First Airphonic Suite

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The First Airphonic Suite is a musical work by Joseph Schillinger for orchestra and theremin . The work, premiered in 1929 by the Cleveland Orchestra under Nikolai Sokoloff with Leon Theremin at the theremin, was the first piece composed for theremin in the West.

It premiered on November 28, 1929 in Cleveland to the great attention of the local and national press. Another performance followed a few days later on December 10, 1929 in New York's Carnegie Hall .

While the work was then forgotten for a few decades, it succeeded together with the theremin renaissance of the 1990s. A single performance in 1980 was followed by performances at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe in 1996, at the Performing Arts Center of Mercyhurst College , at the Festival for Contemporary Russian Music in Seattle 2002 at the Moscow Polytechnic Museum in 2004 and at the Caramoor Center in New Jersey in 2005, each with Lydia Kavina as a soloist. At the beginning of the Italian documentary L'uomo amplificato from 2007, an eight-minute passage is underlaid with the piece.

The defining element of the work is the theremin, its unusual sound, and the electronic amplification. Commenting on the performance, Olin Downes, the New York Times music critic, said, " We don't want to have to think about a population dependent on the grace of that terrifying amplified and powerful sound that Professor Theremin brought into the world." Over 70 years later, in 2005, the New York Times was more gracious with the piece, calling it " starting with Borodin and ending like the Rhapsody in Blue ."

Remarks

  1. ^ William Osborne: Music in Ohio Kent State University Press, 2004 ISBN 0873387759 p. 238
  2. ^ Warren Brodsky: Joseph Schillinger (1895-1943): Music Science Promethean in: American Music Vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring, 2003), p. 66
  3. ↑ a b c Ned Quist: The Works of Joseph Schillinger Prepared for the First International Symposium Schillinger System of Musical Composition The University of Hertfordshire UK pp. 13–14 pdf ( Memento of the original from January 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: Der Archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ssm.uk.net
  4. ↑ Philippa Kiraly, From new Russia without much emotion , Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 10, 2002
  5. ↑ Giorgio Necordi: LEV TERMEN - L'uomo results amplified (The man amplified) , Thereminvox.com 17 February 2007 at
  6. ↑ Emily Ann Thompson: The soundscape of modernity: architectural acoustics and the culture of listening in America, 1900–1933 MIT Press, 2004 ISBN 0262701065
  7. ↑ Michael Beckerman: Electronica From the 1920's, Ready for Sampling , New York Times August 11, 2005

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