Lev theremin. How a Soviet scientist invented the first electronic musical instrument

(1920). Winner of the Stalin Prize, first degree.

Encyclopedic YouTube

1 / 4

✪ Theremin - music from the air. Lev Sergeevich Termen.

✪ Our everything. Lev Theremin

✪ Lev Theremin. Descendant of the Albigenses, or the Invisible Man

✪ Theremin www.eduspb.com

Subtitles

Biography

From his second year at the university, in 1916, he was drafted into the army and sent for accelerated training to the Nikolaev Engineering School, and then to officer electrical courses. The revolution found him a junior officer in a reserve electrical battalion serving the most powerful Tsarskoye Selo radio station in the empire near Petrograd.

Being a very versatile person, Theremin invented many different automatic systems (automatic doors, automatic lighting, etc.) and security alarm systems. In parallel, since 1923, he collaborated with the State Institute of Music Science in Moscow. In 1925-1926 he invented one of the first television systems - “Darnovision”.

In 1927, Theremin received an invitation to the international music exhibition in Frankfurt am Main. Theremin's report and demonstration of his inventions were a huge success and brought him worldwide fame.

The success of his concert at a music exhibition is such that Theremin is bombarded with invitations. Dresden, Nuremberg, Hamburg, Berlin saw him off with applause and flowers. There are enthusiastic reviews from listeners of “music of the air”, “music of ethereal waves”, “music of the spheres”. The musicians note that the idea of ​​a virtuoso is not constrained by inert material, “a virtuoso touches spaces.” The incomprehensibility of where the sound is coming from is shocking. Some call the theremin a “heavenly” instrument, others a “spherophone”. The timbre is striking, at the same time reminiscent of strings and wind instruments, and even some special human voice, as if “grown from distant times and spaces.”

American period

In 1928, Theremin, remaining a Soviet citizen, moved to the United States. Upon his arrival in the United States, he patented the theremin and his security alarm system. He also sold the license for the right to serially produce a simplified version of the theremin to RCA (Radio Corporation of America).

Lev Termen organized the companies Teletouch and Theremin Studio and rented a six-story building for a music and dance studio in New York for 99 years. This made it possible to create trade missions of the USSR in the United States, under whose “roof” Soviet intelligence officers could work.

From 1931 to 1938, Theremin was director of Teletouch Inc. At the same time, he developed alarm systems for the Sing Sing and Alcatraz prisons.

Soon Lev Theremin became a very popular person in New York. George Gershwin, Maurice Ravel, Jascha Heifetz, Yehudi Menuhin, Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein visited his studio. His circle of acquaintances included financial magnate John Rockefeller and future US President Dwight Eisenhower.

Lev Sergeevich divorced his wife Ekaterina Konstantinova and married Lavinia Williams, a dancer of the first American black ballet.

Repression, work for state security agencies

In 1938, Theremin was recalled to Moscow. He secretly left the United States, having issued a power of attorney to the owner of Teletouch, Bob Zinman, to dispose of his property and manage patent and financial affairs. Theremin wanted to take his wife Lavinia with him to the USSR, but he was told that she would arrive later. When they came for him, Lavinia happened to be at home, and she got the impression that her husband was taken away by force.

In Leningrad, Theremin tried unsuccessfully to get a job, then he moved to Moscow, but did not find a job there either.

In March 1939 he was arrested. There are two versions of what charge was brought against him. According to one of them, he was accused of involvement in fascist organization, according to another - in preparation for the murder of Kirov. He was forced to incriminate himself that a group of astronomers from the Pulkovo Observatory was preparing to place a landmine in a Foucault pendulum, and Theremin was supposed to send a radio signal from the USA and detonate the landmine as soon as Kirov approached the pendulum. A special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR sentenced Theremin to eight years in the camps, and he was sent to a camp in Kolyma.

At first, Theremin served time in Magadan, working as a foreman of a construction team. Theremin’s numerous rationalization proposals attracted the attention of the camp administration to him, and already in 1940 he was transferred to the Tupolev design bureau TsKB-29 (to the so-called “Tupolev sharaga”), where he worked for about eight years. Here his assistant was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, later a famous designer of space technology. One of the areas of activity of Theremin and Korolev was the development of unmanned aerial vehicles controlled by radio - prototypes of modern cruise missiles.

One of Termen’s developments is the “Buran” listening system, which reads glass vibrations in the windows of the listening room using a reflected infrared beam. It was this invention of Theremin that was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree in 1947. But due to the fact that the laureate was a prisoner at the time of presentation for the prize and the secretive nature of his work, the award was not publicly announced anywhere.

Not without difficulty, Theremin got a job in a laboratory at the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University. In the main building of Moscow State University, he held seminars for those who wanted to listen to his work and study the theremin; Only a few people attended the seminars. Formally, Theremin was listed as a mechanic at the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University, but in fact continued to work independently Scientific research. Active scientific activity L. S. Termen’s work continued almost until his death.

In 1989, a trip took place (together with her daughter, Natalia) to a festival in the city of Bourges (France).

In 1991, together with his daughter, Natalya Termen, and granddaughter, Olga Termen, he visited the United States at the invitation of Stanford University and there, among other things, met Clara Rockmore.

In March 1991, at the age of 95, he joined the CPSU. When asked why he was joining a collapsing party, Termen replied: “I promised Lenin.”

In 1992, unknown persons destroyed a laboratory room on Lomonosovsky Prospekt (the room was allocated by the Moscow authorities at the request of V.S. Grizodubova), all his instruments were broken, and part of the archives were stolen. The police did not solve the crime.

In 1992, the Theremin Center was created in Moscow, with its main goal of supporting musicians and sound artists working in the field of experimental electroacoustic music. The center's leaders did not respond to Lev Theremin's request to remove the name [ ] . Lev Theremin had nothing to do with the creation of the center named after him.

Died November 3, 1993. As the newspapers later wrote: “At ninety-seven years old, Lev Theremin went to those who made up the face of the era - but behind the coffin, except for his daughters with their families and several men carrying the coffin, there was no one ....”

He was buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery in Moscow.

Addresses in St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad

Heritage

Lev Theremin's daughter, Natalya, and great-grandson Peter are performers and popularizers of the theremin, the legacy of Lev Theremin.

A fan of Theremin is electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre. Jarre plays the theremin in live performances and uses the instrument in compositions on studio albums. Fragments of an interview with Lev Termen are used in the joint composition “Switch on Leon” by Jarre and The Orb from the album “Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise”.

In 2006, the Perm U-Mosta Theater staged the play “Theremin” based on the play by Czech playwright Petr Zelenka. The performance touches on the most interesting and dramatic period of Theremin’s life - his work in the USA.

Family

Ekaterina Konstantinova - wife in her first marriage (there were no children);

• Lavinia Williams - wife in second marriage (no children);
• Maria Gushchina - wife in her third marriage;
• Elena Termen - daughter;
• Natalya Termen - daughter;
• In 1989, a meeting between two founders of electronic music took place in Moscow - Lev Sergeevich Termen and the English musician Brian Eno.

see also

Notes

1. ID BNF: Open Data Platform - 2011.
2. SNAC - 2010.

I have long wanted to share this information with you, but I want to warn you that this is copy-paste (a compilation of copy-paste) and, moreover, as far as I know, now there is some kind of conflict between the Theremin Center and the family of Lev Theremin, I don’t know who is right and who is wrong , history will judge, but in any case, the fate of this man is amazing.
In general, Lev Theremin was a real scientist, a patriot and an enthusiastic person; his life was worse than spy novels.

Termen Lev Sergeevich

To the question “Who is Lev Theremin?” nine out of ten people, if they have heard such a name at all, will answer - “inventor of the theremin.” Theremin is so poorly known in his homeland that when a few years ago one of the journalists mistakenly called him “Lev Davidovich” (obviously in consonance with Trotsky), this mistake began to migrate from publication to publication, including even quite reputable media. But Lev Sergeevich’s biographer B. Galeev gives him the following description: “If there had been a competition for a true representative of the 20th century, Lev Theremin could probably claim this title.”

The main range of interests of the inventor Lev Sergeevich Termen can be briefly described as follows: “he was involved in multimedia.” This vague term, introduced into use by computer scientists about twenty years ago, and now, by the way, almost out of use, can be interpreted as follows: a technical device that combines various functions of influencing the human senses.

