Podcasts · Episode

Leon Theremin: Espionage, Stalinism and Sci-fi Sounds

Program: Power Play
Aired: Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Hosted by Ross Hickman · Karbo

In this episode, Karbo and Ross follow Leon Theremin (born Lev Termen) as he invents the Theremin—an instrument most recognizable for its use in sci-fi movies. Theremin navigates the rise and fall of the Soviet Union as a soldier, spy, prisoner, scientist, and outcast.

Pictured: Leon Theramin demonstrating Termenvox; by Bettmann, Corbis – (polish), Public Domain

Episode Notes

"Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage"

Music from MC Productions:
The Subconscious
Lover Come Back to Me
L'Ardente Nuit
You're Driving Me Crazy
Lonesome Lover
Dancing with Tears in my Eyes

Music from Carolina Eyck:
Les Berceaux
Eternity
Delphic
Vocalise

U.N. Spy Debate. Reds 'Bugged' American Embassy Lodge Claims

Neil Armstrong Talks to the Space Center – Audio  

Transcript

Karbo: Hello, and welcome to PowerPlay: a podcast where we explore the relationship between music and power.  

Ross: Throughout this season we’ll bring you stories about the power of music, the music of the powerful, music as a means to power, and what happens when music and power go head to head.

Karbo: I’m Karbo. 

Ross: And I’m Ross.

Karbo: Let’s dive in.

[Les Berceaux, performed by Carolina Eyck, plays]

Karbo: The instrument you just heard is the Theremin, an electronic instrument originating in the early 20th century named after its inventor: Leon Theremin. 

Ross: Today, we’ll be discussing the life of Leon Theremin, the story of a man caught between the worlds of Music and Power. It’s a story which will take us from the Kremlin to the U.N. Security council, from the United States during the roaring twenties to a Soviet Union GULAG in winter. 

Karbo: One thing I should note before we go further: Leon Theremin was actually born Lev Termen [Tair-uh-men], he only adopted the name Leon Theremin as he left Russia – we will get into why a bit later . So, for the purpose of this episode, we’ll be referring to the inventor as Termen (or Lev) and the instrument as the Theremin. 

Ross: This will help us to tell them apart, but we also want to make this distinction because Lev always went by his given name around other Russians – with whom he felt most comfortable. “Leon Theremin” was largely a persona Lev adopted for political reasons.

Karbo:  Yeah, he actually originally christened the instrument an etherphone, because it sent out waves that propagated through the ether – though that didn’t really catch on. But let’s get back to what we just heard. Now, if you recognize the sound of the Theremin it’s probably from Hollywood. The instrument has appeared in film scores such as Hitchcock’s SpellBound, original The Day the Earth Stood Still and in the first Ghostbusters film. 

Ross: In Hollywood it’s often used more as a sound-effect than an instrument. In both the films the theremin was used precisely to capture the other-worldly nature of their theme. This comes across particularly strikingly in the oscar-winning score to Alfred Hitchcocks’s 1945 classic, SpellBound. 

[The Subconscious, from MC Productions, plays]

Karbo: But the Theremin actually had quite a different beginning. Lev toured Europe and the United States with his instrument and believed it would bring about a revolution in music. His tour captured the imagination of audiences because of the ethereal nature of the instrument. Critics described the Theremin as “black magic” because, in addition to being one of the earliest electronic instruments invented, the theremin is actually played without touching it.

Ross: I don’t know, that sounds like black magic to me.

Karbo: [chuckles] No no, hear me out! The theremin works with two long antennae which have currents running through them. This generates an electromagnetic field around them, and then the performer can move their hands near the antennae which the density of their hands compared to the surrounding air can manipulate those fields. If this reminds you of a metal detector or other scientific equipment, there’s a reason for that: Lev was an engineer and physicist primarily, and his instrument is actually something he accidentally invented during his research, but then began to develop and perfect on its own.

