The ‘Radio Harmonium’, Sergeĭ Nikolaevich Rzhevkin, Russia, 1925.

One of the earliest electronic instruments of the Soviet period, the Radio (or ‘Cathodic’) Harmonium was a three (or four) voice polyphonic cathode vacuum tube instrument controlled by a manual keyboard, designed for playing atonal music. The Radio Harmonium , capable of producing polyphonic chords of four tones in any temperament, was designed by the audio physicist and acoustician Sergeĭ Nikolaevich Rzhevkin (1891-1981) shortly after the invention of the Theremin. 1 Smirnov, Andrei, (2013) SOUND in Z: Experiments in Sound
and Electronic Music in Early 20th Century Russia, Verlag de Buchhandlung Walther Konig, Cologne, 84.
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“S. N. Rzhevkin is engaged in the construction of a cathode harmonium of his own invention. this harmonium at present has four separate sound generators, affording the possibility of obtaining chords of four tones, as well as the entire chromatic scale within the limits of one and a half octaves.. In addition S. N. Rzhevkin is working on the construction of a keyboard instead of a time-stop device, and also on the question of  obtaining dynamic shading in playing.” 2Cultural life in the Soviet Union, National Institute for Musical Science, Russian Review, Volumes 3-4, march 15, 1925,123.

The instrument was used by the philosopher Ivan Orlov in his investigations of aural phenomena and human perception. 3OrlovI. E. (1926) “Experiments with Rzhevkin’s cathode harmonium.” A Collection of Articles in Musical Acoustics (Russian), State Institute of Musical Science19251. “We must say a few words about Orlov’s hobby, music theory. He asked himself the question, “Why do our auditory organs recognize . . . simple numerical ratios [such as 8:11, 8:13, 10:13 and the like] and perceive them as harmony?” (Orlov 1926b, 193). He invoked Helmholtz’ theory to show that the intermittent sensation of beats characterizes the phenomenon of dissonance, while consonance results from the absence of beats. Orlov attempted to experiment in music and carried out an experiment with Rzhevkin’s cathode harmonium. He analyzed the musical works of Prokof ’yev, Skryabin, and Schönberg from the point of view of the presence and status of the “beats” they contained.” Rzhevkin, later chair of the Department of Acoustics of Moscow State University, described his acoustic theories in approach in ‘A course of lectures on the theory of sound’ published in 1963 4Rzhevkin, Sergeĭ Nikolaevich, (1963) A course of lectures on the theory of sound, Pergamon Press, 1963

Sergeĭ Nikolaevich Rzhevkin investigating the influence of sound on plant growth. Image: Popular Science Monthly Mar 1937.

References:

  • 1
    Smirnov, Andrei, (2013) SOUND in Z: Experiments in Sound
    and Electronic Music in Early 20th Century Russia, Verlag de Buchhandlung Walther Konig, Cologne, 84.
  • 2
    Cultural life in the Soviet Union, National Institute for Musical Science, Russian Review, Volumes 3-4, march 15, 1925,123.
  • 3
    OrlovI. E. (1926) “Experiments with Rzhevkin’s cathode harmonium.” A Collection of Articles in Musical Acoustics (Russian), State Institute of Musical Science19251. “We must say a few words about Orlov’s hobby, music theory. He asked himself the question, “Why do our auditory organs recognize . . . simple numerical ratios [such as 8:11, 8:13, 10:13 and the like] and perceive them as harmony?” (Orlov 1926b, 193). He invoked Helmholtz’ theory to show that the intermittent sensation of beats characterizes the phenomenon of dissonance, while consonance results from the absence of beats. Orlov attempted to experiment in music and carried out an experiment with Rzhevkin’s cathode harmonium. He analyzed the musical works of Prokof ’yev, Skryabin, and Schönberg from the point of view of the presence and status of the “beats” they contained.”
  • 4
    Rzhevkin, Sergeĭ Nikolaevich, (1963) A course of lectures on the theory of sound, Pergamon Press, 1963

 

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