But, perhaps, the most interesting thing about Lev Sergeevich is not even his inventions as such, but his truly fantastic fate, unique even for the 20th century. Lev Theremin, 1930s Lev Sergeevich Termen was born on August 28, 1896 in St. Petersburg, into a noble Orthodox family with French and German roots. At the gymnasium, he became interested in physics and astronomy - according to his own memoirs, he even managed to discover a new asteroid. In 1914, he entered Petrograd University - at two faculties, physics and astronomical, and at the same time studied cello at the conservatory. Then the war began, and he graduated from the military engineering school and the officer electrical engineering school. In total, by the time of his demobilization from the Red Electrotechnical Battalion in 1920, he had three diplomas - the physics and astronomical faculties remained unfinished. Since 1920, Theremin has been working at the famous Phystech (then still a laboratory) of “father” Ioffe. A.F. Ioffe appreciated him and tried not to limit the flight of imagination of a promising employee. In 1921, Theremin created his epoch-making invention, which would later make him famous throughout the world: he designed an electronic musical instrument “Theremin” (which means “Theremin’s voice”).

It is interesting that initially he was not involved in music at all. He was debugging a contactless radio alarm system - by changing the frequency of the oscillating circuit, when an intruder approached him, a sound signal was triggered at the security console1. Today, car enthusiasts are well aware of the ultrasonic “volume sensors” based on a similar principle, which are included in the set of “cool” car alarms. Radio engineer Termen drew attention to the fact that the position of the intruder’s body affects the tone of the signal in the speakers. A graduate of the conservatory, Theremin realized that in this way it was possible to make a real musical instrument, the likes of which had never existed in the world until now. The theremin had two antennas - when your hand approached the first, the frequency of the signal changed, and with the help of the second, you could control its volume with your other hand. Ioffe’s employees described Theremin’s manipulations very expressively: “Theremin plays Gluck on a voltmeter!”

In the fall of 1921, Theremin demonstrated his miracle device at the VIII All-Russian Electrotechnical Congress, where the famous GOELRO plan was adopted, which at one time amazed the science fiction writer H. Wells (remember his book “Russia in the Dark”). The performance of music by Massenet, Saint-Saëns, and Minkus on the theremin interested not only engineers. After an enthusiastic review in the Pravda newspaper, it was necessary to hold special radio music concerts for a wide audience. And in March 1922, Theremin was invited to the Kremlin to show his achievements to V.I. Lenin.3 However, the main goal was to demonstrate the device in a contactless “radio watchman” mode. But most of all Lenin liked how this universal “radio watchman” sang Chopin’s “Nocturne” and Glinka’s “Lark”. He even tried to play the theremin himself. His conclusions inspired the inventor: “Well, I said that electricity can work wonders. I’m glad that we have such a tool.” A few days later, Lenin wrote to his then comrade-in-arms, L. Trotsky:

“Discuss whether it is possible to reduce the guard duty of Kremlin cadets by introducing an electric alarm system in the Kremlin? (one engineer, Theremin, showed us his experiments in the Kremlin...).”4 “Radio watchdog” was actually used later - in the State Treasure Repository, the Hermitage, and the State Bank. However, only specialists knew about this. But for the theremin, after Lenin’s blessing, the time came for a triumphal march across the country. Composers Glazunov, Shostakovich, Gnessin are present at radio music concerts. The inventor expands the scope of experiments - combines a theremin with dynamic color, tries to achieve a synthesis of radio music with changing tactile influences (through specially equipped armrests of chairs). And concerts - in many cities of the country, dozens, hundreds of performances, for the benefit of promoting electrification, which turned out to be subject to art! It is difficult to refuse the pleasure of quoting some press reviews that carry the flavor of that time: “Theremin’s invention is a musical tractor, replacing the plow”; “Theremin’s invention did what the automobile did in transportation. Theremin’s invention has a very rich future”; “Solving the problem of the ideal instrument. Sounds are freed from "impurities" of the material. The beginning of the century of radio music."

Theremin perfected the theremin throughout his life. The most interesting for us are his attempts to control this system through his gaze (more precisely, using a photocell that monitors the pupil), and in another version, using biocurrents. Such control systems, as we know, are beginning to be implemented only now - at a completely different technological level. But in fact, the theremin has retained to this day almost all the features of the original invention, only amplification tubes, naturally, have been replaced by transistors and microcircuits. At the end of the 20s, Termen toured with his instrument - first throughout Russia, and then throughout Europe and America. This event had resounding success from the public. The leader of the world proletariat was not alone in his delight - during the inventor’s performances at the Paris Grand Opera, people burned bonfires in the street at night to get to the concert. Theremin performed in the best concert halls in Europe and America. One can imagine what an impression the “ideal instrument” made on his contemporaries. Although we are now accustomed to all sorts of electronic gadgets, the process of playing still has a stunning effect on the public. And in those days, when even an ordinary radio receiver was still a curiosity, Theremin’s stage manipulations gave the impression of a miracle: of course, a man can extract real music right out of thin air! By the mid-30s, 700 representatives were already registered in the American Musicians' Union new profession“thereminer” (“theremin” in English is written as “theremin” - due to the French origin of the inventor).

This begs the question: why did the theremin never find such a wide niche in musical practice, as happened later, for example, with musical synthesizers? The reason is simple: the theremin is very difficult to learn to play. Outstanding Performers for all time in general - only a few. In addition to Theremin himself, the American Clara Rockmore, Lev Sergeevich’s friend when he was in America, became a real virtuoso of playing his instrument. Theremin's great-niece Lydia Kavina (b. 1967), whom he himself taught to play from the age of nine, is now the most famous performer in the world. This is how she characterizes playing the theremin: “Violinists have a “mechanical memory,” but the theremin is played solely by ear. Tactile memorization is impossible here; you need good hearing and clear coordination of movements.”

Yet the theremin was far from forgotten after its initial triumph. “The Voice of Theremin” can be heard in the soundtrack to the Disney film “Alice in Wonderland” and in the musical of the same name, on the Led Zeppelin disc “Lotta’s Love”, in the compositions of the Beach Boys. Hitchcock used it. Nowadays, concerts of “thereminvocal” music in Russia are held by the “Theremin Center for Electroacoustic Music and Multimedia” at the Moscow Conservatory, and there are also classes for teaching those interested. Robert Moog2, known as the creator of the electronic synthesizer, began his career with a passion for designing theremins in the 50s. Moog Music now produces theremins with a MIDI interface, allowing you to connect the instrument to computers and synthesizers.

But let's go back in time. In the mid-20s, Theremin entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University to complete his physics education. With the consent of A.F. Ioffe chose the transmission of images over a distance as the topic of his thesis. And he coped with it more than successfully! A few years before Zvorykin’s first experiments in America, he built a real electronic TV. The TV had a screen no less than 150x150 centimeters (this was at a time when they experimented with matchbox screens), and a resolution of 100 lines. And it worked! In 1927, representatives of the military elite of the Soviets - Voroshilov, Tukhachevsky, Budyonny - watched with delight Stalin walking through the Kremlin courtyard. You could even make out a mustache and a pipe. This demonstration, as it turned out, was fatal for the invention: it was classified in the hope of using it to protect borders. Needless to say, it was never implemented, and Theremin’s primacy in this matter was proven only in our time.

Theremin, apparently, was not very upset. In 1927, with permission, he Soviet authorities went on the aforementioned foreign tour and, as a result, settled in America. There he made a career unprecedented for a Soviet citizen: he became a millionaire and was included in the “Who is who” directory. And he did it according to all the canons of the classical “ American dream": he began by patenting the theremin and selling the RCA (Radio Corporation of America) company a license for the right to produce theremin."

At the same time, he toured the States with concerts, taught those who wanted to play his instrument, and along the way was also involved in inventions in various fields - for example, visitors to New York's Central Park could observe the metal “Coffin of Mohammed” floating in the air (the result of magnetic fields). Using money from the business, Lev Sergeevich rents a six-story building for a music and dance studio for 99 years (!) and organizes the Teletouch company. How popular Theremin was in those years can be evidenced by his social circle: among his acquaintances were Rockefeller and Dupont, Charlie Chaplin, General D. Eisenhower, L. Groves (future head of the American atomic project), S. Eisenstein, J. Gershwin, B. Show. He was friends with A. Einstein - together they played jazz pieces by Gershwin.

All this time, Termen regularly supplied information to the intelligence department of the Red Army - moving in such circles, it was not difficult for him to obtain it. Its leader, Jan Berzin (Peters), later shot by Stalin, gave Theremin a farewell message before leaving. The version put forward in 1998 by a certain L. Weiner from the Baltimore Vestnik, that Theremin and his company were just a cover for Soviet spies, is hard to believe. Not to use such opportunities for Stalin’s intelligence would be complete idiocy, but this particular department, unlike its party leadership, was not particularly distinguished by idiocy.