Ross: Termen actually shifted his focus from other experiments to building this instrument, and shortly afterwards he would even leave Russia, trying to popularise the instrument abroad.  

[Lover Come Back To Me, from MC Productions, plays]

Karbo: To understand why, let's get back to the life of Lev Termen and his motivation for popularising the Theremin. 

Ross: Of course, I don’t claim to be able to speak to his Motivation – capital M- but I think it's clear that Lev loved both music and science growing up. He was born in Russia, in 1896, to aristocratic parents who gave him lessons in cello and piano. 

Karbo: Although he stopped playing as actively as he grew older, it wasn’t for lack of enthusiasm for music. He later said that he felt a gap between the music itself and its mechanical production, and he wanted to unite both of them. 

Ross: I can see why an instrument one plays literally by waving one's arms through the air would appeal to him.

Karbo: [chuckles] no, definitely. But, um, you said he was also scientifically minded as a child?

Ross: Yeah, in school he would have debates with his physics professor over things such as the mechanics of pendula. He also gave spectacular tesla-esque electrical presentations in front of the entire student body and their parents. And, at the age of 15, he discovered a new star using a make-shift observatory he constructed in his back-yard. 

Karbo: Oh, that’s incredible. I mean I built a telescope in camp as a kid but I certainly didn’t make any scientific discoveries with it.

Ross: [chuckles] yeah, and Lev continued with physics and music at University. Attending the school for Physics and Mathematics at St. Petersburg University, and also taking musical theory and cello classes at the conservatory. 

Karbo: And this is where world politics start to play more of a role in our story. Just as Termen was entering University, World War One Broke out in Europe, and a year later he was drafted. 

Ross: His professors though were able to get him enrolled in military engineering school, which kept him off the front lines, and after a few months of training he joined the war: passing on knowledge to new recruits and helping build radio stations for strategic communications. 

Karbo: Yeah, as Lev was serving in the military, however, the Bolshevik Revolution was beginning. Hunger and poverty resulting from the war served as a catalyst for a revolution which took the Romanov family out of power after over 300 years. Lenin established dictatorial control of the government and Lev, who had managed to finish his university degree while still completing projects for the military, found himself drafted into another war. This time with the Red Army.

Ross: Termen was now a technician at the Electrotechnical Institute working to create a receiver with the strength to be used for international signals. But the war made food and other necessities increasingly scarce, and insufficient tools and food hampered Lev’s progress.

Karbo: Fortunately for Lev, an acquaintance of his was able to secure Lev a position at the Sosnovka Physico-Technical institute where he was able to live more comfortably and better exercise his talents. One project he worked on was a device to measure the density of different types of gasses. Knowing  that nearby objects could interfere with the electric field, he created a device which would produce tones that the operator could hear, so that any change in the properties of the gas caused the pitch of the tone to change as well.

Ross: Lev noticed that moving his hand near the device caused an apparent change in the gas large enough for the device to change pitch, and that he could actually “play” his device by moving his hands nearer and farther away from it in a pattern. The possibilities of this kind device intrigued Termen, and he began trying to outfit a device capable of producing musical sounds. It wasn’t long before Termen sat his colleagues down to hear his first musical forays with this early prototype ethophone – the technological forerunner of the theremin.  

[L’ardente Nuit, from MC Productions, plays]

Karbo: Lev also applied the same principle to create a type of burglar alarm which he called the “radio watchman.” As we mentioned earlier the core mechanism of a Theremin is that it can detect the density of a nearby hand, so it wasn’t really that hard for him to adapt the same technique to make devices which could be placed near doors or windows to sense intruders and – instead of playing music – activate an alarm.

Ross:  It wasn’t long before the Kremlin heard of his work and Lenin summoned Lev to Moscow where Termen demonstrated to Lenin his technological innovations. Lenin was so taken with the Theremin that he insisted on playing it himself. Lev stood behind him and moved his arms to help him play Glinka’s “Skylark.” 

