MELBA SINGS BY WIRELESS.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 September 1920, Page 9

MELBA SINGS BY WIRELESS.

■COMPLETE SUCCESS OF & ' DAILY MAIL TEST. HEARD IN PARIS AND BERLIN. 1,000 MILES RADIUS. London, June 10. Dame Nellie Mclba sang to the world '<>y wireless telephone last night at the invitation of The Daily Mail.'' The concert was given at Chelmsford, and the. audience included'nil "listenersin" within a radius of 1000 miles. The singer's glorious voice was clearly heard in Paris and Berlin and at the' Hague, and messages from listeners-in in all parts of England record the success of this unique and wonderful concert. In a stone-floored room with whitewashed walls in the great works of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company at Chelmsford, Dame Nellie Melba. the famous prima donna, this evening had what she told me ■was "the most wonderful experience of my career." At the invitation of The Daily Mail she sang to the world on the wireless ■telephone. Her beautiful voice was directed into a little microphone on an adjustable stand, and it went out to infinity with that crystal-like clarity of enunciation characteristic of it. , It was a remarkable scene. Outside in the roadway a crowd, silent and eager to hear the great singer, was collected. The police requisitioned "to keep order" were entirely unnecessary and, be it said, were as interested in what was going on in the stone-floored room- as anyone else in the assembly. Inside a company, which' included Mr and Mrs Godfrey' Isaacs, Mr and Mrs George Armstrong, Dame Nellie Melba's son and daughter-in-law, and Sir Campbell Stuart were among the privileged audience. A grand piano was close by the transmitter and the carpet where Dame Nellie Melba stood was rolled up leastthe sound of her voice should be interfered with. "HOME, SWEET HOME." The prima donna began with a long trill. "My 'Hallo!' to the world," as she called it. Then followed songs in English French and Italian, all of them swelling out -into space through the mysterious electric force which made the unique experiment heard within a 1000 miles' radiue of Chelmsford. "Home, Sweet Horn",'* one of the old songs of England applied to one of the newest sciences, came first, the music being played by Mr Frank St. Leger. "Nymphes et Silvains," a French song, accompanied by the composer, M. Bernberg, followed, and then "Addio" from "La Bohemc," in Italian. But it was not "Goodbye." Dame Nellie Mclba was so fascinated by her experience and what she had previously seen of the machinery—glass valves 'that magnified her voice 100 times before it escaped to space and great electrical coils—that she at once volunteered to sing more than her set programme. ''Chant Venition." by M. Bemberg, was_ her first encore. "Nymphes ct Silvians" was repeated as her second. Even then she was not content, to stop, so great was her enthusiasm. "I must sing 'God Save the King,' "she exclaimed; and once more the warning to the world to stand by went out. " "I have enjoyed it most tremendously," she told me when she had finished and Chelmsford had clo>*d down. "It is perfectly marvellous. The microphone seems a verv small tiling to sing to the world through, and wire" less seems to me a sort tif wizardry." It was a wonderful half-hour. Art and science joined hands, and the world "listening-in" annst have counted every minute of it precious.

HOW PARIS HEARD. SO CLEAR THAT A HRAMOPHONE RECORD WAS MADE. Paris, June JC. We heard Dame Nellie Melba's voice to-night in Paris, not only through ordinary telephone receivers, - but alio ringing loud and clear across an open courtyard. The French Radio Electric Company, of 79, Boulevard Haussmanti, had an aluminium trumpet to a resonant amplifying apparatus. Out of-this her voice came as plainly and with the same quality as, if from a gramophone record. Ten people gathered round the machine. The receiving apparatus was made up with an aerial of the size that is used in ships. The experiment began with startling clearness. The trumpet was in position on the receiver and the whole party who were waiting to hear the concert were in the next'room. Representatives of the Pathe Film Company made a film record of the scene. 1 Meanwhile (lie engineers of the French tvadio Electric Company had switched the sound through another line into (he receiver of a gramophone, which recorded Dame Nellie's voice on its wax disc. Before she had finished singing the first part of her song it was being reproduced on the gramophone, so that one heard her voice as it was away in Jissex and the reproduction of it at the same iime. AT BERLIN' AND THE HAGUE. Hame Nellie Melba was clearly audible at Holland's News Bureau Wireless station at the Hague. .She was heard with quite extraordinary clearness at (he receiving station of the Cennan Telephone Company at Oelgow, near Potsdam, also at the wireless station at Kilvefe, near Hanover