One way or another, in 1938 Theremin was taken to the USSR. At the end of his life, Theremin himself claimed that he returned voluntarily. It’s also hard to believe - he was taken out illegally and taken to the USSR on the ship “Old Bolshevik”. If Theremin had voluntarily gone home, he most likely would have returned openly; there were no obstacles to this. From then until the end of the sixties, he was listed as dead in America. Shortly before leaving, Theremin got married - his wife was the charming mulatto ballerina Lavinia Williams. In those years, such marriages in the United States were treated, to put it mildly, ambiguously, and from now on the doors of many houses of the New York elite were closed to him and the opportunities for collecting information were sharply reduced. Probably, this fact served as the reason for his superiors from the intelligence department to return the “resident” to his homeland. Theremin was promised that Lavinia would come after him. Fortunately for her, no one was going to keep this promise, and Lavinia only found out in old age what really happened.

But in fact, almost immediately upon arrival, in March 1939, he was arrested. All the political accusations of that time were absurd, but this surpassed all conceivable limits: Theremin was accused of complicity in the murder of Kirov. Prove that he was on the other side at the time globe, it was pointless - on August 15, at a special meeting of the NKVD of the USSR, he was sentenced to eight years under the notorious Article 58-4 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.

Maybe, ex-friend Einstein and Chaplin and would have perished in Kolyma, as if thereby confirming the premature inclusion of him among the dead by his American acquaintances. But chance and an ineradicable desire for invention saved him. In the camp, he invented a device for transporting wheelbarrows - a wooden monorail. The authorities reported to the top, they remembered his past, and since 1940 he has been working in the sharashka, together with A.N. Tupolev and S.P. Korolev. Truly, it’s hard to remember at least one famous figure in Russia and America of the 20th century, be it politics, art or science, with whom the fate of Lev Theremin would not have crossed one way or another. In the sharashka, he first worked on radio beacons for ships and aircraft, but at the end of the war he received the task of developing a device for externally listening to conversations taking place indoors.

It was truly a brilliant development. It was like this: in February 1945, the heads of the three allied powers gathered at the famous Yalta Conference, during which plans were developed that, as it turned out later, determined the world order for almost another 50 years. The children, who were vacationing near Yalta at the Artek pioneer camp, presented US Ambassador Harriman with a touching gift - the American coat of arms. The bald eagle on the coat of arms was made of precious wood. American experts, having listened and tapped the gift for the presence of “bugs”, gave an opinion on its safety. Harriman placed the coat of arms he liked above the table in his Moscow office, where the eagle hung for almost ten years, outliving four ambassadors. In Beria’s department, the eagle was given the meaningful code name “Zlatoust”. The Americans revealed its true purpose indirectly - the discovered information leak could only come from the ambassador's office. Having finally found the “bookmark”, the Americans remained silent about the discovery until the early sixties - not only for reasons of a conspiratorial nature, but also out of elementary shame - even the very principle of operation was not immediately guessed by overseas experts. The “bug” was a hollow metal cylinder with a membrane and a pin protruding from it. No electronics! The secret was that when irradiated by an external electromagnetic field of a suitable frequency, the cavity of the cylinder came into resonance with it and the radio wave was re-radiated back through the pin antenna. The membrane vibrating under the influence of sound vibrations modulated the frequency of the emitted wave. Detecting the received signal was a matter of technology.

For this development, Termen not only received in 1947, at the personal recommendation of Beria, the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree (they say that Stalin personally corrected the degree from the second to the first), but also - an unprecedented case! - was even released into the wild. However, he had absolutely nothing to do in the wild - in fact, he had been isolated from local society for twenty years. Stalin Prize was closed, the stigma of “enemy of the people” hung. Therefore, Theremin asked to return to the sharashka - as a civilian. In those years, he developed another remote listening system, the principle of which is now considered classic: sound vibrations are detected by changes in the frequency of scattered radiation reflected from window glass. According to some evidence, with the help of this device Beria listened to Stalin himself. Later, with the invention of the laser, such “eavesdropping” became very common.

In 1958, Lev Sergeevich was finally rehabilitated and even received an apartment at the Kaluga outpost in Moscow. But the formal restoration of his rights did not help him much - he could not get a job until 1964. Everyone who knew him in the twenties had already died or moved away, there were no official degrees or titles, the time for promoting electronic music was, to put it mildly, inappropriate - the fight against jazz and “hipsters” was in full swing.

Finally, he managed to get a job in the acoustics and sound recording laboratory of the Moscow Conservatory and actively took up his favorite hobby - improving electronic musical instruments. Many famous figures visited him - for example, A. Schnittke. But this period of Lev Sergeevich’s life ended rather sadly. Rumors that the once famous Theremin was alive were bound to spread sooner or later, and in one of the issues of the New York Times in 1967, a note appeared announcing that the inventor of electronic music, who mysteriously disappeared in 1938, had not died , but lives and works in Moscow. The reaction to this was not long in coming. The high “opinion” about the overly talkative employee was conveyed to the leadership and party organization of the Moscow Conservatory. The man whom Lenin himself had once greeted was fired, his tools were thrown away and broken.

Finally, by personal order of Academician Rem Viktorovich Khokhlov, the former world celebrity was hired as a 6th category mechanic in the workshops of the Physics Department of Moscow State University. He worked there until his death in 1993, less than three years shy of his centenary. KI is here, one of the “friends” advised Theremin to try to get separate room, under the pretext of improving living conditions, and since it was already clear that no one would ever give Lev Theremin a separate laboratory, Theremin was inspired by this idea. As a result, he managed to get a tiny room in a communal apartment in a university building near Moscow State University. Lev Sergeevich lived there for a relatively short time, since his two pretty roommates quickly persuaded him to exchange an apartment, and as a result of the exchange, Lev Sergeevich was given a larger room in a house located not far from Moscow State University, so that it would be convenient for him to go to work. This house was precisely the departmental house of the Izvestia publishing house.

Of course, it was a communal apartment consisting of three rooms, in which, in addition to Lev Sergeevich, three elderly people lived. It is unknown whether the sounds of the theremin bothered them or not, but we think that no, since Lev Sergeevich did not abuse music. Serenely laying everything out necessary ingredients, he made custom-made theremins, received journalists, and sometimes stayed overnight. And he really liked it. But a little later, changes occurred that Lev Sergeevich did not like too much. Since the elderly woman who occupied one of the rooms in the apartment died, the Izvestia publishing house, guided by considerations unknown to us, gave this room to the employees of the public utilities department.

So, I moved into the vacant room married couple with two children, and youngest child was a baby, and my husband subsequently began to abuse alcohol. This situation upset Lev Sergeevich and created a sufficient amount of inconvenience, which, it should be noted, he dealt with very courageously and categorically refused to complain to anyone, although even the general telephone and questions from neighbors to people who called directly to Lev Sergeevich, and not to neighbors, were unpleasant . However, it was still his laboratory, and he invited people there.

Lev Theremin was sympathetic to his young neighbor, but of course, it was still possible to use the room, but it was already extremely inconvenient. Lev Termen was even offered an apartment in Solntsevo, but Lev Termen was categorically against it; he was interested in living space located near his place of work - Moscow State University and not far from the apartment where he lived with his daughter Natalya.

They began to poison the “old man” much later.
In 1989, Lev Termen and Natalya Termen went to the electromusical festival “Synthesis-89”, held annually in the French city of Bourges, where, in parallel with the authentic Theremin theremin, a new experimental model of theremin was demonstrated.

Lev Termen gave many interviews, the mayor of the city of Bourget presented him with a medal of an honorary citizen of the city, everything was very wonderful, the only thing that was very sad was that invitations for Lev and Natalya Termen were sent to the Union of Composers of the USSR and Lev and Natalya Termen formalized their trip through the Union Composers. Which later played a very sad role in their fate - every year the French sent invitations to Lev and Natalya Termen, but for the first two years they arranged the trip, but at the last moment there were reasons why Lev and Natalya Termen could not come to the festival, which served a very unpleasant signal.

In 1990, Lev and Natalya Termen, at the invitation of the Swedish Radio and Television Committee and the Electroacoustic Association of Sweden, performed in Stockholm.