Karbo: After this meeting, government officials ordered the production of the Radio Watchman to secure the Kremlin, the state bank and other government national buildings. In addition, Lev was dispatched by Lenin as a cultural messenger of new the Soviet Union, given a permanent pass to the Soviet railway system and sent all across the country to propagandize the proletariat with his new instrument, which the newspapers came to call “Termenvox” meaning “the voice of Terman.” 

Ross: Lev spent the next few years touring and performing with his Termenvox – waving his arms to the tunes of classical music and Russian folk songs – while also building security devices for the state. He eventually returned to his work and completed a prototype of another project – something called “Distance Vision.” 

Karbo: [chuckles] Dispute the name, he was basically designing a more direct form of television, using a single camera and monitor. 

Ross: Right, and he created a system better than any the world had yet seen – one that could transmit a detailed 100 line live image from a swivelling camera to monitor measuring 25 square feet – all capable of operating in normal daylight. 

Karbo: For contrast, the world record claimed by a US inventor was 48 lines, several months later, and that was only possible with an immovable camera which needed bright lights to enhance the subject of the image – even in full daylight. On top of all that, the display screen measured just over half a square foot. 

Ross: Yeah, but unfortunately the outside world wouldn’t benefit from Lev’s advances, since Joseph Stalin, who has recently taken over the Soviet State, immediately got his hands on the device.

Karbo: Yeah, it was used as what we think is the world’s first security camera – guarding the Kremlin and places along the Soviet border. And, of course, made top secret.

Ross: The Soviet’s also asked Lev to apply for German patents on some of his techniques to strengthen ties between the Soviets and a German corporation. The Anglicized version of Lev Terman’s name first shows up on this patent application – the first written record of the newly branded: Leon Theremin. Foreign-help patents – like Lev’s – helped the USSR establish international ties and enhanced their espionage operations around the globe.

Karbo: The USSR was always aware of its place on the world stage and its actions were calculated. For the same reasons of outreach and espionage, Lev was sent to tour Germany, and the United States.

[You’re Driving Me Crazy, from MC Productions, plays]

Ross: Lev and his invention made something of a splash in this global debut. For him, his device was not simply a new instrument, but one that could change the future of music. The theremin could produce any frequency; from the low notes of a bass to the high trill of a piccolo. It could generate sound within the full range of human hearing – and even beyond if you didn't play it right.  

Karbo: [chuckles] Additionally, the theremin could also adjust its timbre to mimic different orchestral instruments such as the timpani, cello, or violin. It could even play in-between traditional pitches in an octave, granting the musician much more freedom than a traditional instrumentalist.

Ross: But this freedom also had its challenges. The lack of a physical instrument meant that Lev needed to guess where he should place his hands in the air surrounding the instrument – a difficult task for a divide sensitive enough to measure the properties of the gas around it. One could also hear all the intermediate notes as Lev switched from one instrument to another. He didn’t have a bow that he could simply take off the string, the device would continue to produce sound as he moved in between notes. 

Karbo: Despite this though,  Lev performed in sold out sports arenas and venues such as Carnegie Hall, and he even partnered with RCA (the Radio Corporation of America) to begin the mass manufacture of his instrument. But the “Theremin” – as the RCA marketed the instrument – didn’t really sell. 

Ross: The mass manufactured Theremins suffered setbacks, like shoddy craftsmanship, false advertising, and no tech support to help the average consumer fix or even use the product once they got it home. And, the Great Depression started as RCA was in the process of manufacturing its Theremins. Beyond department stores and other venues which wanted the instrument as a technological showpiece, they had a hard time finding a market for them. 

Karbo: Yeha, this was unfortunately actually part of ongoing and severe financial difficulties Lev experienced in the United States. Lev kept taking out loans using a complicated arrangement of founding companies which took out stakes in each other. He also used some of his patents as collateral so he could live off the money and further his research.

