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The “Switched-On Bach” Story

Wendy (Walter) Carlos at her Moog synthesizer.

A 1969 article telling the story of Wendy Carlos’ “Switched-On Bach” seminal album. A collection of pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach performed on the Moog modular synthesizer, “Switched-On Bach” legitimized the electronic synthesizer as a real musical instrument and changed forever the public perception of electronic music, showing that it could be something very different from ” the academy approved ‘ugly’ music, “as Carlos put it.

Bohuslav Martinů and Lucie Rosen: the Path to Fantasia for Theremin

Bohuslav Martinů and Lucie Rosen in New York.

Although Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů does not enjoy the same fame as other composers of the same period, he certainly has a prominent place in twentieth-century music. He is also well known by theremin enthusiasts thanks to Fantasia for theremin, oboe, piano, and string quartet, the composition commissioned to him in 1944 by Lucie Bigelow Rosen. Let’s try to understand a little more about him and follow the path that led him from a Moravian village to Manhattan, where the fortuitous meeting took place.

In Clara’s Home – Her Last Years, and the Summer of 1997

Clara Rockmore playing the Theremin.

The following essay was written by Steve J. Sherman, Clara Rockmore’s great-nephew and Nadia Reisenberg’s grandson. As the title suggests, it provides us with an in-depth account of Clara Rockmore’s life during her last decade, up until her death in 1998, and includes a detailed chapter devoted to the controversial summer of 1997 and the […]