In 1991, two weeks after submitting an application to the Union of Composers with a request to formalize the trip of Lev and Natalia Termen to the festival in Bourges and to Stanford University (USA), threats began to be received against Lev Theremin and his family, with threats of execution, which were due to publication in the newspaper Sovershenno Sekretno, which used the title “He eavesdropped on the Kremlin” for the headline and included a photograph of Lev Theremin taken in Sweden.

The trip to Bourges was disrupted - someone from the Ministry of Culture left with Lev and Natalia Termen's tickets. The trip to America took place.

After arriving in Moscow, Lev Theremin for a long time did not visit the room in the communal apartment, but since many important things for him were stored there, in the end, he was forced to go there and found that his room was completely destroyed and much was missing.

Since Lev Theremin did not appear there for a long time, one could only guess when this happened. Perhaps immediately after arriving from America, perhaps during the threats, but it is absolutely certain that it was not the neighbors who did this. This was done by people who knew who was being bullied. They poisoned the great one.

If Lev Theremin had been an “ordinary old man,” then nothing would have happened. In our country it is customary to blame the Soviet regime for everything. This is our old Russian tradition. But the tragedy occurred during perestroika and it makes you think. There is also a tradition that as soon as Theremin begins to communicate with foreigners, people in Russia begin to break his instruments. It was from the late 1980s that strange, deceitful articles about Lev Theremin began to be published, and in total it resembled a planned event.

But the main thing that occupied Theremin’s mind in the last 10 years of his life was not the theremin. He was seriously fascinated by the problem of immortality. Moreover, he was on the verge of solving this problem.

Theremin began to think seriously about immortality back in 1924, when Lenin died. Lev Sergeevich then repeatedly turned to the Soviet leadership with a request to freeze the deceased Ilyich. To bring him back to life after some time. And in the 80s, Theremin, explaining in an interview with Bulat Galeev his idea of ​​“microscopy of time,” which was supposed to lead him to solve the problem of immortality, said this: “Red blood cells are such “creatures” (they are visible only under a microscope) , which come in different breeds, and they change due to the age of the person. Several dates and periods of their shifts have been discovered. And at these moments new “creatures” fight with the old ones, hence aging arises. You need to be able to select these “creatures” from donor blood in a timely manner. And you need a lot of it! Therefore, how to catch them, at what age - and you can’t tell anyone!..”

His ideas about immortality were, of course, completely visionary. And the less chance they had of being understood. Another quote: “We have already conducted experiments at the Medical Academy, with Lebedinsky. On animals. Some things have already worked out. But to study the behavior of blood cells, to learn how to select and multiply them, we needed an ultra-high-speed movie camera with 10,000 frames per second. And a very highly sensitive film is also needed, because these “creatures” cannot be illuminated strongly, they die from heat... After all, when we look through a microscope, we see everything at magnification many times over. But the speed of movement of these “creatures” in the blood remains the same. We need to slow it down by the same amount, and then we will perceive them in their natural form, as if we ourselves had penetrated their world. To do this, you will need to watch the film shot with an ultra-high-speed camera on a regular projector. I have already tried something and even figured out how to hear their voices, which we do not notice with the ordinary ear. I not only checked the blood cells, but also the sperm. All these “creatures,” you know, dance and sing under a microscope. And there is a certain pattern in their movement trajectories. This is very significant..."

These and other similar words by Theremin caused bewilderment and skepticism even among his friends from the world of science. Not to mention the people who distributed the funds... But Theremin never in his life suffered a single defeat in the implementation of his ideas, if it did come to this implementation.

Theremin was neither a convinced communist, nor even more so an anti-Soviet; rather, he can simply be called a patriot. Politics, which did not let him out of its arms for a moment throughout his entire life long life, starting from that moment in the eighteenth year when he, a serving member of the Red Army, had to flee from the advancing White Guards, as such he was of little interest. At every opportunity, he took up his favorite pastime - inventing. His behavior towards the authorities could be described as “one hundred percent conformism”, if not for one incident. Unexpectedly for everyone, in March 1991, at the age of 95, he became a member of the CPSU. When asked why he was joining the collapsing CPSU, Lev Sergeevich answered: “I promised Lenin.”

No, actually, why is that? Why does one man live peacefully with his wife and household, never get more than a hundred miles from his estate in his entire life, and arrange his existence so decorously, so boringly, that biographers may shoot themselves or hang themselves, but it’s as if there’s nothing to write about? .

But the other one will be so deliciously smeared across the canvas of history, across the world map, across the intricacies of everyday life, that such a thing would be enough life experience for a whole dozen people. At the same time, it is absolutely not necessary to have an adventurous character and a round-the-clock readiness for adventure: the role of an individual with a bright destiny may well fall to calm people, armchair scientists, and quiet bores.

Stormy Overture

Lev Theremin plays a musical synthesizer of his own invention (theremin), 1930s.

Levushka Theremin has been exactly like this since childhood. The thoughtful, calm boy learned to read at the age of three and loved this activity most of all. I started studying music at the age of five. And from the age of seven, he also became addicted to experiments in his home physics laboratory, which doubled as an engineering workshop. The parents equipped the laboratory especially for Levushka - they could afford to encourage a gifted child. The Theremin family was ancient, of French roots, and managed to advance in Russia. Since the 14th century, the existing Theremin motto sounded like

“No more, no less” and fully reflected the moderation characteristic of the family that chose him. Theremins were rich, but avoided pomp; noble, but did not strive to move in high society. Levushka graduated from a regular metropolitan gymnasium with a silver medal and entered two educational institutions: to the conservatory for cello class and to the physics and mathematics department of the university. He managed to finish the conservatory, but did not succeed in science. The year 1916 began, the war was on, and the twenty-year-old student was drafted into the army.

He was lucky enough not to get to the German front - by the beginning of the revolution, Lev was still working at the Tsarskoye Selo radio station, where he was sent immediately after graduating from the Nikolaev Military Engineering School. After the Bolsheviks seized power, he, along with the entire staff of the radio station employees, was enlisted in the Red Army, without being particularly interested in political views newly minted Red Army soldiers.

Changes in fate young Leo, like a true scientist, he accepted with praiseworthy calm. However, this did not save him from the attention of the new government, and in 1919 he was arrested as a nobleman, an officer and a possible participant in a possible rebellion. The years of the Red Terror passed, and Lev was quite likely to get a bullet in the back of his head after a minute farce at the revolutionary tribunal, but he was lucky. The death lottery held back Theremin's black ticket, and six months later the bureaucratic-punitive institution spat out its victim on the cobblestones of the St. Petersburg street - more or less free and not quite understanding what, in fact, happened to him.

Having looked around and appreciating the scale of the changes that had taken place in the world, the young technical genius directed his steps in the only direction available to him - to the first physics laboratory he came across. A month after his release, he was already working in the physical and technical department of the Radiological Institute.

Theremin - the wild voice of the era

On instructions from his supervisor, Professor Ioffe, Theremin worked in the laboratory to create a device for studying the properties of gases. According to the conditions of the experiment, the gases were placed in an electric capacitor, and Theremin was interested in the fact that the device began to react when the researcher’s hands approached it - the gases inside the capacitor changed their parameters when the mass approached from the outside. Eventually, Theremin connected a condenser to a microphone and began experimenting with the resulting sounds. They were very unusual; he had never seen anything similar in nature. The resulting hum was simultaneously reminiscent of the howling of the wind, the voice of a person, and the sound of a cello. Theremin was not only a talented physicist, but also an excellent musician. He was able to appreciate the wild beauty of this mechanical sound born of science.

This is how the theremin appeared - the very first musical synthesizer.

Although even before the first theremin (or etheroton, as Theremin first christened his brainchild) was finally modeled, the Radiological Institute had already reported on the creation of a sound signaling apparatus. Theremin led a group of specialists who were tasked with bringing the security system to fruition. Because music is lyrics, but a box that roars when someone approaches it is a politically correct, extremely important thing!

However, the music box was also not deprived of attention. At least in 1921, when Theremin and his invention were sent to the All-Russian Electrotechnical Congress, the general public was delighted and the newspapers did not skimp on praise. The theremin was called “an instrument of the proletariat,” “a device that can make anyone a musician,” and “a musical tractor.” (The word “tractor” did not mean then exactly what it means now. To understand how the Soviet people of the 20s perceived it, try saying out loud several times: “500 gig processor, 50 RAM, wireless, high technology... "Yes, something like this.) And on your iPhone, the theremin sounded a ringtone called Sci-fi.

How it works?