Ross: And this is something odd about the story: Lev originally came to the U.S. on a visitor’s visa for 6 months, but ended up staying in the country for nearly 11 years. 

[You’re Driving Me Crazy, from MC Productions, continues to play]

Ross: Lev was piling up so much debt – ignoring taxes, bills, and court summons – that the Department of Labor spent years trying to remove him from the country. 

Karbo: Yeah, he was actually even red-flagged by the FBI in a memo directly to J. Edgar Hoover, which noted the fact that he had overstayed his visa by years, and, upon being asked to leave repeatedly by the Department of Labor, responded that he was doing ‘secret work for the War Department’ and could not be interfered with. 

Ross: [chuckles] As the FBI noted in its report, Lev’s claim was not terribly accurate but it was actually closer to the truth than one might guess. For one thing, Termen later admitted that while he was in the U.S. he was working closely with Amtorg – the American Trade Organization, one of the USSR’s commercial fronts – to gather intelligence.

Karbo: During much of his stay in the U.S. he met weekly with Russian agents to receive assignments. At these weekly rendezvous, a heavily drunk Termen would be questioned on his recent activities and given orders to procure new information – usually scientific data.

Ross: Wait, did you say that Lev would get drunk during these meetings?

Karbo: Oh yeah, he was actually made to. Forcing the subject to drink large amounts of Vodka was apparently a common interrogation method for the GRU – a Soviet intelligence agency.

Ross: An interesting interview method. 

Karbo: Yeah, I mean I think the idea was that it's harder to lie when you’re plastered.

Ross: Still though, that seems a little less professional than I imagine spy-rendezvous to be. I mean, James Bond was always drinking, but rarely drunk you know? 

Karbo: Yeah, no honestly I feel like a lot of spy-craft is a lot less dignified than it's made out to be. 

Ross: Probably true. Still though, when Lev did finally leave the U.S. it was in true spy fashion. Russian agents swiftly secreted him onto a boat and out of the country. Even though he knew in advance that he was leaving, Lev didn't tell anyone – not even his wife, who thought that he had been abducted. 

Karbo: And unfortunately her guess didn’t turn out to be incorrect, just premature. A few months after his return to Russia, Lev was arrested by the Soviet Secret police. Unwittingly, Lev had delivered himself into the USSR as it was being consumed by Stalin’s great purge. 

[Eternity, performed by Carolina Eyck, plays]

Ross: Soviet officials rounded up citizens for smiling sympathetically at an anti-communist statement, or complimenting a counter-revolutionaries on his looks, even pencilling mathematics on a newspaper and accidentally putting a number on the forehead Stalin’s image were cause for arrest. 

Karbo: In 1938, after a period of two years, one in every twenty citizens had been arrested. Roughly half of the population was on lists of persons of interest maintained by the Soviet Secret police, and a majority of leading officials in the country were flagged as likely foreign spies. 

Ross: The 1937 Soviet census described just how wide and far the purge was sweeping the country; roughly every one-in-two families lost a loved one to Stalin’s tightening grasp. Stalin responded by having the members of the census board shot as spied, and commissioning a new census report, which he falsified. 

Karbo: Unfortunately, what happened to Lev was fairly typical at the time. After his arrest he was crammed with at least 100 other inmates into a cell built for 40. Then asked to tell his life story to an interrogator. From what he told the interrogator, charges were constructed and 9 days after his arrest he was forced to sign a finalized written statement of the charges against him – an act which also served as a confession. 

Ross: Months later, Lev was sentenced to 8 years in a labor camp. Taken from his cell, Lev was led to a crowded train car for a cross-country journey to a labor camp in Kolyma, during which the doors were only opened once every few days to pass in water and food, and to remove the corpses of those that had died since they last checked.

[Eternity, performed by Carolina Eyck, continues to play]

Karbo: Yeah, unfortunately surviving that train ride – and the following forced march through the Siberian snow – was a feat that many prisoners could not manage. 

