Léon Theremin

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Léon Theremin

A young Léon Theremin playing a 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 27 [O.S. August 15] 1896 – November 3, 1993) was a Russian inventor. He is most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments. He is also the inventor of interlace, a technique of improving the picture quality of a video signal, widely used in video and television technology.

Contents

[edit] Personal life

Theremin was born in Saint Petersburg in 1896 into a family of French ancestry.[1] He had a sister named Helena.[2]

He started to be interested in electricity at the age of 7, and by 13 he was experimenting with high frequency circuits. In the seventh class of his high school before an audience of students and parents he demonstrated various optical effects using electricity.[3]

By the age of 17 he was in his last year of high school and at home he had his own laboratory for experimenting with high frequency circuits, optics and magnetic fields. His cousin, Kyrill Fjodorowitsch Nesturch, then a young physicist and a singer named Wagz invited him to attend the defense of the dissertation of professor Abram Fjodorowitsch Ioffe. Physics lecturer Wladimir Konstantinowitsch Lebedinskij had explained to Leon the then interesting dispute over Ioffe's work on the electron. On 1913 May 9 Leon 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 1970 Leon 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. Leon 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.[2] From then on Leon endeavoured to study the Microcosm, in the same way he had studied the Macrocosm with his hand-built telescope.[3] Later, Kyrill introduced Leon to Ioffe as a young experimenter and physicist, and future student of the university.

Leon 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 Fjodorowitsch Ioffe led to a recommendation to see Karl Karlowitsch Baumgart, who was in charge of the physics laboratory equipment. Karl then reserved a room and equipment for Leon's experiments. Fjodorowitsch suggested Leon also look at methods of creating gas fluorescence under different conditions and of examining the resulting light's spectra. However, during these investigations Leon was called up for World War I military service.[4]

[edit] World War 1 and Russian Civil War

Despite Leon being only in his second academic year, the deanery of the Physics and Astronomical faculty recommended he go to the Nikolajewskoje military technical institute at Petrograd which usually only accepted students in their fourth year. Leon recalled Fjodorowitsch reassured him that the war would not last long and that military experience would be useful for scientific applications.[5]

Beginning his military service in 1916, Leon progressed through the higher electronic officer school and attained the military radio-engineer diploma. Over three and a half years he claimed to have built a radio station in Saratov to connect the Volga area with Moscow, became deputy leader of the Moscow radio laboratory, and finished as the leader of the radio transmitter at Tsarskoye Selo (then named Detskoye Selo).[5]

During the Russian civil war, in October 1919 White Army commander Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Judenitsch advanced on Petrograd from the side of Detskoye Selo, apparantly intending to capture the radio station to announce a victory over the Bolsheviks. Leon and others evacuated the station, sending equipment east on wagons. Leon then detonated all the 120 metre antennae 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.[6]

Leon recalled that on an evening when his hopes of overcoming these obstructing experts reached a low ebb, Abram Fjodorowitsch Ioffe telephoned him.[7] Abram asked Leon to come to his newly founded Physics and Technology division in Petrograd, and the next day he invited him to start work at developing measuring methods for high frequency electrical oscillations.[7]

[edit] Under Ioffe

The day after Ioffe's invitation Leon 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.[8] 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][9][10]

While adapting the dielectric device by adding circuitry to generate an audio tone, Leon noticed the pitch changed when his hand moved around.[11] In October 1920[12] he first demonstrated this to Ioffe who called in other professors and students to hear.[13] Leon recalled trying to find the notes for tunes he remembered from when he played the cello, such as the Swan by Saint-Saëns.[9][11] By November 1920 Leon had given his first public concert with the instrument, now modified with a horizontal volume antenna replacing the earlier foot-operated volume control.[13][14] He named it the "etherphone";[14], to be known as the "thereminvox" in Germany[15] and later as the "theremin" in the United States.

On 1924 May 24 Lev married 20 year old Katia Pavlovna Constantinova, and they lived together in Lev's parents' Marat street apartment.[16]

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.[17]

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.[17]

[edit] United States

After being sent on a lengthy tour of Europe starting 1927 - including London, Paris and towns in Germany[13][18] - 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.[19] He performed the theremin with the New York Philharmonic in 1928. He patented his invention in the United States in 1928[20][21] 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.[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. 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.[19] His marriage to the African-American dancer caused shock and disapproval in his social circles, but the ostracized couple remained together.[citation needed]

[edit] 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.[22]

Many years later, it was revealed that Theremin had returned to his native land due to tax and financial difficulties in the United States[23]. However Theremin told Bulat Galeyev that he decided to leave himself because he was anxious about the approaching war.[1] Shortly after he returned he was imprisoned at Butyrka 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, together with Andrei Tupolev, Sergei Korolev, and other well-known scientists and engineers.[19] The Soviet Union rehabilitated him in 1956.

