95-Year-old the ,eremin, won of eked,roacoustic titan Russian t *wee techn°l°c~~ nrus~c Mates ted in theUni Weeks visd arty last Fall . the e dina y Was extraor r an Theremin has event ; subject been the long musical of myths and a . the has lore,Yet Sa to prisoro virtual ost elo,n ,~,ith n until glasn chats Unio Robert viet de POW' Th ika n~ Inereminsyathestze ford S d Perestro at 9t . abroad to (Rl l . OPposde ent anWel,s tr 1927 Ma9 um ble ,en the teo+b°rp;M1e in Ne " were Theres pT lived , York Russ.to. ha backksto ~Waclear. red his d him r ot ~at bears ore d'saPpeo sum ~,at e~ a. uthonhes. s ~ad his name . Soviet reason bW°use For Wan top whych time ned, World 1938, at and ~mPrrso was during e irster~ t learn a SO very developn`en Lately ages German iris ,he was as on imm~s shot .1 ` ~ he'~os that he For ivers'b' ruromom press nSard Soviet rrwswalre at Sro We onference a p odm~1tea at as he 46 his return to the United States was almost like "AS FOR HIM he was re- a homecoming. During his stay PERSONALLY, united with portions of his erstwhile American WAS A life, including places where he had lived and EINSTEIN worked, and people that he had known. At PHYSICIST AND Be- reacquainted with 97-year- Stanford he was THEORIST, BUT 1 WAS nd old music encyclopedia author Nicolas - of Slonimsky, whom he'd known as a young NOT A THEORIST wo conductor. Then, at a New York reception 1 WAS AN INVENTOR ol- given in his honor, where his arrival was greet- - SO WE DID NOT na ed with tUn1Ul1U(lU5 applause ", he saw former The student~ and c cll1Cagues, .111 in their 80s and HAVE THAT MUCH os- 90s, inc lulling Henry Solonlxlnclll, Suki Bader, IN COMMON . 1 HAD e is Beryl Camphell, and comlx)se-Otto Luening. MUCH MORE KINSHIP gh- But the most imllurtant reunion was with me Clara Rockmore, the pre-eminent Thereminist WITH SOMEONE legitimized ncy whose virtuosity on the instrument LIKE VLADIMIR ILYICH ax- it in musical circles (in the same way that the WHO WAS ing inspired playing of leanne I oricrl promoted [LENIN], ncy Maurice Martenot's Ondes Martenot). INTERESTED IN yer always thought of Clara as his Theremin has HOW THE WHOLE but greatest student, and their meeting last fall WORLD IS CREATED . y the was like closing a circle. any On September 28, 1991, we talked with 3ob Theremin for several hours, asking him ques- zer, tions about his enigmatic life and career, and in bringing about in physics, in electricity, and in I became interested his following up on the interview that one of us interested would be those of a pendulum . progress in music, so that there Dm_ in Bourges on June oscillatory motions like (Mattis) had conducted more musical resources . I was not satisfied excerpts In high school I was interested in physics, and be 16, 1989 . The following are edited instruments in existence, playing the piano I started studying cello. with the mechanical in's of both interviews . For the careful translation after were all I entered the conser- of which there were many. They Theremin's detailed Russian prose, we While in high school, of with the built using elementary principles and were York thank Patrick Lemoine, Nina vatory on the cello, and I graduated would like to not physically well done . I was interested in especially Alejandro title of "free artist on the violoncello ." Then ents Boguslawsky, and most a different kind of instrument . And I entered the university, and majored in making hort Tkaczevski . course, to make an apparatus physics and astronomy . I wanted, of The controlled in space, exploiting When did you first conceive of your in- that would be I ly- fields, and that would use little en- strument? electrical ick's electronic technology first came to me right after our ergy . Therefore I used and lease tell us about your early The idea would pro- beginning of the Bolshevik to create a musical instrument that ntly, lite, and about your scientific Revolution, at the of an in- vide greater resources . y in and musical training . state. I wanted to invent some kind mechan- How did Lenin find out about your instru- ns." I was born in Leningrad, strument that would not operate cello and the ment? ercy which was then called St. ically, as does the piano, or the can be com- In the Soviet Union at that time everyone vin's Petersburg, in 1896. My fa- violin, whose bow movements