Ross: And getting to the camps was far from a reprieve. Millions, on meager rations, mined gold and built make-shift roads. GULAG camps may have incarcerated a total of 18 million prisoners during their existence. Perhaps 1 million died in Kolyma alone. 

Karbo: Yeah, the camps were overseen by the Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps, which was abbreviated from its Russian name to “GULAG,” and, as you can gather from what we’ve been describing so far, these were only nominally labor camps.

Ross: Prisoners didn’t have enough food to sustain their bodies as they worked. Most starved, died from outbreaks of disease, succumbed to the bitter cold of Siberia, or were simply shot in group executions if their sentence was spontaneously changed from imprisonment to death. 

Karbo: Lev, however, was actually fortunate enough to survive Kolyma. He was able to surpass his quota of stones delivered by wheelbarrow, and help his crew meet theirs as well, by building a makeshift track for the wheelbarrow to take on the snow. Their productivity dramatically increased because of this, and, as a result, so did their rations.  

Ross: A few weeks later, Lev also distinguished himself by putting together and conducting an orchestra for the camp officials, who would competitively host musical displays and other events to one-up nearby camps. Lev discovered that nearly the entirety of the Moscow and Leningrad philharmonic orchestras also resided in his camp. 

Karbo: After a few months, and with little warning,Termen was removed from the camp and put back on a train across the country. Upon reaching Moscow, he was escorted by guards to a room and provided with fresh clothes, linens, and cigarettes. After a short respite, more guards arrived to escort him to dinner.

Ross: And what he found there was remarkable. After months of subsisting on barely enough food – even with his extra portions – Lev tucked into a full meal, with fresh meat and hot chocolate. The vanished Soviet intelligentsia also happened to be there. 

[Lonesome Lover, from MC Productions, plays]

Karbo: Lev had been taken to a sharashka, a secret prison run by the NKVD to function as a top-secret laboratory. There, many of the greatest minds in the country found themselves serving out sentences in service to the state. 

Ross: While he was there, Lev caught the attention of Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the NKVD. The name theremin became famous because of Termen’s instrument, but his work for Beria actually resulted in what was probably his most profound moment on the world stage: the unveiling of his work at the UN security council. 

Karbo: Oh that’s pretty dramatic Ross – that sounds exciting.

Ross: It is – but wait. Before we get to the excitement of the UN Security Council. Let’s slow down, and talk a bit more about the physics of what's going on with this theremin. 

Karbo: Right, yeah… the physics [laughs]. This was 1945, Lev had been working in the sharashkas for a few years, and electronic listening devices had been around for a while. As we mentioned, with the theremin, current through an object creates an electromagnetic field around it. Now, that can be detected by things looking for listening devices. Additionally, the components of listening devices, especially the power source, can easily give it away to counter surveillance tools. 

Ross: Beria had Lev create a device that could infiltrate Spaso House, the US embassy in Moscow. 

Karbo: Ooh Spaso House [chuckles]. That’s a fun name. But, specifically what Lev designed was the first ever passive listening device. Basically, it was a bug without a power source. Just a small metal cylinder and antennae set into a wooden U.S. seal. On its own, the device did nothing, and when it was presented to the U.S. ambassador by the Soviet equivalent of boy scouts, it passed all of the U.S.’s security measures, including an extensive x-ray check. 

Ross: Then, after the U.S. ambassador had hung the seal over his desk, the NKVD – set up in a building nearby – could activate the device at will. These Soviet spies would beam microwaves at the device, which would cause a small metal plate to resonate and create a miniature electronic circuit.

Karbo: And this is where the principle behind the Theremin actually comes in again. Sound from the room would penetrate the beak of the eagle on the U.S. seal, and the vibrations would alter the internal properties of the circuit, just like moving a hand near a Theremin would disrupt the electromagnetic field. 

Ross: The device would transmit information back to a device manned by the Soviet agents, which would translate that information back into sound. 