The basis of this musical instrument is two electric generators. One of them creates an electrical signal of a constant (or reference) frequency Ch1 - about 100 kHz. The frequency of the signal from the second generator Ch2 can fluctuate depending on whether something affects the antenna protruding from it or not.

Both signals are fed to a frequency converter, which compares their parameters. When the device is quietly collecting dust in the corner, Ch1 is equal to Ch2. The transducer is inactive and the theremin is silent. But if someone passes their hand over the antenna, the parameters of the oscillatory circuit of the second generator change. After all, the human body has its own electrical capacity. The hand in this case is a capacitor brought to the antenna. The converter registers the difference between Ch1 and Ch2 and creates a new signal with frequency Ch3 (Ch1 minus Ch2). The Ch3 signal is sent to the amplifier, and then to the speaker. This is how the sound is produced (quite disgusting if a beginner raises his hand).

Most theremins have two antennas. The straight line is responsible for the tone of the sound, the arcuate line is responsible for the volume. To play the instrument you need to have perfect pitch, because hand movements cannot be “adjusted” once you start playing. The device reacts to any movements and immediately shows trembling in the hands or falsehood.

And the leader is red

The invention of the 25-year-old genius so excited the country's public that Lenin personally expressed his desire to meet the scientist. Theremin was an easy-going person. It never occurred to him to screw a box of explosives to the theremin or otherwise hint to the head of the new government that Lev Theremin had not forgotten either about the prison or about the nationalized property of the family. On the contrary, Theremin happily performed several classical works in front of Lenin, and then excitedly controlled the clumsy hands of the leader, who tried to extract something more or less harmonious from the theremin.

Lev Theremin plays the theremin.

Lenin also expressed interest in the everyday reincarnation of the theremin - a sound alarm - and soon after the meeting he sent several letters to various organizations with a proposal to adapt the invention to the needs of the revolution. Ilyich strongly advised Theremin himself to join the party. He promised to think about it.

After this meeting, Theremin remained in reverence for Lenin for the rest of his life. A big shock for the scientist was the information that after the leader’s death, his brain was removed from his skull and placed in a jar of alcohol. Just at that time, Termen became interested in the ideas of freezing living organisms and begged to freeze Ilyich’s body in order to be able to soon resurrect the political genius for the common good. But alcohol killed brain cells, and Theremin perceived this as a fatal fact (after all, they knew almost nothing about genetics and cloning at that time).

When, in his decrepit age, Theremin was asked what particularly struck him about the leader, he answered: “The most unexpected thing for me was that he was bright red. You don’t see this in black and white photographs.”

No, all of me will not die!

It was in the 1920s that Termen began to think deeply about immortality. This atheist, it must be said, treated death without any respect; he considered it physiological nonsense, harmful and unfair. In the depths of his soul he suspected that it would not affect him (however, we all suspect this, don’t we?), but he considered it wise to take measures in advance. Theremin saw a guarantee of immortality in freezing the bodies of the dead until the time when science could restore life to them again. In those years, Lev Sergeevich made his first will, in which he asked to bury himself in permafrost. Even though there are reliable signs that he is not in danger of death (for example, the surname “Theremin” is read backwards as “does not die”), but you never know what can happen!

Theremin began conducting biological experiments with freezing. Unfortunately, he was not a biologist, and this did not end in anything epoch-making. But at the same time, he continued to work at his place of duty and in passing almost invented a television - the first in the world. Or a “far vision system”, according to him own definition. It worked in much the same way as a modern TV, only very, very poorly. The image on the screen was shaking and extremely blurry, but in 1926 Theremin’s “visionary” seemed like a complete miracle. The leadership of the Red Army was the first to put its paw on the invention. Personally, Comrade Voroshilov shook Theremin’s hand for a long time, and then ordered the installation of a “far viewer” in his office.

Defector

Inventor Lev Theremin (left), conductor Sir Henry Wood and scientist Sir Oliver Lodge (right), at a demonstration of broadcast music, at the Savoy Hotel, London, 1927.

In 1927, Theremin was sent to the Frankfurt Music Exhibition to present to the world a Soviet musical innovation - the theremin. The decision to send was made by the leadership of the Red Army intelligence department, and before leaving, the scientist was personally instructed by the head of military intelligence, Yan Berzin. What tasks were set for Theremin? He never talked about it, but, apparently, he was ordered to spy a little - on Russian emigrants or German colleagues. Knowing Theremin’s character, we can suggest that he did not angrily refuse the dubious role of a spy, but chose to quietly and peacefully ignore the assignment, seemingly nodding respectfully at what was located between those ears.

The Frankfurt exhibition turned into a grand tour throughout Europe. Theremin and his fantastic musical apparatus were eager to be seen in Paris, Marseille, London, Berlin, Rome... Any of his concerts was accompanied by a full house, the audience swooned from the “inhuman music of the highest spheres.” Albert Einstein was enormously impressed by his performance in Berlin, and wrote later that he was “really shocked by this sound emerging from space.” The sound that emerged from the void in front of the hands making mysterious passes seemed not so much a technical progress, but rather a mystical action, communication with the spirits of composers of the past, a spiritualistic session. The image of Theremin began to smell fairly redolent of holiness and charlatanism, and therefore he became one of the most scandalous and desirable heroes. It is not surprising that at one point he began to receive tempting offers from US impresarios, who felt that the Old World seemed to be going to squeeze an extremely interesting thing from them.

This is how Theremin ended up in New York. The Motherland did not express its opinion on this matter. No cries of “Come back, you damn traitor!” did not follow, they sent him regularly Required documents from the Soviet consulate. And just as peacefully, without scandal, the US authorities accepted Theremin’s request for an immigration visa.

O brave new world!

In America, Theremin gained even greater fame. The best musicians in the country took lessons in playing the theremin from him. The doors of the most respectable houses were wide open to genius. Manufacturing companies fought desperately for the right to acquire any of his patents. Money poured in like a river, and in a matter of months Theremin found himself: a) a member of the New York millionaires' club; b) director joint stock company; c) the owner of a multi-story building in New York.

Everyone tried to get to know him bright people era. Charlie Chaplin came to visit him. Albert Einstein, who emigrated from Germany, loved to play music with Theremin. Gershwin and Bernard Shaw, Rockefeller and Dwight Eisenhower were proud to know the brilliant Russian. The famous beauties were not at all against his company. The latter especially inspired the young physicist, especially since his wife, Ekaterina Konstantinova, who had arrived from Moscow, suddenly unexpectedly divorced him and married some young German, with whom she left for Germany. (Subsequently, Ekaterina Konstantinova became a member of the National Socialist Party and a convinced fascist - these are the interesting things that happened to people back in the twentieth century). And then Theremin began to make mistakes - one after another.

Firstly, he turned out to be a very bad businessman: money floated out of his hands at the speed of light.
Secondly, he hurried to sell the patent for theremin to a company that failed to implement it.
Thirdly, he married a mulatto. And in the 30s to marry blacks in America is approximately equivalent to how if today you despise all the black -haired bastards publicly.

Spy passions

The mulatto was amazingly good. Her name was Lavinia Williams and she was a dancer. Especially for Lavinia, Theremin tried to invent an apparatus that could “extract music from the dancer’s movement.” But the invented “terpsiton” turned out to be a completely helpless accompaniment: he either wheezed, or squeaked, or was silent, no matter what dizzying steps the dark-skinned prima performed. The money was melting away with exceptional speed. Good friends began to communicate with the Theremin spouses in an icy voice. Termen was finally finished off by a series of newspaper publications about how hospitable New Yorkers had warmed up a Soviet spy on their breasts. Theremin was accused of being an intelligence agent, collecting information about his high-society friends and prominent scientists.

The stupidest thing about this situation was that Termen actually went to the appearances. All these years, the Soviet consulate regularly contacted him and invited him to “conversations.” He walked obediently. I drank vodka with the “consuls”. It was impossible not to drink: they forced me in a very aggressive manner. Then there were conversations about nothing - about wives, performances, European politics, the successes of the socialist economy and other nonsense. It would have been easier to send consular friends a long time ago, but open confrontation was never in the nature of Lev Sergeevich. Moreover, they always willingly helped him with documents: they divorced him from Katya, married him to Lavinia. In general, no one took away Termen’s Soviet citizenship, and he himself did not refuse. Who knows?

Spy passions-2

So “you never know” has come. Debts were threateningly clicking their teeth, no new income was expected, the American intelligence services began to cut circles around the bush. As if Theremin hasn't done enough for America! Who, for example, installed the latest sound alarms on the most famous US prisons - Sing Sing and Alcatraz?

