From the Ether A “New” Music In New Manner [Theremin] 10/8/28

Seldom did an occasion so outgrow itself as the appearance of Professor Theremin at Symphony Hall yesterday afternoon. The inventor presented a few aspects of his discovery, made for all ages and all times, to a limited audience recruited from widely different ranks: Musicians (in a striking minority), professors of various sciences, men and women of literature and art, technicians, radio-specialists, dealers in electrical appliances and a considerable crop of ladies and gentlemen engaged in earnest exploration of the Great Beyond and other unknown mysteries. All these were not sufficient numerically to fill up the spaces of the long-enduring Symphony Hall. Each one had brought, however, his specific ardor. General interest to the proceedings was unremitted; curiosity flung high; and the mental processes peculiar to believers in cosmic vibrations imparted a beatific look to some of the listeners. Boston is a seat of scientific religions; before he knows it, Professor Theremin may be proclaimed Krishnamurti and sanctified as a new Deity. Indiscriminate idolatry (on wrong assumptions) is just as serious a menace to Professor Theremin’s research work as blunt indifference whichagain, numerically speaking-confronted him in this city. Berlin delegated enough Germans for four capacity houses at Theremin’s appearances. Pleasure-loving Paris has seen a crowd turned away from Theremin’s exhibition at the Grand Opera. America, and its Hub, strangely demur, in spite of the front-page publicity and alluring aspects of the thing, as conceived in the popular mind.