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Summary
Summary
A creative genius and prolific inventor, Leon Theremin almost single-handedly launched the field of electronic music in 1920. The theremin--the only musical instrument that is played without being touched--created a sensation worldwide and paved the way for the modern synthesizer. But the otherworldly sound that entranced millions was only part of Theremin's epic life.
As a Soviet scientist, Theremin surrendered his life and work to the service of State espionage. On assignment in Depression-era America, he worked the engines of capitalist commerce while passing data on US industrial technology to the Soviet apparat. Following his sudden disappearance in 1938, Theremin vanished into the top-secret Soviet intelligence machine and was presumed dead for nearly thirty years. Using the same technology that spawned the theremin, he designed bugging devices and a host of other electronic wonders, including an early television and multimedia devices that anticipated performance art and virtual reality by decades.
Albert Glinsky's biography places the inventor at world events stretching from the Russian Revolution through the Cold War to perestroika. Throughout, he spins whimsy and treachery into an astonishing drama of one man's hidden loyalties, mixed motivations, and irrepressibly creative spirit.
Author Notes
Albert Glinsky is an award-winning composer whose music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and the Far East. He is a research fellow and professor of music at Mercyhurst University. Robert Moog (1934-2005) developed the original Moog electronic music synthesizer and was the president of Moog Music Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of theremins.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
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' manÄmarried 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 freedÄonly 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 nuanceÄGlinsky himself notes that U.S. leftists were persecuted, albeit on a much lesser scale, during the McCarthy eraÄbut 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.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
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
Choice Review
A Soviet scientist as well as a creative musical inventor, Leon Theremin (1896-1993) lead a dramatic life of international intrigue and espionage. Glinsky (Mercyhurst College) devoted 13 years to studying Theremin, and that research resulted in this interesting biography. Written in a narrative fashion (and very well edited), this volume is effective in presenting Theremin's nearly one-hundred-year life as a textbook of 20th-century history, with special emphasis on Soviet-American relations. The content of the book is accurate, factual, imaginative, and current; its organization is logical and coherent. Documentation includes numerous authentic and well-reproduced photographs and first-person interviews. Highly recommended for those who are interested not only in 20th-century music, but also art and technology, communist Russia, and modern America; also recommended for libraries supporting a variety of subjects and at levels. D. Morris; Valdosta State University
Library Journal Review
The long and colorful life of Leon Theremin (1896-1993), the father of electronic music and inventor of the pioneering instrument that bears his name, virtually spanned the 20th century. As a young man in the new Soviet Union, he captivated Lenin with his "etherphone." While he worked in the United States in the late 1920s and 1930s, his electro-acoustic wonder was the rage of high New York society. Business failings and a cavalier attitude toward debts, however, forced him to return surreptitiously to the Soviet Union, where he was arrested on trumped-up charges and endured horrific conditions as a prisoner in a remote northern camp. Partially rehabilitated, he was drafted into the KGB, for which he successfully bugged the American Embassy. And, finally, as a nonagenarian during the glasnost era, he returned to the West and received his due accolades. Glinsky (music, Mercy-Hurst Coll.) spent 13 years researching this first full biography on Theremin. The fascinating crosscurrents in his lifeDand in that of the thereminDare engagingly told in rich detail. Glinsky's great accomplishment, besides his lucid descriptions of the technical aspects of the theremin, is his ability to paint a contextual scene both vividly and compellingly. Indeed, his chapter on the Gulag prison camp approaches the writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in its intensity. Highly recommended for all collections.DLarry Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.