Secular acquaintances renounced him because of his black wife, scientific ones - because of his reputation as a spy. The only people those who understood him and valued him as they should are “their own”. It was in the Soviet consulate that Lev Sergeevich was encouraged, protected and protected during this difficult period. Because they won’t abandon their own. These were approximately the thoughts that tormented the poor genius’s head and tormented him to the point that in 1938, with his own feet, he boarded the ship “Old Bolshevik” and illegally (hidden in the captain’s cabin) went home. Lavinia remained in the USA. The consular guys promised to deliver her to the USSR immediately after the scandal subsided and Lev Sergeevich re-established himself in a flourishing and prettier homeland. Here he will receive the position of director of the Institute of Acoustics, honor and respect in society, and then his wife will fly openly and with dignity - to the happy country where they live free people who don't care what skin color they have.

Bad memory, good nostalgia and the Soviet press do terrible things to the human brain. The American spy Theremin spent only a few months at large - almost in complete isolation, because “at home” everyone understood well what it was like to communicate with defectors, Americans and traitors. In 1939 he was arrested and received eight years in the camps.

Sharashka

Theremin spent his first year honestly laying the Magadan highway and almost exhausted the survival resource allotted to man. But he was lucky again: he ended up in the famous “Tupolev sharashka” - a special zone for prisoners-scientists, from whom, in return for more or less decent feeding, they were required to advance Soviet science to new horizons. Termen spent the entire war in the sharashka and felt relatively well there after Kolyma. His team performed the most noble work - they designed listening devices for the NKVD: microscopic, camouflaged, for radio beacons, for airplanes, for telephone lines, for embassies, for institutions, for citizens' apartments. All these years, Theremin’s wife attacked the Soviet consulate with a demand to immediately transport her to her beloved husband, but the consulate remained silent. Lavinia became aware of her husband's fate only in the late 50s.

The Bald Eagle Case

In 1947, Lev Theremin was not only released, but was even awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree for a brilliant operation involving the installation of wiretapping in the American embassy. Theremin's team has developed a unique “bug” of a completely new modification. It was a hollow metal cylinder, devoid of any electronic filling, with a membrane and a pin protruding from it. The secret was that when irradiated by an external electromagnetic field of a suitable frequency, the cavity of the cylinder came into resonance with it and the radio wave was re-radiated back through the pin antenna. The “bug” was mounted into the American coat of arms, made of valuable wood. During his visit to Yalta, the American ambassador was presented with the coat of arms by the Artek pioneers. The ambassador was touched and hung it in his office. The “bug” functioned properly for almost 20 years, informing authorities about literally every word spoken in the ambassador’s reception area.

One more life

After his release, Lev Theremin remained in the sharashka, already a civilian employee, because there was absolutely nowhere to go. Then they allocated him two-room apartment. Theremin married a young lady, and they had two daughters. In 1956, Theremin was completely rehabilitated, and for almost forty years he continued to do what he loved - inventing. True, he no longer made great discoveries and ingenious inventions, such as the theremin, far-vision or sound signaling. To work, Theremin required serious subsidies, laboratories and qualified assistants, but he was assigned to manage small objects, insignificant for a figure of such a scale. But he didn’t want to return to the KGB laboratory. I managed to explain why in one of my last interviews. “All sorts of nonsense took up time from my inventive work. Allegedly, in the West they came up with devices to determine where flying saucers are, and in order to find out who launches them and why, we also had to work on similar devices. Then - supposedly the Americans created equipment for transmitting mental energy (and aggressive energy) over long distances - and fight again! I understood that this was a scam, and I couldn’t refuse. And one day I decided that it was better not to do this, but to retire. I left in 1966.” At the end of the 80s, for some reason, the outside world remembered Theremin again: several articles dedicated to him were published in the West, where he was called a KGB agent, informant and informer. Almost at the same time, Theremin received invitations from France and the USA to visit places of “military glory” - to give a series of Theremin concerts where he played 60 years ago. Her daughter, one of several dozen professional theremin players in the world, undertook to accompany her father on this tour.

In 1991, Lev Sergeevich suddenly remembered Lenin and regretted that he had disappointed his hopes - he had not joined the party. Theremin decided to make amends to the leader and managed to become a member of the CPSU - exactly a few months before its closure.

And in 1993, the scientist died, having lived a whole century without three years. And not just any century, but that same century, the twentieth, the living embodiment of which Lev Theremin happened to become. Although, strictly speaking, he didn’t really ask for it, but simply obediently went where the tenacious paws of fate dragged him. Journalist and writer Elena Petrushanskaya, who managed to interview Termen several times in last years his life, says that he himself was aware of this humility: “Life, no matter how long it lasts, must be lived with dignity to the end. It seems that Theremin did not succeed.

Tim Blake of Hawkwind performing in London in February 2014

Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" (single, 1966).
Led Zeppelin “Whole Lotta Love” (concert film/soundtrack “The Song Remains The Same”, 1976).
Pixies "Velouria" (Bossanova, 1990).
Aquarium “Under the bridge, like Chkalov” (“Territory”, 2000).

Films: Spellbound (1945), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Ed Wood (1994), Hellboy: Hero from Hell (2004).

Lev Sergeevich Termen(August 15, St. Petersburg - November 3, Moscow) - Russian and Soviet inventor, creator of the original musical instrument - theremin (). Winner of the Stalin Prize, 1st degree (1947) for the creation of listening devices.

Biography

Lev Theremin was born into a noble Orthodox family with French roots (in French the family surname was written as Theremin). His mother, Evgenia Antonovna, and his father, the famous lawyer Sergei Emilievich, spared no money on Lev’s education.

Carier start

Lev Termen carried out his first independent experiments in electrical engineering during his years of study at the St. Petersburg First Men's Gymnasium.

Being a very versatile person, Theremin invented many different automatic systems (automatic doors, automatic lighting, etc.), alarms and security devices. In -1926 he invented one of the first television systems - “Darnovision”.

At the direction of the head of Soviet military intelligence, Yan Berzin, with the money he earned, Termen organized the Teletouch company and rented a six-story building for a music and dance studio in New York for 99 years. This made it possible to create trade missions of the USSR in the United States, under whose “roof” Soviet intelligence officers could work.

Soon Lev Theremin became a very popular person in New York. George Gershwin, Maurice Ravel, Jascha Heifetz, Yehudi Menuhin, Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein visited his studio. His circle of acquaintances included financial tycoon John Rockefeller, future US President Dwight Eisenhower.

With the best orchestras, Lev Theremin gave numerous concerts throughout America and Europe. Orders for theremins came from different countries.

Lev Sergeevich is divorcing his wife Ekaterina Konstantinova.

First hand:

I first got married in Leningrad. My wife was the sister of one of the employees of our institute. She went on tour with me to Paris, London, Berlin, and when I left for America, she followed me. Here she was offered a place at a medical school located fifty kilometers from New York, so we began to meet only on weekends. One day a young man came to my office and asked for my consent to divorce his wife, since they supposedly love each other. At first I refused, but then it turned out that this young man was one of the leaders of the American fascists. The Soviet embassy also became aware of this. I was advised to get a divorce. And I got divorced. About four years later I married a black dancer, Lavinia Williams.

The talented ballerina and beauty, popular in the USA, black woman Lavinia Williams, became his wife.

Repressions and rewards

At first, Theremin served time in Magadan, working as a foreman of a construction team. Theremin’s numerous rationalization proposals attracted the attention of the camp administration to him, and already in 1940 he was transferred to the Tupolev design bureau TsKB-29 (to the so-called “Tupolev sharaga”), where he worked for about 8 years. Here his assistant was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, later a famous designer of space technology. One of the areas of activity of Theremin and Korolev was the development of unmanned aerial vehicles controlled by radio - prototypes of modern cruise missiles.

