Headline announcing RCA’s production of the theremin; Courier-Post, Camden, NJ, 23 September 1929.

(NYPR Archive Collections)

This year marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the invention of the theremin, the world’s first electronic musical instrument. Still in production today, the theremin's original release set off a revolution in music making, giving rise to a whole family of new, influential 20th century instruments, including the Moog synthesizer and the Hammond organ.

Léon Theremin; 3 May 1928.

(Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.)

With its ethereal sound, and the almost magical non-contact method of playing it, the theremin quickly captured the attention of European audiences as its 24-year-old inventor, Russian engineer and physicist Léon Theremin, toured the continent debuting his new instrument in demonstrations and recitals.  In 1928, Theremin obtained patent protection for his invention and licensed the technology to the Radio-Victor Corporation of America (RCA), which began manufacturing the instrument in 1929.  Over the course of the century, the theremin gained a passionate, world-wide following among both amateur and professional players, as well as composers – notably Bohuslav Martinů, Percy Grainger, Dmitri Shostakovich, Miklós Rózsa, Elmer Bernstein, Anis Fuleihan, and Bernard Herrmann.

Clara Rockmore and Lev Sergeyevich Termen (Léon Theremin) in NYC, c. 1929.

(Photo: © courtesy of the Nadia Reisenberg-Clara Rockmore Foundation)

After a 50-year absence, Léon Theremin returned to the United States in the summer of 1991.  As part of that trip, on January 4th, 1992, 95-year-old Theremin was an in-studio guest on WQXR’s The Listening Room with Robert Sherman.  Joining Professor Theremin on the broadcast was his dear friend, and the best-known and the most accomplished player of the instrument: Clara Rockmore. With host Robert Sherman (who also happens to be Mrs. Rockmore's nephew) the inventor and the virtuoso discussed their earliest collaborations in the 1920s —including their first meeting in New York, Rockmore’s influence on the technical evolution of the instrument, and their last meeting in Russia: a brief, surreptitious 1962 reunion on a Moscow subway platform, the location chosen to avoid being overheard by Soviet authorities.

The interview includes two brief musical excerpts from a 1977 studio recording that thereminist Clara Rockmore made with her sister, the celebrated pianist Nadia Reisenberg; also included is the rebroadcast of a complete performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Song of Grusia, which was recorded before a studio audience at WQXR on January 26^th, 1979, with Clara Rockmore, Nadia Reisenberg, and the violinist Erick Friedman.

Clara Rockmore and Lev Sergeyevich Termen (Léon Theremin) reunited in NYC, October 6, 1991.

(Photo: © Steve J. Sherman)

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Two of the musical selections presented in this archival broadcast recording, available in the media player at the top of this page, have been edited down to brief excerpts to respect copyright protection of the holder; the interview is presented in its entirety.

Related links:

Romeo Records recently released Music and Memories, a set of rare and never before available recordings of Clara Rockmore; it is available for streaming and as a two-cd boxed set.  More information is available at Romeo Records, the Nadia Reisenberg-Clara Rockmore Foundation website and in the foundation's March 2020 Newsletter.

From the New York Public Radio Archive:

The Listening Room: January 4th, 1992 episode

Fishko Files: Theremin

The Leonard Lopate Show: Getting to know the Theremin

Studio 360: Theremin 101 

The photo at the top of this article is of Clara Rockmore at the theremin in 1932.
(Photo: © Renato Toppo, courtesy of the Nadia Reisenberg-Clara Rockmore Foundation)