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Woodpeckers play tunes on tin roofs. Could men play symphonies on moon- beams?
Whether the practical ratio between an instrument's sensitivity and the performer's virtuosity had now been exceeded, was argued last week by Manhattanites who heard—and saw—a concert, unprecedented in the U. S., by Prof. Leon Sergeievitch Theremin, tense young scientist-musician from Russia. His strange instrument looked like a radio set, which it was, with a difference. The only physical contact he had with it while playing was by invisible, intangible, infinitesimal waves of ether. His "keys," "strings," "pedals" were simply two radio antennae around which a storage battery set up delicate magnetic fields. The passage of his hands, moving airily near the antennae, so altered a current actuating a tonal diaphram and loudspeaker, that any pitch audible to the human ear could be produced. The timbre, controllable by dials, plugs and switches comparable to the stops of an organ, could be varied to approximate the drone of a bull fiddle, the silken flow of a violin, an organ's thunder. Some of the audience even thought they recognized the indescribable pulse of the human voice as Prof. Theremin picked his way through an apologetically simple program of familiar melodies.
For "primitive models," which was all they claimed to be, the first "theremo-phones" were marvels of scientific adroitness and musical potentiality. They offered to music an infinity of gradations in the entire scale of sound audible to hu- mans. The problem was, and remained in most minds: How to train the human hand to such precision that it could pick correct notes unerringly from midair, where inaccuracy of a fingernail's breadth, or even taking a deep breath at the wrong instant, would register a tonal error?
Prof. Teremin, proudly modest "Edison of Russia," did not attempt to guess what others might do with his invention. At home, associates were attempting to use it to translate the actual motions of a ballet into music. For the present, his own purpose was to test the popularity, and cash value, of "ether music" by taking it on tour through the U. S. Critics lauded, critics carped, none ignored.
First Big Bow
With all its trappings for Carmen, the Metropolitan Opera Company set out one afternoon last week for its bi-weekly performance in Philadelphia. Maria Jeritza went to show Philadelphians for the first time her turbulent, extratraditional Car- men. Giovanni Martinelli went to be her Don Jose, Mario Basiola to swagger his way through the Toreador's role, Queena Mario to be the ingenue Micaela. But Conductor Louis Hasselmans had to stay at home with lumbago pains.