Personal life

Maria Gushchina - wife; Natalya Termen - daughter; Elena Termen - daughter; Maria Theremin - granddaughter; Olga Termen - granddaughter; Peter Termen - great-grandson;

• Lavinia Williams - wife in second marriage (no children);
• In 1921, Lev Theremin met with Lenin at the VIII All-Russian Electrotechnical Congress. Theremin's invention delighted Lenin, and in 1922 they met in the Kremlin.
• On February 9, 1945, US Ambassador Averell Harriman, who was invited to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Artek pioneer camp, was presented with a wooden panel made of valuable wood (sandalwood, boxwood, sequoia, ivory palm, Persian parrotia, mahogany and ebony, black alder) , depicting the coat of arms of the United States. A listening device developed by Theremin was installed in it, which allowed him to listen to conversations in the ambassador’s office for almost 8 years. The design of the “bug” turned out to be so successful that when examining the gift, the American intelligence services did not notice anything. After its discovery, the “bug” was presented to the UN as evidence of the intelligence activities of the USSR, but the principle of its operation remained unsolved for several years.
• Maria Gushchina - wife in her third marriage;
• In 1991, at the age of 95, a few months before the collapse of the USSR, Lev Theremin joined the CPSU. He explained his decision by saying that he had once made a promise to Lenin to join the party, and that he wanted to hurry to fulfill his promise while it still existed. To join the CPSU, Lev Sergeevich, at the age of 90, came to the party committee of Moscow State University, where he was told that to join the party he had to study at the department of Marxism-Leninism for five years, which he did, passing all the exams.
• Natalya Termen - daughter;
• In 1989, a meeting took place in Moscow between the two founders of electronic music, Lev Sergeevich Termen and the English musician Brian Eno.

see also

Notes

Literature

• Ginzburg V., Pulver V. A television. Transmission of moving images using the method of L. S. Theremin. // Radio amateur, 1927. - No. 1. - p. 13-16.
• Teodorchik K. F. Far-sightedness // Advances in physical sciences, 1928. - Issue 1 - p. 98-104
• Theremin L. S. Birth, childhood and youth of the “theremin” // Radio engineering, 1972. - volume 27, no. 9 - p. 109-111
• Theremin L. S. Polyphonic theremin // Materials of the IV All-Union Scientific and Technical Conference on Electromusical Instruments, 1981. - Part II
• Termen L. S., Korolev L. D. Electric musical instrument of the theremin type, Author's certificate No. 1048503, 1983.
• Urvalov V. A. Essays on the history of television. - M.: Nauka, 1990.
• Galeev B. M. Soviet Faust (Lev Theremin - pioneer of electronic art) // Supplement to the Kazan magazine, 1995.
• Kovaleva S. No more and no less. The Life of Lev Theremin // Russian Thought, 1998. - No. 4248
• Lobanova Marina. Lew Termen: Erfinder, Tschekist, Spion. // Neue Zeitschft für Musik, 1999, H. 4. S. 50-53.
• Mahun S. Doctor Faustus of the 20th century. Lev Theremin, ahead of his time - “no more, no less” // Mirror of the Week, 2004. - No. 46 (521), November 13-19, 2004.

LEV SERGEEVICH TERMEN (1896–1993)

Russian and Soviet inventor, creator of the original musical instrument - theremin

Lev Theremin was born on August 15 (August 28 - new style) 1896 in St. Petersburg into a noble Orthodox family with French Huguenot roots (in French the family surname was written as Theremin). His mother, Evgenia Antonovna, and his father, the famous lawyer Sergei Emilievich, spared no money on Lev’s education.

Lev Termen carried out his first independent experiments in electrical engineering during his years of study at the St. Petersburg First Men's Gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1914 with a silver medal.

In 1916 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in cello, and at the same time studied at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University. At the university, Lev Theremin had the opportunity to listen to lectures on physics by private assistant professor A. F. Ioffe.

From his second year at the university, in 1916, he was drafted into the army and sent for accelerated training to the Nikolaev Engineering School, and then to officer electrical courses.

Invented:

1. Group of electric musical instruments:

Theremin

Rhythmicon

Terpsitone

2. Security alarm

3. Unique eavesdropping system “Buran”

4. The world's first television installation - far vision

Worked on:

Speech recognition system

Human freezing technology

Military sonar

Died November 3, 1993. As the newspapers later wrote: “At ninety-seven years old, Lev Theremin went to those who made up the face of the era - but behind the coffin, except for his daughters with their families and several men carrying the coffin, there was no one ...”

He was buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery in Moscow.

THE MAN WHO COULD DO ANYTHING

On the evening of November 3, my friends and I drank a glass to commemorate the soul of the inventor and musician Lev Sergeevich Termen. I have never seen this man in my life, but I have been fascinated by his magical talent since childhood, when I first heard the amazing musical instrument theremin, from which all modern electronic music originated.

In the spring of 1926, engineer Lev Termen demonstrated at the People's Commissariat of Defense the world's first television installation - far vision. He installed the camera lens on the street, placed the screen in his office, and the Red commanders Ordzhonikidze, Voroshilov, Budyonny and Tukhachevsky cried out in delight: on the screen Stalin was walking across the yard!

It took Termen only a year to solve a fantastic problem - the creation of electrical foresight. However, for him, it seemed, there were no difficulties in life at all. From a young age, he amazed those around him with his talents: he was fond of mathematics, physics, and something was always exploding in his room. At the university, Theremin studied simultaneously in the physics and astronomy faculties, while simultaneously studying cello at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

Before the revolution, he managed to graduate from a military engineering school and even fought for the Tsar Father with the rank of second lieutenant in a radio engineering battalion.

But the Bolsheviks did not shoot him, but, on the contrary, took him into service in the electrical battalion. And a year later he was appointed head of the most powerful radio station in the country, the Tsarskoye Selo radio station.

After demobilization in 1920, he was invited to work at the Physico-Technical Institute by Professor Ioffe. Theremin receives the task of doing radio measurements of the dielectric constant of gases at variable temperatures and pressures.

During testing, it turned out that the device produced a sound, the height and strength of which depended on the position of the hand between the plates of the capacitor.

Perhaps a simple physicist would not have attached any importance to this, but a physicist who graduated from the conservatory tried to compose a melody from these sounds.

And it worked!

In addition to Lenin, there were about ten other people in the office. First, Theremin showed the high commission a security alarm. He connected the device to a large vase with a flower, and as soon as one of those present approached it, a loud bell rang. Lev Sergeevich recalled: “One of the military says that this is wrong. Lenin asked: “Why is it wrong?” And the military man took a warm hat, put it on his head, wrapped his arm and leg in a fur coat and began to slowly crawl towards my alarm on his haunches. We got the signal again."

And yet the main “hero” of the audience was the theremin. Lenin liked the instrument so much that he gave the go-ahead for Theremin to tour and ordered that he be given a free train ticket “to popularize the new instrument” throughout the country.

By the way, another impressive feature of Theremin’s life is connected with Lenin.

Lev Sergeevich was passionate about the idea of ​​fighting death. He studied studies of animal cells frozen in permafrost, and wondered what would happen to people if they were frozen and then thawed. When news of the leader’s death became known, Theremin sent his assistant to Gorki with a proposal to freeze Lenin’s body so that years later, when the technology had been worked out, he could be resurrected from the dead. But the assistant returned with sad news: the internal organs had already been removed and the body was prepared for embalming. With that, Theremin abandoned research on human revitalization. And decades later, his idea was embodied in America, and now dozens of frozen lucky people are waiting for resurrection.

An episode that could have been a milestone

After demonstrating the television installation at the People's Commissariat for Education, Theremin showed it at the V All-Union Congress of Physicists in Moscow. The invention caused a sensation, Ogonyok and Izvestia wrote with delight: “Theremin’s name is included in the history of world science along with Popov and Edison!” It seemed that it was a stone's throw from experiment to serial production...

Theremin was offered to create a television system for border military units. But it did not reach the army: the country’s technical base was too poor.

Therefore, the developments were kept secret, and the title of pioneer in the field of television a few years later went to an emigrant from Russia, Vladimir Zvorykin.

Knocked out "Grand Opera" and others

In the summer of 1927, an international conference on physics and electronics was held in Frankfurt am Main. The young Country of Soviets needed to present itself with dignity. And Theremin with his instrument became the trump card of the Russian delegation. He amazed the Europeans with his report on the theremin and with classical music concerts for the general public: “heavenly music”, “voices of angels” - the newspapers were choked with delight.

Invitations from Berlin, London, and Paris followed one after another.

Theremin's most enchanting concert took place in Paris: the conservative Grand Opera theater for the first time in its history gave the hall to some unknown Russian for the whole evening. Such an influx of spectators (even standing tickets for boxes were sold) and such success in the theater have not been seen for 35 years...

Meanwhile, Joffe, who was in the USA at that time, received orders from several companies to produce 2000 theremins with the condition that Theremin would come to America to supervise the work. But instead of one business trip, Lev Sergeevich received two: from the People’s Commissar of Education Lunacharsky and from the Military Department.

