WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THEM?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 24, 8 December 1939, Page 15

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THEM?

Two Women Who Worked For Radio

To the last minute of last August, the last peaceful month of the year for Europe, two women worked for radio, one in Poland, one in Germany. Where will they be now, and what will they be doing? OUNTESS IDA LOS was in- €. terested in unusual instruments, although normally she played the violin best and most often. It was a singing saw that introduced her to Polskie-Radio. An official heard about it and she was invited to play before the microphone. That began a career in Polish broadcasting. Once, visiting England, she played for the BBC, and fan-mail testified to the popularity of her musical saw. At the end of 1937 she brought a new instrument to Poland, from Paris, a sort of tiny piano with a keyboard connected to a set of radio valves instead of strings, and using ordinary electric current. It was invented by Martenot, the French composer, and_ called "Ondes Musicales," or "musical waves." Madame Los found it gave good opportunity to display musical imagination, with its many possible sound combinations. Not Enough Wind She admitted that wind instruments were beyond her, for she could not supply more air than was "needed to blow out a candle on a Christmas tree"; but the "ondes musicales" did the work for her whether she wanted a saxophone or a flute. She came from a family of Polish landowners, from Western Poland, so that her people’s land would be among the first over-run by the invaders in September. When she was not busy at the Polskie-Radio Bureau of Studies, she devoted all her time to music, treating it with true devotion, more as a hobby than as a profession. Women Unpopular In Germany Sylvia Burgmann was the first woman to work successfully for the big German station, Deutchlandsender. Sometimes a female voice can still be heard over the

German short-wave radio. Perhaps it is hers, and she has fared better than her contemporary across what was the border. The old Deutche Welle station once used to use women announcers, but when it became Deutchlandsender seven years ago the custom was discontinued. All efforts to revive it failed. But Italy had great success with women ane nouncers, and the German authorities decided to renew experiments. One after another was tried without success. Only letters of protest greeted each new woman announcer. This year, it was decided to try again, Sylvia Burgmann had previously had considerable success in talking to women and children over the air. She had plenty of microphone experience. She was selected and given the job, and at the end of August was supposed to be making a success of it. She was described then as an intellectual woman. Much of her spare time was devoted to ree search in libraries, where she found a lot of material for her broadcast talks,