Thursday, September 18, 2008

The Theremin (for Andrina)

From wikipedia: The theremin is one of the earliest electronic musical instruments. It was invented by Russian inventor Léon Theremin (Russian: Лев Сергеевич Термен) in 1919. The theremin is an electrophone, a subset of the quintephone family. Classical composers who have written for theremin include Lera Auerbach, Bohuslav Martinů, Dmitri Shostakovich, Percy Grainger, Christian Wolff, Joseph Schillinger, Alan Hovhaness, Edgar Varese, Moritz Eggert, Iraida Yusupova, Jorge Antunes, Vladimir Komarov, Anis Fuleihan and Dalit Warshaw.

Clara Rockmore (born Clara Reisenberg, Vilnius, Lithuania, March 9, 1911; d. New York City, May 10, 1998) is generally considered to be the most accomplished performer ever of the theremin.

Clara Rockmore performs "The Swan" (Saint-Saëns):



Contrast with Pablo Casals, cellist, performing the same piece:



!Not to be confused with:

3 comments:

Druni said...

wowzers sky.
thanks so much.
I am now completely in love with the song swan river.
Both those versions are a-mazing.
Love em
And I will maybe dream of ukrainian dolls tonight... who knows.

merci.

word verification:
mbbdep

Anonymous said...

okay, could someone explain this for me? what do stethescopes have to do with this? I´m amazed!

D. Sky Onosson said...

I would presume they are to help with getting the right pitch, except, well, you can hear how that worked out...