Trump on the table!

And now the handsome young Lev Theremin sails on the ocean liner Majestic to America. The world-famous violinist József Sighetti, who was sailing on the same ship, became envious of the fees that the largest businessmen in America offered Theremin for the honor of being the first to hear the theremin.

But the inventor gave the first concert for the press, scientists and famous musicians. The success was impressive, and with the permission of the Soviet authorities, Theremin founded the Teletouch studio company in New York for the production of theremins.

Things went brilliantly. Theremin concerts took place in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Boston. Thousands of Americans enthusiastically began to learn to play the theremin, and General Electric Corporation and RCA (Radio Corporation of America) bought licenses to produce it.

In the enthusiastic chorus of Theremin's fans, voices of dissatisfaction began to be heard: at concerts he was shamelessly out of tune. The fact is that playing the theremin purely is incredibly difficult: the performer has no reference points (like, for example, the keys of a piano or the strings of a violin) and has to rely solely on hearing and muscle memory.

Theremin clearly lacked performing skills. A virtuoso was needed here. And then fate brought him together with a young emigrant from Russia, Clara Reisenberg. As a child, she was known as a miracle child, a violinist with a great future. But either she overplayed her hands, or because of a hungry childhood, she had to part with the violin: her muscles could not withstand the load. But the theremin was within reach, and Clara quickly learned to play it. Not without whirlwind romance, especially since Theremin was free by that time.

For the first time, Theremin married the lovely Katya Konstantinova in 1921, and before coming to America, their family life was smooth and stable.

But in New York, Katya was able to find work only in the suburbs and came home once a week. After six months of such “family” life, a young man came to Theremin and said that he and Katya loved each other.

And then it became known that the visitor was a member of a fascist organization. And the Soviet embassy demanded that Termen divorce his wife. Which is what he did. Therefore, by the time of his meeting with Clara, Lev Sergeevich was open to new love. He is 38 years old, she is 18. They were a luxurious couple, they loved to go to cafes and restaurants. Lev Sergeevich courted her very beautifully and loved to surprise his girlfriend with various miracles. For example, for her birthday, he gave her a cake that rotated around its axis and was decorated with a candle that lit up when approaching it.

The beautiful romance was not destined to end with a wedding. Clara chose someone else - Robert Rockmore, a lawyer and successful impresario, so she

music career was provided. rotated in front of a stroboscopic lamp. As soon as the musician changed pitches

Sound, the frequency of strobe flashes and patterns changed - the spectacle was impressive. Well, the fantasy began when the studio walls rose and fell. Of course, not for real, but with the help of a trick of light. The spellbound visitors gasped in surprise!

Rumors about these experiments attracted many famous people to the studio. Among Theremin's guests were millionaires DuPont, Ford and Rockefeller.

However, Termen himself by the mid-30s was included in the list of twenty-five celebrities of the world. And he was even a member of the millionaires' club.

Was he really a millionaire? It is not known for certain. Some say that Teletouch Corporation brought huge amounts of money to Theremin personally and to Soviet Russia. And others claim that Theremin was financed by military intelligence. Because the true purpose of his business trip to America was espionage activity.

Famous spy

Every two weeks Lev Sergeevich came to a small country cafe, where two young men were waiting for him. They listened to his reports and gave him new tasks. However, these tasks were not burdensome and did not particularly distract Theremin from his work. And he was already completely captivated by the most fantastic of his ideas - an instrument that gave birth to music from dance. In fact, this is a type of theremin: the sound is created not only by the hands, but also by the movements of the whole body, and the name was given to it accordingly - terpsiton - after the goddess of dance Terpsichore.

In this case, each sound corresponded to a lamp of a certain color.

The spouses did not see each other again. And Termen kept the marriage certificate issued by the Russian embassy in America until the end of his days.

Kirov's killer

Ten years after leaving Russia, Theremin arrived in Leningrad.

And it turned out that no one needed him: there were almost no old workers left at the Physico-Technical Institute. Theremin went to look for work in Moscow, but on March 15, they came for him to a hotel near the Kievsky railway station with an arrest warrant.

In the Butyrka prison, the investigator told Theremin that he, as a defector, would, of course, be shot if he did not cooperate. A month later, Theremin “confessed” that, together with a group of astronomers, he was planning the murder of Kirov. His version was this: Kirov (who was already dead by that time!) was going to visit the Pulkovo Observatory. Astronomers planted a landmine in a Foucault pendulum. And Theremin, using a radio signal from the USA, was supposed to blow it up as soon as Kirov approached the pendulum. The investigator was not even embarrassed by the fact that Foucault’s pendulum is not in Pulkovo, but in the Kazan Cathedral! Lev Sergeevich was given eight years and sent to Kolyma.

But Termen spent only a year in the camp. He was appointed senior over the criminals who carried stones from the mountain and paved the road with them. Theremin mechanized the process by building a wheelbarrow with a monorail. Work is in full swing! The brigade's rations were tripled, and the papers about the unusual prisoner were sent to Moscow.

In the winter of 1940, he was transferred to Omsk, to the Tupolev aviation sharashka, where throughout the war he developed equipment for radio control of unmanned aircraft and radio beacons for naval operations. But the crowning achievement of his time in the sharashka was the invention of the Buran listening system.

Trojan horse from the pioneers

...On Independence Day, July 4, 1945, the American Ambassador to Russia Averell Harriman received a wooden panel depicting an eagle as a gift from Soviet pioneers. The panel was hung in the ambassador's office.

The Soviet government highly appreciated the merits of the inventor - in 1947, the prisoner (!) was awarded the Stalin Prize, 1st degree.

And after his release, Termen was given a two-room apartment on Leninsky Prospekt.

It seemed that the stupid and evil misunderstanding was over and now the inventor would be showered with honors. But Theremin did not receive any official titles; all his patents were covered with the stamp “Owls.” secret." And Lev Sergeevich continued to work in secret KGB laboratories. Soon he found himself a new wife there - a young typist Masha Gushchina, who gave birth to twin daughters.

For almost twenty years, Theremin was engaged in specific developments for the all-powerful department. At first, these were promising works - speech recognition systems, voice identification, military hydroacoustics.

But over time, priorities have changed. As Theremin recalled, “supposedly in the West they came up with devices for determining where flying saucers were, and we also had to struggle with similar devices.

I understood that this was a scam, and I couldn’t refuse - and one day I decided that it was better to retire.”

The employers did not object, considering that they could not take anything from the old man, and in 1964 Termen finally parted with the special services, under whose invisible eye he had been for almost 40 years.

Theremin doesn't die!

Lev Sergeevich also frequented the Scriabin Museum, where he took part in the creation of a musical synthesizer. The long-awaited time has come - the era electronic instruments. Theremin seemed to catch ideas out of thin air that sometimes seemed utopian. And later it turned out that the Japanese company Yamaha was working on these ideas independently of him.

Well, Lev Sergeevich taught his niece Lida Kavina to play the theremin. By the age of twenty, she had become a virtuoso performer and toured all over Europe with concerts. In 1989, Theremin was invited to the Experimental Music Festival in France. And he, 93 years old, went!

But most of all, at the end of his life, Termen surprised those around him with his entry into the CPSU: “I promised Lenin.” Lev Sergeevich tried before, but for “terrible crimes” he was not accepted into the party. So Termen became a communist only in 1991, simultaneously with the fall of the USSR.

a swan song

...In 1951, the future American director Steve Martin saw the film “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” But it was not the aliens that shocked him, but the unearthly sound of the theremin that accompanied the action. For several years he communicated with his brother using sounds similar to those produced by a theremin. And many years later, in 1980, Steve Martin was looking for music for his film. And his search led him to Clara Rockmore, who told the director about the legendary inventor. It was then that Martin had the idea to create a story about Theremin documentary. But 11 years passed before he was able to come to Moscow, meet Theremin and invite him to America. The elderly maestro walked confusedly through the streets of New York and had difficulty recognizing the places where ten years of his life had passed. The most exciting thing was the meeting with Clara Rockmore.

Clara did not agree to her for a long time - years, they say, do not make a woman beautiful.

Hey, Clarenok, how old are we! - said 95-year-old Theremin.

Steve Martin's film "The Electronic Odyssey of Lev Theremin" was released after the death of the hero. But his theremins still live today.

Among the many companies producing them is Moog Mugic, owned by the inventor of the first synthesizer, Robert Moog. He once said about Theremin: “He’s just a genius who is capable of anything!” He failed in only one thing - to become

national pride