vox". Natascha Drubek-Meyer, ARTMargins – long article with citations
- Léon Theremin's mentor Joseph Schillinger
- Design and Implementation of the 1st Theremin Concert for Aliens
- Audio and Video
- Leom Theremin plays thereminvox. Stanford, 1991 on YouTube
- Peter Theremin (great-grandson of Leon Theremin)plays thereminvox on YouTube
- Leon and Natasha Theremin (1989) on YouTube
- Leon Theremin plays "Vocalise" (Rechmaninoff) on YouTube
- Natasha Theremin plays "Ave Maria" on YouTube
- Rehearsal Natasha and Olga Theremin on YouTube
- Peter Theremin plays theremin. Piazzolla, Bach. 2011 on YouTube
- Andrey Smirnov :: downloads (film from 1954, 2007; demonstrations of inventions at the Moscow State Conservatory)
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. playing "Ne brani menya rodnaya" by Aleksandr Dubuque in the 1950s (needs Flash)
- Leon Theremin at 95 teaches Paul Lansky how to play Mikhail Glinka's Skylark in Moscow, February 1991 on YouTube
- Articles with hCards
- Articles containing Russian-language text
- Articles with unsourced statements from May 2012
- Wikipedia articles needing clarification from March 2008
- Commons category link from Wikidata
- Léon Theremin
- 1896 births
- 1993 deaths
- Russian inventors
- Russian people of French descent
- Russian people of Huguenot descent
- Russian people of German descent
- Burials at Kuntsevo Cemetery
- Soviet engineers
- Soviet scientists
- Sharashka inmates
- Theremin players
- Inventors of musical instruments
- People from Saint Petersburg
- Stalin Prize winners
- Soviet inventors