THE OPERA AT THE HOME HEARTH

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 299, 13 September 1919, Page 8

THE OPERA AT THE HOME HEARTH

HOW BUDAPEST DOES IT. The employment of telephony for tho dissemination of "wireless music" was the subject of glowing predictions -by a "Daily Mail" writer whom The Dominion recently quoted. Tllis writer looked forward to' the day when a "wireless telephone- transmitters suitably arranged at the Albert Hall would Hood London with 'inaudible' music"—music to be caught, of course, and rendered audible by "the aid of jv wireless telephone. receiver. It is interesting to note that pending the realisation of the miracle that will carry the great .opera houses upon Hertzian waves to the domestic hearth, the Hungarian city of Budapest ■will get- along very well with its makeshift "Telephon-Ftirmondo," which is, in ono of its aspects, a unique application of telephony to aesthetic ends. Mr. J?. Bovill, in a book written more than ten years ago, tells thus of the curious institution referred to:— "Ton may be seated as I was in the reading room of one of the hotels, or in ;i large coffee house, when suddenly a rush is made for a telephone-looking instrument which hangs on the wall. . . It is the Telephon-Hirmondo, a kind of newspaper, which telephones its' news instead of printing it. Budapest is the onlv city in the world which possesses such an instrument. All day long a clear-toned elocutionist announces news just as it arrives. It commences in the morning nt 8 by sending the correct time, which is repeated every hour. At 12 o'clock tho news of the day, home nnd abroad, sent otit to thousands oi homcfiv Sometimes a raconteur will make the luncheon hour pass easily by telling a fear good stories The latest rise and .fall 'On 'Change,' programme of events, meetings, Parliament, horse races, these are a few of the items one mav receive. "'Prom -1 -in to 0.30 one may listen to a famous Honvcd military baud, and after 7 in the evening, for five nights (l f the week, the subscriber, sitting at home, may listen to grand opera. On the two remaining eyen.ngs the s lai.s of a ginsy bond coming from a distant cafe add to the enjoyment."