Karbo: Importantly, the NKVD could decide when to power the device; only transmitting at certain times. This drastically lowered their risk of detection than having the device active 24/7. 

Ross: And it remained in place for seven years. As the Cold War became a reality, “The Thing” as it later came to be called, provided the Soviets with a preciously valuable ear into American politics. Over the tenures of four different American ambassadors, the seal – with Lev’s device inside – eavesdropped on the conversations of american figures such as General Dwight D. Eisenhower, white house staffers, and a dozen different members of the U.S. congress.

Karbo: Lev’s invention was finally discovered when a British radio operator, living in Moscow, accidentally tuned into the U.S. ambassador at the time, George F. Kennan, composing letters with his secretary. 

Ross: After scouring the house, U.S. agents cracked open the seal and discovered Termen’s work inside. 

Karbo: Okay, but that’s enough of Spaso House, you promised me the UN Security Council Ross. 

Ross: Yes, yes I did. So, the seal finally took the spotlight in 1960, after a U.S. pilot – Francis Gary Powers – operating a U2 spy plane over the Soviet Union was shot down. After what came to be called the U2 incident, the USSR demanded that the UN censor the United States for its spying activities. 

Karbo: In rebuttal, Henry Cabot Lodge, the representative of the United States, unveiled the Great Seal to the world.

“At the United Nations, the security council debate on Soviet charges of American aggression ends with a sharp final clash between Romico (?) and Lodge. Ambassador Lodge covers repeated denials of Soviet spy activities with a concrete and dramatic example. He tells how the Soviets planted a listening device in American’s Moscow embassy, concealed inside a wooden carving of the great seal, presented as a gift by the Russians.”

“[…] go ahead, open it up. And here is the clandestine listening device. You can see the antennae in the area right under the beak of the eagle. I might add that, it's really quite an interesting device.”

Ross: And Lodge wasn’t the only one who thought it was an “interesting device.” The CIA spent years trying to figure out how the device worked, MI5 used it as the inspiration for their own projects, and, to H. Keith Melton, author and member of the board of directors for the international spy museum, “[the device] elevated the science of audio monitoring to a level previously thought to be impossible. This sophisticated and complex technology overshadowed CIA capabilities . . .” And, ambassador Kennan thought that “[the device] represented . . . a fantastically advanced bit of applied electronics. I have the impression” he continued “that with its discovery the whole art of intergovernmental eavesdropping was raised to a new technological level.” 

Karbo: Little did they know, however, that Lev had, under Beria’s orders, already advanced further. 

[Delphic, performed by Carolina Eyck, plays]

Karbo: In 1947 Lev created a device which could eavesdrop on a conversation in a room from up to 500 meters away.

Ross: For sports peoples that’s about 5 football fields.

Karbo: And for our music fans that’s about 1400 violins.

Ross: But practically speaking, this device, codenamed “Buran,” allowed the Soviets to listen in from so far away that conventional bug detection methods didn’t work. 

Karbo: Termen’s cool idea was to use the windows of a room as a natural resonator – basically when people inside spoke, the vibrations that they caused by speaking would cause the windows themselves to vibrate. And then, by shining a beam of light at a window, Lev, or the top secret soviet agents, could detect the vibrations in that window by watching how the light was affected.

Ross:  For his work on the device, Beria nominated Lev for the “Stalin Prize” – basically the soviet answer to the “Nobel Prize.” But not only did Stalin approve the nomination, he changed it from a class 2 to a class 1 – giving Lev the highest possible honor for his work. 

Karbo: No that’s incredible, I love the name “Stalin Prize” there. And, for those keeping score at home, they may have noticed that Termen, sentenced to 8 years in 1939, was nearing the end of his imprisonment when he constructed Buran in 1947.

Ross: That’s right, and, unusually, he was released only a few months after finishing his eight years. But, after years in the sharashka, life on the outside was a bit challenging. 

