THIS CHRISTMASTIDE on Hoffman's RCA

I used to post a theremin rendition of a Christmas carol every year, but that was back in the day when theremin videos were comparatively few and far between. Now we are deluged with them on a daily basis! Yesterday, no snow on the ground and a temperature of 60 degrees (unheard of for my part of the world) I decided to get the Christmas spirit and play sumpthin’ CHRISTMASSY. 

Here is a carol is known as THIS CHRISTMASTIDE, or “Jessye’s Carol”. It was introduced in the 1987 as part of a TV Christmas special from Ely Cathedral, featuring American soprano Jessye Norman, and was written for the singer by composer Donald Fraser and lyricist Jane McCulloch. 

Beautiful. Forget back in the day. Really good theremin videos are still few and far between. Try as hard as i might, i just can't get that great vibrato you do. I'm always transfixed on your hands in the videos.

Peter, the essence of what the theremin can be is always captured in your performance. How sad it would have been if you had not been invited on your theremin journey, we would not have experienced this Christmas gift.  In time the digital theremin replicants will replace the memory of what once was. When I listen to a theremin that just has an expressive whistle... it is just wrong.

It is snowing outside my window, there is a tree, just kidding. Waiting for those Godzilla rain storms we were promised.

Christopher

O.T., I have always related intensely to people, like yourself, who do not live entirely in this world. You have one foot here, and the other in The Dreamtime.

If you could bring the spirit and timbre of the RCA sound to a digital instrument it would be the greatest gift you could possibly give to the world, and it would inspire a whole new generation of players who would discover through it, what is in themselves.