A "League of Nations" Concert

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 19, 22 November 1929, Page 7

A "League of Nations" Concert

Recent European Broadcast x A NOVEL concert intended to symbolise the co-operation of European nations, was recently broadcast from Zurich and relayed by all the German _ stations. The orchestra, which was composed .of musicians situated in Berlin, London, Paris, Milan, Vienna and Zurich, was conducted by Dr. Fischer, who invented and patented the system. The method employed was as fol-lows:-A piano, provided with a special damping device, was placed in the Telephone Pxchange at Ztrich.° This damping device rendered the tones of the piano almost inaudible in the room itself, but they were received by a microphone placed close to the piano. The resulting» frequencies passed from the microphone to amplifiers, and then were relayed over telephone lines to the musicians loeated in the six cities mentioned above. The musicians were provided with head-phones, and were thus able to hear the piano played in Zurich by the conductor, who played the score according to a pre-arranged method. At the side of each musician was placed a microphone, which | transmitted his playing via a second telephone line to the Zurich telephone exchange, where 2 collective line united the sounds received from each instrument, and passed them simultaneously to the transmitting station and to the musicians. The latter were thus enabled to hear their own performance in unison with those of the other members of the orchestra. The transmission was also passed direct to the. five hotels in Geneva, at which were quartered the delegates to the League of Nations.