Karbo: While working for the MGB (the successor to the NKVD), he was given assignments, facilities, and assistants to help with his work. He found it really difficult to choose and direct his own work after leaving. Remarkably, Lev chose to return to the MGB to work for them as a free man even after serving out his sentence. 

Ross: And he would stay there for another 17 years.We don’t know much about his work during this period, other than that he conducted research at a government facility called a “mailbox.” Called so because it looked like an abandoned building with only a mailbox in regular use. 

Karbo: Some things we do know is that he married Maria – his third wife, with whom he had two daughters. And that, successively he worked for the MGB and VD and, finally, had a personal office in the headquarters of the KGB before eventually retiring from his service in 1964. 

Ross: Lev was then 68 having spent 25 working for the government between his imprisonment and subsequent research. He had a government pension from his work with the KGB, but kept working for conservatories and universities as a mechanic and sound technician. 

Karbo: Yeah, Lev also resumed his work on electronic music. He would tinker in his spare time, and began to publish articles describing his old inventions – as well as some new ideas. These articles brough Termen back into the spotlight. 

[Dancing with Tears in my Eyes, from MC Productions, plays]

Ross: Given that Termen had been presumed dead for so many years. The outside world was shocked to discover Termen simply going about his business as an audio engineer. The chief music critic at the New York times visited the Moscow Conservatory about Lev, and how he was miraculously still alive and continuing his work. For most of those who knew Lev during his time abroad, this was the first they heard that he was alive. 

Karbo: Unfortunately, though, the large reaction to the article about him not only brought him back into the sight of the outside world, but of the Soviet Union as well. Lev was no longer protected by the state of relative anonymity which had impeded him from finding work, but, also, prevented him from being viewed as dangerously influential. Shortly after the article, Lev returned to his lab to find his experiments missing. Although he was told that they had been accidentally thrown out during repairs to the lab, he found his equipment in a dumpster behind the building where they had clearly been chopped up with an axe. Nothing was salvageable. The managing director of the conservatory told him, upon him complaining that his equipment had been destroyed with an axe, that “electricity is not good for music. Electricity is to be used for electrocution.”

Ross: But, Lev wasn’t dissuaded. He kept working in a closet in his two-room apartment where he lived with his wife and two daughters. The family was pretty cramped, but Lev was able to develop new versions of the theremin, including one that a person could control with their eyes, and another that had limited capacity for polyphony – meaning they could produce multiple notes at the same time. 

Karbo: That’s incredible. I can just imagine controlling a theremin with my eyes – that sounds very dramatic. 

Ross: It does. 

Karbo: Fortunately by this time, Lev had again faded to relative anonymity within the Soviet Union. But, he drew increasing attention from abroad. As the cold war began to draw to a close, Lev was able to step back onto the world stage in person. Through intense diplomatic lobbying efforts, organizers were able to bring Termen out of Russia (accompanied by two men who were likely KGB agents) for the international music conferences where he could show off his work – often performing on the mainstage in recitals reminiscent of those he had debuted more than 60 years earlier. 

Ross: Getting permission to travel wasn’t always easy. In one case Lev answered an unexpected knock at his door to find the event organizers for an international electronic music festival in Stockholm. The organisers hadn’t  been unable to reach him by letter so had flown to Moscow to personally escort him to the conference. They helped him pack his bags, grabbed one of his Theremins, and – by bribing any and all officials they came across on the trip – delivered him to the conference just before he was set to perform. 

Karbo: In 1993 he left Russia for what would be the final time. Lev was the guest of honor for a symposium in the Netherlands, hosted by the royal conservatory and the municipal museum of the Hague. At the age of 97, Lev gave his final performance. 

[Dancing with Tears in my Eyes, from MC Productions, continues to play.]

Ross: Once he got back to Russia, he found that his bedroom had been ransacked and his equipment destroyed. He had been receiving and ignoring threats, but his daughter, concerned for his safety, brought him back to live in the tiny apartment they had shared for so many years. The threats kept coming though, and Lev spent the rest of his life in relative seclusion in the apartment.

