of a concert hall can, in times of war, be readily employed for developing sonar for anti-submarine warfare. Optoelectronic principles can be applied for military intelligence and surveillance purposes as well as for controlling electronic musical instruments.

In what follows I will try to present a few case studies exemplifying the relationship between music technology and military technology, try to draw a few systematic conclusions and make some analytical comments.

II

Lev Termen (1896–1993) is an extremely good example of a physicist cum musician, a music engineer who is also known for several inventions which were applied for surveillance and military purposes. He studied physics and astronomy at the University of St. Petersburg, radio technology at the Military Institute and music theory and cello at the Conservatory of Music. Early in 1920 he invented a ‘radio watchman’, a capacitance alarm device which produced a whistle over headphones, whenever anyone entered the area under surveillance.⁵

This invention had direct links with his work on the theremin, originally called the ‘aetherophon’, which he presented to the All-Union Electrical Congress in Moscow in August 1920. The design of the Theremin was similar to heterodyne radio reception. It was based on obtaining audible frequency beats, formed by the interference of inaudible high-frequency oscillations. In this instrument Termen applied two capacitative detectors, one a vertical rod, the other a horizontal loop. The detectors controlled pitch and amplitude, respectively, by generating electrical fields which altered according to the performer’s hands.⁶ The theremin created a sensation in the Soviet Union and later in the United States and other countries, but its popularity was not permanent. From 1922 onwards Termen researched on television problems and by 1926 had developed TV equipment with mechanical scanning for 64 lines. Characteristically, the Red Army was the first to show interest. Looking at his hidden monitor K. Voroshilov, later Marshall of the Red Army, took pleasure in predicting to comrades assembled in his office, who would soon knock at the door.

While in New York in the late 1920s and most of the 1930s Termen was busy making inventions. Among other activities he founded a company to develop television. Early in 1928 he announced an improved burglar alarm systems, which he had developed from his ’radio watchman’. It sounded alarm in police headquarters when the raised arm of a bank clerk triggered it off during a bank raid. The ‘Teletouch Corporation’ with Lev Termen as Vice-President specialised in capacitative alarm systems. They were used in Alcatraz with much publicity because Al Capone was the prison’s most notorious – or depending on the point of view – most famous inmate. Sing Sing prison also considered installing the Teletouch alarm system and Cuba’s Colonel Batista ordered devices for his government offices for the detection of bombs. Termen’s capacity alarm systems gained popularity