Review:
"Glinsky has traced the fascinating story of Lev Sergeivitich Termen, Russian scientist, radio engineer and inventor of the first electronic musical instrument. The haunting wail of the 'theremin' is perhaps best known from the Beach Boys' 1966 hit 'Good Vibrations', but Glinsky demonstrates that its inventor deserves to be more than a footnote in the history of modern music... A fascinating rediscovery of a forgotten man, and a valuable contribution to the history of the future." -- Times Literary Supplement "Glinsky unfolds an impossibly rich narrative with clarity, breadth, and a contagious sense of excitement... A barely imaginable life, lived, to the last, by a true enigma." -- David Toop, Bookforum "Glinsky tells the tale of Termen's two lives with spirit and empathy, describing the horrors of the Soviet state and Termen's tenacity in continuing to create electronic instruments. Meanwhile, the original theremin inspired Robert Moog to develop his influential electronic synthesizers in the 1960s... The inspiring story of an inventive genius who launched a revolution in music making." -- Booklist "[The] first full biography on Theremin. The fascinating crosscurrents in his life -- and in that of the theremin -- are engagingly told in rich detail. Glinsky's greatest accomplishment, besides his lucid descriptions of the technical aspects of the theremin, is his ability to paint a contextual scene both vividly and compellingly... Highly recommended." -- Library Journal "Accurate, factual, imaginative, and current; its organization is logical and coherent... Highly recommended." -- Choice "Glinsky has told this tale extremely well -- the tale of a hollow man... It's the fascinating account of a life thwarted and generations of people subjected to incalculable suffering. Someone might say it was the saddest story he had ever heard." -- The Bloomsbury Review "[Glinsky] unveils the elusive Termen while detailing the evolution of electronic instruments... Captures the impossibly convoluted, constrained and threatened lives of Soviet scientists." -- Washington Post Book World "Well-researched and well-written biography." -- Hans-Joachim Braun, Technology and Culture "What makes Glinsky's Thermin a first-rate biography is his elevating our knowledge of a previously hidden unique figure." -- The Weekly Standard "Through indefatigable research, Glinsky has ... managed to provide a nuanced, comprehensive portrait... His biography is a triumph. The tale is so bizarrely dramatic that the book is nearly impossible to put down." -- Wilson Quarterly "Theremin not only brings into focus the astonishing events in the life of its subject, presenting him as an inventive genius, persecuted innovator, and citizen of the world. Theremin's life story tells the tale of tsarist Russia, the Revolution, Stalinism, the Cold War, perestroika, and the end of communism... A grand biography of a fascinating man as well as a capsule history of a complicated century." -- Rob Hardy, The Times of Acadiana
From the Publisher:
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
"In THEREMIN: ETHER MUSIC AND ESPIONAGE, the composer Albert Glinsky has traced the fascinating story of Lev Sergeivitch Termen, Russian scientist, radio engineer and inventor of the first electronic instrument. The haunting wail of the 'theremin' is perhaps best known from the Beach Boys' 1966 hit 'Good Vibrations', but Glinsky demonstrates that its inventor deserves to be more than a footnote in the history of modern music."
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