Orchestral Radio

Conductor Albert Coates, who arrived in Manhattan fortnight ago to direct the Lewisohn Stadium concerts (TIME, Aug. 10), has broadcast many a radio program in England, the U.S., the U.S.S.R. Last week it became evident that he had listened to many a radio broadcast as well. Having conferred with Columbia Broadcasting System's wireless engineers and having experimented on his own in England, he had some observations and predictions to make about radio.

"Most of us are apt to think," said he. "that the battle has been won when it is' possible for the broadcasters to eliminate extraneous noise and present our music against a background of silence. Admittedly, that is a very great step forward since the early days of radio, but it is very far from being all.

"The outstanding shortcoming of radio today in my opinion is that it presents a flat picture, without much perspective, and certainly with little or no depth. . . . In broadcasting we have neither sight nor memory to suggest where sounds originate, and it must be obvious that the blend of, say, woodwind and strings immediately in front of the microphone is very different from the combined tone if they are placed 20 ft. from each other and from the microphone."

Glad was Conductor Coates to learn that another ear may soon be furnished to listeners to orchestral broadcasts, by the development of multiple impulses on radio carrier waves, worked out on the principle already perfected in wired telephony. In the future, orchestras may play for many microphones, scattered through the studio or auditorium to best acoustical advantage. The sum of the sounds they pick up should compare to present radio as a stereopticon view compares to a snapshot.

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