Look, don't touch

July 1, 2007 5:09 PM

Classical hits on the Theremin: Thomas Grillo performs Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, and the inimitable Clara Rockmore plays Cassado's Requiebros and Saint-Saëns The Swan.
posted by Blazecock Pileon (14 comments total)

Supplying 100% of your Minimum Daily Adult Requirement of Theremin!
posted by wendell at 5:24 PM on July 1, 2007

Don't worry be happy.
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:30 PM on July 1, 2007

Yay! Here's a chance to link to this Theremin instruction video again! (It went out with the last deleted theremin post, but I think it'll be of interest to those who want to know exactly what's going on when a theremin is played. Or to those people who like to see classically dorky-looking guys with really bad neckties.)
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:53 PM on July 1, 2007

Gnarles Barkley's "Crazy". Kind of sounds like a real vocalist who just doesn't know how to close his mouth.
posted by rkent at 6:06 PM on July 1, 2007

Are all thereminists required to keep that eerie stoic gaze when playing? All of them seem to do it. Here's another sublime rendition of The Swan by Masami Takeuchi, and this is a somewhat bizzarre chorus of Matryoshka Theremins led by the master again.
posted by Astragalus at 8:05 PM on July 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

Theremin giving a theremin lesson
posted by arialblack at 8:43 PM on July 1, 2007

Clara Rockmore's performances are hauntingly beautiful. I've heard of theremins, but never actually saw one being played in that way, that was cool.

BrotherCaine and rkent, your videos feature the same guy. Clearly he's gotten a LOT better over the past year.
posted by sarahnade at 8:52 PM on July 1, 2007

Don't forget to search for the Theremin version of "Video Killed the Radio Star".
posted by spock at 9:09 PM on July 1, 2007

Here!
posted by fandango_matt at 9:19 PM on July 1, 2007

I'm getting tired of Theremin this and Theremin that... what about the Chapman Stick ?!

second link goes to a formerly lost cut from David Lynch's Dune where Patrick Stewert [youtube] playing Gurney Halleck plays a "balliset"
posted by porpoise at 10:22 PM on July 1, 2007

porpoise is right... can't Tony Levin get any love up in here?
posted by chuckdarwin at 4:39 AM on July 2, 2007

In the interest of diversity after porpoises lament: mouth harp, hammered dulcimer, electric mandolin, electric oud, glass armonica, steel guitar and digeridoo, hydraulophone, improvised percussion, saw and jug.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:40 AM on July 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Awesome! Thanks for this, BP.
posted by Aloysius Bear at 1:19 PM on July 2, 2007

It all seems to sound like a very serious round of "Swanee Kazoo". I suppose that's what you get for using an outmoded piece of technology that has long since passed any period of comprehensible use.

And at the piano, Colin Sell.
posted by howfar at 5:38 PM on July 3, 2007