Artist Detailed Info: Leon Theremin

Lev Sergeyevich Termen (27 August [O.S. 15 August] 1896 – 3 November 1993), better known as Leon Theremin was a Russian inventor, most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments and the first to be mass-produced.

As a young man, Theremin worked at Abram Fedorovich Ioffe’s Physical Technical Institute in Petrograd. While he worked on an array of projects, developing measuring methods for high-frequency electrical oscillations was one of the most important. 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 invented the first motion detector.

While adapting the dielectric device by adding circuitry to generate an audio tone, Theremin noticed that the pitch changed when his hand moved around. In October 1920 he first demonstrated this to Ioffe who called in other professors and students to hear. Theremin recalled trying to find the notes for tunes he remembered from when he played the cello, such as The Swan, by Camille Saint-Saëns.

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. He named it the etherphone, but it was known in the Soviet Union as the Russian: Терменвокс, romanized: Termenvox or Termenvoks, in Germany as the Thereminvox and later, in the USA, as the theremin.

In 1925 Theremin went to Germany to sell both the motion detector and Termenvox patents to the German firm Goldberg and Sons. After being sent on a lengthy tour of Europe starting 1927 – including London, Paris and towns in Germany – during which he demonstrated his invention to full audiences, Theremin went to the United States, arriving on 30 December 1927.

Theremin performed the theremin with the New York Philharmonic in 1928. He patented his invention in the United States in 1928 and subsequently granted commercial production rights to RCA. He 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 composer 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 was a cellist). He abruptly returned to the Soviet Union in 1938.

Shortly after he returned he was imprisoned and rumours of his execution were widely circulated and published, but Theremin was put to work in a sharashka (a secret laboratory). During his work there Theremin created the Buran eavesdropping system, a precursor to the modern laser microphone. In 1947, he was awarded the Stalin prize for inventing this advance in espionage technology.

After his release from the sharashka in 1947, Theremin volunteered to remain working with the KGB until 1966. Theremin then worked at the Moscow Conservatory of Music for 10 years where he taught, and built theremins, electronic cellos and some terpsitones (another invention of Theremin). There he was discovered by Harold Schonberg, the chief music critic of The New York Times, who was visiting the Conservatory.

In the 1970s, Leon Theremin was a Professor of Physics at Moscow State University (Department of Acoustics) developing his inventions and supervising graduate students. He made a demonstration concert at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in early 1993 before dying in Moscow on 3 November 1993 at the age of 97.

← Go Back