Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

Music Radiophotoed from Moscow FIRST PART OF A NEW MUSICAL SCORE BY SHOSTAKOVICH IS SPEEDED TO NEW YORK FOR PREMIERE ON NBC—TRANSMISSION STRIKES A NEW NOTE IN MUSICAL HISTORV IX THE FIRST transmission of its kind involving a major mu- sical composition, the title page with part of Dmitri Shostakovich's latest score was flashed to New York directly from Moscow by ra- diophoto over the circuit of RCA Communications, Inc., in January. The transmission, which attracted wide attention, presages the speed- ing of compositions by the world's great musicians from one continent to another by radiophoto as soon as completed. The newest score by Shostako- vich, composer of the celebrated Leningrad Symphony, was brought to New York for its American premiere over WEAF and the net- work of the National Broadcasting Company on March 10. It is a com- position for piano, violin and cello, entitled "Trio". Arrangements with the Russian composer for the broad- cast and plans to hasten arrival of the score in the United States, were concluded by Samuel Chotzinoff. Manager of the NBC Music Divi- sion, immediately after he learned of its completion in Moscow. Mr. Chotzinoff, who described the radiophoto transmission as "revolu- tionary in the realm of music," assigned three artists of the NBC Symphony Orchestra to participate in the premiere. Selected for the honor were Mischa Mischakoff, first vidlinst: Benar Heifetz. first cellist, and Earl Wild. NBC pianist and composer. It was arranged for the three NBC musicians to visit RCA Com- munications headquarters, at 66 Broad Street, to see how the first page of "Trio" was transformed from radio signals to photo negative tD positive print through the magic of the radiophoto system. They saw in the final result a perfect photo- graphic reproduction of the original musical score in Shostakovich's own hand, and this was used in their preparation for the radio premiere. Two Leningrad Graduates For two of the musicians, Mr. Heifetz and Mr. Mischakoff, the occasion took on added significance because of their musical schooling at Leningrad Conservatory, where Shostakovich more recently studied. In addition, both had performed at the Moscow Opera, where his latest work had its Russian premiere. left: oper.\tor i.n'serts negative film in radiophoto receiving unit, below: section of shostakovich score is inspected after receipt from MOSCOW. Rarely, they pointed out, did mu- sicians have the good fortune to work from the equivalent of an original score by a great composer who also happened to be a com- patriot and a fellow alumnus of a school 4,000 miles away. The nearest approach to the speed of the radiophoto transmission—• and itself a record-breaking event in musical historj*—occurred when a microfilm of the great Shostako- vich Leningrad Symphony was flown to this country for its Ameri- can premiere over the NBC network on .July 9, 1942. Score Sent in Sections In actual transmission time, it took twenty-four minutes for the first page of the latest score to come from Moscow over the RCA receiv- ing radiophoto machine. To facili- tate handling, the photograph of the composition was sent in four sections of six by eight inches each, and these were cut into a mosaic of standard musical page size for the positive print. The microfilm air- mail transit of the Leningrad Sym- phony took nearly three days, and musical scores carried by ordinary mail often require several weeks to travel that distance. In addition to the Moscow circuit, which has been in operation since July. 1941, the RCA radiophoto sys- tem works directly betw-een New York and Cairo, London, Stockholm, Berne and Buenos Aires; and be- tween San Francisco and Melbourne and Honolulu on the Pacific side. Before the war, RCA Communi- cations operated radiophoto circuits with Berlin, Tokio, London and Buenos Aires, the first commercial service having been established by the Company on April .30, 1926. While the primary function of the system in wartime has been the rapid transmission of news photo- graphs from the various theaters of fighting, the circuits can be used to flash radio facsimiles of important documents, charts and drawings. [RADIO AGE 9]