Julius Goldberg's 1929 RCA Theremin

When Leon Theremin, the inventor of the theremin, came to America in 1927, he brought with him his assistant and business partner, Julius Goldberg. The RCA theremin you see in this video belonged to Mr. Goldberg, and he made several modifications to it over the years. He had custom "lightning bolt" antennas made for it but as you will see at the beginning of the video, I do not like using the jagged pitch antenna, and replace it with a standard RCA antenna before beginning to play. Goldberg also preferred a tone color that is closer to brass and reed instruments and altered the voltages that feed the vacuum tubes so his theremin would sound more trumpet-like than the standard RCA's. I believe he made these changes because he performed regularly in New York City in the early 30's and he may have thought the instrument had more audio/visual impact with his modifications. Up until the early 1980's this theremin remained the property of Julius Goldberg's widow who lived near Poughkeepsie, New York.

The song I am playing is HYMNE A L'AMOUR (one of French singer Edith Piaf's biggest hits) written by composer Marguerite Monnot.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• theremin
• rca
• julius
• goldberg
• hyme
• l'amour
• edith
• piaf
• marguerite
• monnot
• peter
• pringle