Leon Theremin; Invented Forerunner of Music Synthesizer

Leon Theremin, 97, who invented an electronic musical instrument bearing his name, a forerunner of the modern synthesizer. The theremin, made famous by the Beach Boys in their hit song “Good Vibrations,” was invented in 1920. The sound has been likened to “a cello lost in a dense fog and crying.” Theremin demonstrated the radio-like box with vertical antenna and horizontal metal loop for Vladimir Lenin in the Kremlin in 1922 and later to Albert Einstein in Berlin, and played at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1928. A scientist born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Theremin studied physics at Petrograd University and began his career in the Physico-Technical Institute there as head of a laboratory studying electrical oscillations. Known in Russia as Lev Sergeyevich Teremin, the inventor ran afoul of Soviet authorities in the 1930s and spent time in a Siberian labor camp. He later worked for the KGB and invented an electronic listening device. On Nov. 3 in Moscow.