[edit] Espionage

"The Thing"

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.[1][24] Lavrentiy Beria, head of the KGB used the Buran device to spy on the U.S., British, and French embassies in Moscow.[24] 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 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.[25]

[edit] Later life

After his "release" from the sharashka in 1947, Theremin volunteered to remain working with the KGB until 1966.[1] By 1947 Theremin had remarried, to Maria, and they had two children: Lena and Natalia.[19]

After working for the KGB, Theremin worked at the Moscow Conservatory of Music[26] for 10 years where he taught and built Theremins, electronic cellos and some Terpsitones.[22] 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",[19] fired Theremin[27], closed his laboratory[19] and had his instruments destroyed.[22]

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[1] 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[1] before dying in Moscow in 1993 at the age of 97[28].

[edit] Documentary film

Léon Theremin is the subject of the feature length documentary film, THEREMIN - An Electronic Odyssey, written, directed, and produced by Steven M. Martin. The film won the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994, a Golden Gate Award at The San Francisco Film Festival, was nominated for both an International Emmy and a British Academy Award, and has been presented both at the National Gallery in Washington and by invitation from the Russian Ministry of Culture at Dom Kino in Saint Petersburg, and is released in America through MGM. The film features thereminist Clara Rockmore as well as electronic instrument pioneer Robert Moog, Nicolas Slonimsky, The Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson, and Theremin himself.

THEREMIN - An Electronic Odyssey is widely regarded[citation needed] as being responsible for sparking a resurgence of interest in both Theremin and his work. After the film's release Robert Moog, a long time champion of Theremin's work who also appeared in the film, resumed manufacturing theremin instruments. Thousands are now sold annually around the world.[citation needed]

[edit] Some of Theremin's inventions

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Theremin recalled he made the dielectric device first followed by the radio alarm while Glinsky (page 23) writes Leon made the alarm first and then the dielectric device

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Bulat Galeyev LMJ6
  2. ^ a b "Termens Kindheit" (in German). http://www.ima.or.at/theremin/?page_id=19&cat=1. Retrieved on 2009-04-25. 
  3. ^ a b Leon Theremin (1970). "Erstes Treffen mit A. F. Joffe" (in German). http://www.ima.or.at/theremin/?page_id=55&cat=1. Retrieved on 2009-04-25. 
  4. ^ Leon Theremin (1970). "Erste Experimente am Physikalischen Institut bei Joffe" (in German). http://www.ima.or.at/theremin/?page_id=54&cat=1. Retrieved on 2009-03-21. 
  5. ^ a b Leon Theremin (1970). "Der erste Weltkrieg" (in German). http://www.ima.or.at/theremin/?page_id=53&cat=1. Retrieved on 2009-04-25. 
  6. ^ Leon Theremin (1970). "Die Evakuierung der Radiostation" (in German). http://www.ima.or.at/theremin/?page_id=52&cat=1. Retrieved on 2009-04-25. 
  7. ^ a b Leon Theremin (1970). "Die Physikalisch Technische Hochschule unter der Leitung von Joffe" (in German). http://www.ima.or.at/theremin/?page_id=51&cat=1. Retrieved on 2009-04-25. 
  8. ^ Leon Theremin (1970). "Erhöhung der Sinneswahrnehmung durch Hypnose" (in German). http://www.ima.or.at/theremin/?page_id=44&cat=1. Retrieved on 2009-05-10. 
  9. ^ a b Leon Theremin (1970). "Die Erfindung des Theremins" (in German). http://www.ima.or.at/theremin/?page_id=44&cat=1. Retrieved on 2009-05-10. 
  10. ^ Glinsky 41, "patent ... radio watchman and the Termenvox ... By December 8, 1924, Len had two German Empire patent applications pending"
  11. ^ a b Glinsky 24
  12. ^ Glinsky 26; but Theremin in 1983 recalled it was September
  13. ^ a b c Leon Theremin - a short memoir Lev Termen, 1983-01-12
  14. ^ a b Glinsky 26
  15. ^ Glinsky 53
  16. ^ Glinsky 36
  17. ^ a b Glinsky 43-44
  18. ^ Glinsky 340
  19. ^ a b c d e f Mattis 1989
  20. ^ Glinsky 346
  21. ^ U.S. Patent 1,661,058
  22. ^ a b c 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
  23. ^ Glinsky
  24. ^ a b Glinsky 261
  25. ^ George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1950-1963, Volume II (Little, Brown & Co., 1972), pp. 155, 156.
  26. ^ Glinsky 341, "where Lev Sergeyevich had constructed musical instruments"
  27. ^ Glinsky 341, "his rough dismissal in 1967"
  28. ^ Jolly, James, general editor (January 1994). "Obituaries". Gramophone Magazine (Middlesex, UK: General Gramophone Publications Limited) 71 (848): 17. ISSN 0017-310X. 
  29. ^ Theremincello Peter Pringle

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Portals and general information

[edit] Further information

[edit] Audio and Video

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