Martin Taubman play “Cinderella, Stay in My Arms.” on the Electronde in 1938. “Amazing act where Martin Taubman literally plucks a tune from the air by putting his hand before the electric waves coming out of his Electronde machine. It sounds something like a Hawaiian-style electric guitar. Martin uses some foot pedals to control the sound of the machine.” Video: British Pathé 12/12/1938 .
Taubman toured Europe with the Electronde during the 1930s.
References:
- 1Galpin, F. W. (1937). The Music of Electricity: A Sketch of Its Origin and Development. Proceedings of the Musical Association, 64, 71-83. ↩︎
Hi Simon,
The story of the Electronde – and also Martin Taubmann’s story – is a lot more complex than this. I’ve told it in 3 parts in my Substack blog Song of the Atom – https://songoftheatom.substack.com/p/martin-taubmann-and-early-electronic
The Electronde wasn’t created until 1933 in the UK by the Electronic Music Development Co. – Taubmann was from Konigsberg before going to study in Berlin. He performed across Europe with an early Theremin design originally used by Goldberg on stage with Termen, and then further developed in the Berlin Theremin laboratory. He later (1932) used a version being developed at the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin – one of the team behind it previously worked at the Berlin Theremin Laboratory. It seems that when Taubmann came to the UK in Spring 1933 he hooked up with an entrepreneur and engineer who formed the Electronic Music Development Co. to manufacture and market an instrument based on the principles of the Heinrich Hertz Institute Theremin ‘radio attachment’, but with a ‘form factor’ similar to the RCA Victor Theremin.
Taubmann didn’t add a foot pedal and hand held switch. This was a feature of Goldberg’s instrument and the Berlin ‘European’ Theremin that was developed while Termen went in a different direction in New York. Termen also actually designed this version at some point before he arrived with Goldberg in Germany in August 1927.
From 1929-1930 Taubmann performed in several European countries in a Theremin Trio, from 1930-32 possibly in a ‘dance band’ in Germany, then at the 1932 Berlin Radio Exhibition and on German radio. From mid 1933 he only performed (extensively) in the UK including on radio and TV except for a couple of appearances in Switzerland.
I’d be happy to put something together for you about this for your site,
Sean Albiez