From: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org (trajectory-digest) To: trajectory-digest@smoe.org Subject: trajectory-digest V1 #24 Reply-To: trajectory@smoe.org Sender: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk trajectory-digest Tuesday, October 7 1997 Volume 01 : Number 024 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Theremins ["Michael R. Abram" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 02:41:03 -0400 From: "Michael R. Abram" Subject: Theremins Greetings Bellyfish! My pal Meth said: > Theremins! Wow. Have you heard of Clara, um, what's her name, she was profiled in the Theremin documentary. Strathmore? Something like that (sorry, blanking again). She's supposedly the best theremin player ever. I've heard a bit of one of her performances, and it's really, really cool what she can make one of those things do.< Clara Rockmore was the sister of the late pianist Nadia Reisenberg, who was the mother of WQXR music director Robert Sherman. Quoting his notes to "Nadia Reisenberg: An Album of Chamber Music" (IPAM 1201A-B): FULIEHAN, VILLA-LOBOS, PONCE: Mother always refused to serve as an "accompanist", and reserved her choicest Russian epithets for critics who would so refer to the pianist at a sonata recital. But it was a different story when it came to her sister. She and Clara (then a violin student of the great Leopold Auer) had toured together as youngsters in Russia, and their musical instincts were so finely attuned to each other's that it seemed as though phrases were being shaped by a single mind and heart. When Robert Moog decided to tape Clara Rockmore playing the theremin in a number of short works, many of them "encore" pieces originally for a violin or voice, the accompanist question never came up for a second. Of course Mother would be "at the piano" (another phrase she despised) for Clara; and with what extraordinary sensi- tivity did she carry out her assignment as an assisting artist. Twelve of their performances were issued by Delos; but at least that many more have never been released. Three of those are here, available for the first time: Mother deputizing for the orchestra in the second movement of the Theremin Concerto by Anis Fuliehan (written for Clara, who premiered it in 1945 with Leopold Stokowski conducting); and for the eight cellists in the Aria from Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 [you should hear Joan Baez do that! M.] As for "Estrellita", Clara does it so exquisitely that we couldn't bear to leave it out. As it happens, that was the last piece the sisters ever played together. The THEREMIN PIECES were recorded in 1975 by Robert Moog during preparation for Delos long-play recording DEL-25437 (released on CD as D-1014) featuring Clara Rockmore and Nadia Reisenberg. Mr. Moog kindly loaned the original tapes, which were remastered for this issue. Whew! It is something to hear, fer sure, and available only from the International Piano Archives at Maryland (and the Delos CD). As the film demonstrates, Clara Rockmore was a star in the world of classical music mid-century. BTW, my first contact with Moog was in 1962 when I, then 13, bought inductive coils mail-order from him to build "A Transistorized Theremin" described in an article he wrote in 1960 for Electronics World magazine. Still got the mag, and the theremin too! Running up that Hille, Michael "I'm making a sculpture from the wax in my ears" -- I'm Weird (a BTT production) ------------------------------ End of trajectory-digest V1 #24 *******************************