Leon Theremin
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It turns out that the most interesting thing about the life of Leon Theremin is that his invention of the quavering electronic instrument that bears his name is one of the least interesting things about him. Now composer and academic Albert Glinsky attempts to fill in the details of Theremin's incredible story with Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage, the first comprehensive biography of the inventor/musician in English.

The first hint as to the scope of Theremin's tale is that the accomplishment that made his name known happens in the book's very first chapter. Born in St. Petersburg in 1896 and a prodigy in both music and science, Theremin was conducting research at a Soviet scientific think tank in 1920 when he stumbled across an electronic circuit that produced tone and changed pitch as he moved around it. Further tinkering led to an instrument that could be played with the slightest midair hand gestures. Theremin saw unlimited musical potential. His Soviet masters saw something else entirely.

Theremin toured Europe in 1927, and he and his instrument became literal overnight sensations. His success on the Continent led to an extended foray to the States, where he made ambitious pronouncements about his creation's possibilities, contracted with RCA to produce consumer models for American homes, and left his Russian wife for African-American dancer Lavinia Williams. But one night in September 1938, he disappeared. The theremin flopped as a consumer item and followed its creator into obscurity, though it would eventually be revived by movie-soundtrack composers, Beach Boy Brian Wilson, and other fans of esoteric sounds.

As Glinsky details, Theremin was a loyal supporter of Lenin and left the USSR with a mandate to advance the Soviet cause through whatever means he could and return home. Despite rumors of a late-night abduction, the inventor voluntarily smuggled himself back to Russia, only to find his country much changed from when he had departed. Theremin is most compelling when Glinsky details the horrors of Stalinism and his subject's precarious course through them. The section on Theremin's months in the Siberian gold-mining gulag of Kolyma are as hair-raising as any Holocaust narrative, and his subsequent toils in electronic espionage read like a mix of John LeCarre, Franz Kafka, and Popular Mechanics.

When working with such compelling material, Theremin can hardly help but gallop along. But Glinsky is obviously more skilled as a researcher and musicologist than as a storyteller. Though he includes interesting material about Theremin's experiments with television, theremin culture down through the years, and, of course, the inner workings of Soviet intelligence, the book sometimes bogs down in details. At one point, Glinsky goes on for pages about the freighter that sneaked Theremin back to Russia, while many aspects of the man and his motives remain tantalizingly obscure. Like the instrument itself, Theremin is fascinating but not as adaptable or enjoyable as one might hope.