Karbo: Lev Sergeyevich Termen passed quietly in his sleep on November 3rd, 1993. He had seen much of the world, and firmly believed that he and his generation could change it for the better. Despite his poor treatment by the USSR, he maintained his belief in communism. He finally obtained his party membership card in 1991, 8 months before the fall of the Soviet Union. 

Ross: This is a person who voluntarily served the state for decades, after being freed from years of indentured servitude for the State. Someone who kept experimenting at this intersection of science and music, despite the repeating destruction of his work.

Karbo: And despite the demands placed on him, Lev was still able to make a substantial contribution to modern music. The music of the Theremin made its way into Hollywood, appeared in several hit songs, and actually traveled to the moon on one of the Apollo missions. Neil Armstrong – bootlegged a copy of a theremin album in his collection, “Music out of the Moon” by Samuel Hoffman. 

[Neil Armstrong Talks To Houston Space Center, clip plays]

Armstrong: Charlie could you copy our music down there?

Charlie Duke : Did we copy what Neil?

Armstrong: Did you copy our music down there?

Duke: Oh right we sure did, we were wondering who selected, uhh, made your selections?

Armstrong: That’s an old favorite of mine, an album made about 20 years ago called “Music Out of the Moon.”

Duke: Roger. It sounded a little scratchy to us, Neil. Either that or your tape was a little slow.

Armstrong: It's supposed to sound that way.

Ross: Lev touched so many different lives in his 100 years. We talked about some of these, including Lenin, and Stalin, but Lev met, or was in close proximity to, many more. Including Rachmaninoff, Einstein, and Schillinger. He influenced the work of Schoenberg, Moog, and even the Beach Boys.

[Both laugh]

Ross: If you want more details on Lev, I’d suggest picking up the book Theremin Ether Music and Espionage by Albert Glinsky. It’s a fascinating read and contains most of what we talked about today plus a lot more.

Karbo: Yeah, we really can’t recommend that book highly enough. It gets into especially a lot of the other hardship that Lev experienced during his life, and a lot of the very interesting research he got into during his later years – which we couldn't really get into here. But, overall, Lev spent a lot of his adult life in the power of the Soviet State, which prevented him from pursuing music for much of his life. Despite this, Lev’s inventions found their way into Carnegie Hall, the Kremlin, the UN security council, music charts, and as you’ve just heard, the moon. One can only imagine really what electronic music would look like today if Lev had been able to fully devote his life to it. His vision was of a theremin in every home, electronic orchestras, and entirely new “free” music which would usher in the age of the future. He dreamt of using the power of electricity and scientific advancement to drive music further, and grander, than had previously been imagined.

[Vocalise, performed by Carolina Eyck, plays]

Ross: Lev’s final musical idea was for a theremin operated directly with the brain waves of the musician. He told an interviewer: “this is an opportunity for sound tracking a person’s inner-world no less. Excitement, joy, and serenity, the entire gamut of emotions can be revealed without words. With this dreamy invention, Lev could finally bridge the gap between the mechanics and the experience of music. 

[Vocalise, performed by Carolina Eyck, continues to play.]

Karbo: Hello, this is Karbo – creator, and editor of PowerPlay. Ross Hickman is my illustrious co-host. This episode was researched by myself, and produced by Tamberly Ferguson. Thanks to Josh Sacco for audio engineering and indispensability. 

The music you heard today was courtesy of MC Productions, and Carolina Eyck. Side note here: Carolina is an amazing artist, and if you want to hear some more theremin you can find her work at carolineeyck.com – that last name is E-Y-C-K. She also offers lessons for anyone feeling inspired to learn a new instrument. 

PowerPlay is presented by WDAV Classical Public Radio. If you like what you heard, you can find more information on this episode, and other great programming, at wdav.org/subscribe.

[Vocalise, performed by Carolina Eyck, continues to play.]

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