Theremin: ETHER MUSIC AND ESPIONAGE (Music in American Life) [Hardcover]

Albert Glinsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2000 | Series: Music in American Life

Leon Theremin led a life of flamboyant musical invention laced with daring electronic stealth. A creative genius and prolific inventor, Theremin launched the field of electronic music virtually singlehandedly in 1920 with the musical instrument that bears his name. The theremin - the only instrument that is played without being touched - created a sensation worldwide and paved the way for the modern synthesizer. Its otherworldly sound became familiar in sci-fi films and even in rock music. This magical instrument that charmed millions, however, is only the beginning of the story. As a Soviet scientist, Theremin surrendered his life and work to the service of State espionage. On assignment in Depression-era America, he became the toast of New York society and worked the engines of capitalist commerce while passing data on U.S. industrial technology to the Soviet apparat.Following his sudden disappearance from New York in 1938, Theremin was exiled to a Siberian labor camp and subsequently vanished into the top-secret Soviet intelligence machine, presumed dead for nearly thirty years. Using the same technology that lay behind the theremin, he designed bugging devices that eavesdropped on U.S. diplomatic offices and stood at the center of a pivotal cold war confrontation. Throughout his life, Theremin developed many other electronic wonders, including one of the earliest televisions and multimedia devices that anticipated performance art and virtual reality by decades.In this first full biography of Leon Theremin, Albert Glinsky depicts the inventor's nearly one hundred-year life span as a microcosm of the twentieth century. Theremin is seen at the epicenter of most of the major events of the century: the Russian Revolution, two world wars, America's Great Depression, Stalin's purges, the cold war, and perestroika. His life emerges as no less than a metaphor for the divergence of communism and capitalism. Theremin blends the whimsical and the treacherous into a chronicle that takes in everything from the KGB to Macy's store windows, Alcatraz to the Beach Boys, Hollywood thrillers to the United Nations, Joseph Stalin to Shirley Temple. Theremin's world of espionage and invention is an amazing drama of hidden loyalties, mixed motivations, and an irrepressibly creative spirit.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For this biography, Glinsky admirably resurrects the name of Leon Theremin, the Soviet inventor of an electronic musical instrument played by moving one's hands in the space between two antennae, but his use of Theremin's life as a metaphor for the Cold War leads him astray. An engineering prodigy, Theremin (1896-1993) invented his instrument early in the 20th century. The synthesizer's forerunner, the theremin was most often used in soundtracks for science fiction films; an advanced version was also used in the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations." According to Glinsky, Theremin was also a ladies' manAmarried several times, he was rumored to be looking for female companionship when he was in his 90s. The inventor lived in the U.S. during the 1930s, where for a short time he was the toast of the town, but he quickly fell into debt. After he returned to the Soviet Union in 1938, he was arrested and spent time in a labor camp before he was freedAonly to be forced to remain in service to the state. Glinsky, a composer and professor at Mercy Hurst College in Pennsylvania, is unable to resist the temptation to use Theremin as a metaphor for the political clash between communism and capitalism. Not only does this allegory lack nuanceAGlinsky himself notes that U.S. leftists were persecuted, albeit on a much lesser scale, during the McCarthy eraAbut the political focus clouds the author's portrait of Theremin's personality and prevents him from using his talents to evaluate Theremin's musical legacy. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Lev Sergeyevich Termen (1896-1993) grew up in St. Petersburg, the son of a lawyer and a mother who dabbled in the arts. Naturally inclined toward music and physics, Lev understood electromagnetic fields and applied these principles to design a "space controlled" instrument employing recently developed vacuum tube oscillators and amplifiers. Dubbing the device with his French ancestral name, Theremin, he toured Europe and America, training several to play it. Returning, perhaps abducted, to Russia as Stalin rose to power, he was imprisoned in Siberia for months, then put in a special unit to develop listening devices to spy on the U.S. Embassy. Glinsky tells the tale of Termen's two lives with spirit and empathy, describing the horrors of the Soviet state and Termen's tenacity in continuing to create electronic instruments. Meanwhile, the original theremin inspired Robert Moog to develop his influential electronic synthesizers in the 1960s. Glinsky delves into the physics of Termen's creations, but principally this is the inspiring story of an inventive genius who launched a revolution in music making. Alan Hirsch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (September 14, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252025822
• ISBN-13: 978-0252025822
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,144,721 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Definitive biography of the "Soviet Edison" Leon Theremin November 9, 2000

By Scott Marshall

Format:Hardcover

Author Albert Glinsky has molded his meticulous research into a spectacularly detailed, involving, and readable biography of one of the most mysterious figures of the jazz age. But, the book is also a glimpse in rare detail of the dark nightmare of Communist Russia. The supernatural inventor of Steven Martin's entertaining but inaccurate movie biography ("Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey") is thoroughly demystified here.

Theremin is best know for his musical instrument that bears his name and makes spooky sounds in scary movies of the 50s, but he also invented television in the 20s, color television in the 30s, and the notorious a technically dazzling "great seal bug" the Russians used for years to eavesdrop on the American Embassy. He'd even hoped to perfect antigravity bridges and a device to resurrect the dead. Glinsky's book is much more than the biography of a fascinating man, but also offers a cutting edge view of the horrors of Soviet life under Stalin. Theremin was imprisoned under Stalin's draconian, paranoid system for having unpatriotic thoughts, tortured to confession, and sent to Siberia in forced labor to mine gold. He survived miraculously where most prisoners perished, and was given more forced labor as a technician inventing the notorious technologies of Soviet warfare and espionage.

Glinsky uncovers all the facts left uncovered in the movie, in the process overturning the most inaccurate assertion of the film. Soviet agents did NOT kidnap Theremin at gunpoint. He was running from creditors and the IRS, and left the U.S. on his own initiative. His fate upon returning to Russia is one of the strangest to have befallen anyone so faithfully patriotic to his homeland.

For fans of electronic music and scholars of the history of Communist Russia, this book, in my opinion, is a must-read.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If you liked the Martin film, you MUST read the book August 14, 2001

By Solene_player

Format:Hardcover

After seeing "Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey" for the second time last year I was motivated to seek a more thorough biography of this fascinating life. Luckily Glinsky's book was hot off the press. This book is amazing.

Theremin's life is so interesting, and the narrative is so engrossing, that it reads like a thriller. Only one that covers a nearly hundred year life. The setting covers revolutionary Russia, roaring twenties NY, depression era NY, Stalinist Russia, the Gulag, the cold war, the sixties, and on and on.

The research Glinsky put in is astounding. You get the feeling that there exists no document of this life that he didn't catalog. Yet he writes beautifully and does a wonderful job of bringing the subject to brilliant life. There are so many details I'd love to mention but I wouldn't want to spoil a thing. Anyone who was intrigued by the documentary (which barely scratches the surface) should buy this book and read it. For me, the book has awakened an entire fascination with twentieth century Russia and I'm already reading other non-fiction on the topic.

Mr. Glinsky is to be congratulated on a stunning piece of work.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous, gripping narrative! November 17, 2000

By Martin McBride

Format:Hardcover

_Theremin_ is a beautifully written, engrossing, completely fascinating portrait of an iconic 20th century life. I can't praise too highly Glinsky's magisterial project. He is as fully adept at explaining the electronics and aesthetics of his subject's amazing inventions, as he is at following the tangled trail of Theremin's involvements with Soviet espionage. And he also has a real feel for the campy weirdness of the theremin's reception in American popular culture. Neither a work of hagiography nor denunciation, Glinsky's portrait of Theremin is a subtle, nuanced, and very sensitive look at the moral ambiguities of an inventor of genius. Buy this book!!