conceived of an was interested in new things, in particular all way ther was a lawyer, and my pared to those of a saw. I sound without the new uses of electricity: for agriculture, ure . mother was interested in instrument that would create for mechanical uses, for transport, and for ants : arts, especially music using any mechanical energy, like the con- the communication . I decided to create a musical Even ductor of an orchestra . iyth- and drawing. be- made the first few devices Why did you make this instrument? use for electricity. I :erns 1: q fore high school I was plat- bled )ody f the Robert Moog (left) is the principal the Moog synthesizer . He t.ltes developer of i the built his first Theremin in 1949, and his e of most recent one in September 1991 . par- is a musicol- tival Olivia Mattis (center) 990 ogist who specializes in the works of eek- Edgard Varese. She's currently in Paris, val . York conducting research on Varese . 5,50 FEBRUARY 1992/KEYBOARD 49 had a lab. I was the inventor of this instru- ment, the first instrument . I was also the first co in the world to invent a television device; this an was in 1926. wi Then I was sent abroad. I was sent to an the international conference in Frankfurt. My wife im Katia joined me in Paris, where I went next, dic based on the principles of the started to play The Lark. He had a very good and we stayed with my relatives. After that Ne human interference of radio ear, and he felt where to move his hands to we went to America. waves in space, first for elec- get the sound -to lower or raise the pitch. Katia was interested in medicine, and she bet tronic security systems, then In the middle of this piece I thought that he wanted to enter a medical institute that was on applied to musical purposes. could, independently, move his hands. So I about 35 kilometers from New York. So she hel There was a big electron- took my hands off his and he completed the entered this medical school, and she slept ure ics conference in Moscow, there in the dormitory, but she visited me once ing and I showed my instruments or twice a week in New York. ora there. The conference was a I'll tell you what happened afterwards . he 1 great success; it was written up in the literature One fine day a young man came to me and big and the newspapers, of which we had many said, "You know," (he gave me his calling woe at the time, and many doors were opened card), "I have a request to make of you and the, for me in the Soviet Union. And so Vladimir of your wife too. We love each other. Let us his Ilyich Lenin, the leader of our state, learned marry each other." It was not quite pleasant I wi that I had shown an interesting thing at this for me, but I said, "Of course I cannot forbid I ca conference, and he wanted to get acquainted - well, in the Soviet Union we have free- ure with it himself. They asked me to come with dom. Divorce is legal ." But I told him that of tl my apparatus, with my musical instrument, things could not happen in this way. He left, to his office, him. to show And I did so. While at Stanford, Therernin was reintraduced and I felt terrible. phy What did Lenin think of it? to renowned nvusieion/musieyneydopsdia au- I tried to reach my wife, but the phones -I He was very gracious, and I was very thor Nicolas Skr,nimsky, who also hails from weren't working well. After a while, maybe that pleased to meet him. I showed him his St. Petersburg . He also took time to read and three days later, I received from my embassy shin colleagues the Skmhnsky's suspenders, which say "perestroi- control system of my instru- -because at the time I was working under [Len ment, which I played by moving my ka" in the Cyrillic alphabet. hands the leadership of our consulate - a mag- wor in the air, and which at that time was called azine that was published by German rep- 1 the Thereminvox. I played a piece of music, whole thing independently, by himself, with resentatives of a fascist organization in Amer- him after which they applauded, including great success and with great applause follow- ica . In this article it was written that, "The an e Vladimir Ilyich, who had been watching very ing. He was very happy that he could play wife of Theremin is sympathetic to our work, mer attentively. I played Glinka's The Lark, which on this instrument all by himself.