Annesley Black: Tolerance Stacks II
The main sources of the text are Thomas A. Edison, American inventor (1847-1931)
and Charles Cros, French poet, inventor (1842-1888).
Written in order of appearance.
I–Beginnings -Scott/ Cros
Record material:
re-synthesisis of phonautographic recordings made by Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (1817-1879). Text- Racine’s Phèdre. Recorded 1853 or 1854. Resynthesized in 2008 by Patrick Feaster, the First Sounds Website, Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory.
http://www.firstsounds.org/
Text: (soprano)
There is an easier way to do this.
Thomas Edison, while trying to achieve a clearer representation of the spectrum of orchestral instruments in his recordings made in 1923.[1]
Text: (soprano)
Très jeune,
j’eus une belle fortune
et le goût de la science.. .
J’ai pensé . . .
que l’homme n’est qu’un sténographe des faits brutaux,
qu’un secretaire de la nature palpable;
que la vérité conçue . .
dans un volume immense et confus,
n’est abordable partiellement qu’aux gratteurs,
rogneurs,
fureteurs,
commissionnaires
et emmagasineurs de faits réels,
constatables,
indéniables ; en un mot, qui’l faut être fourmi,
qui’il faut être ciron,
rotifière,
vibrion, qui’il faut n’être rien !
. . .
Observer, observer . . .
(surtout ne jamais penser, rêver, imaginer ; voilà les splendeurs de la méthode actuelle.)
Translation (A.Black)
Very young,
I had a beautiful fortune
and a taste for science. . .
I thought. . .
that the man is only a stenographer of brutal facts,
a secretary of palpable nature;
that the truth conceived. . .
in an immense and confused volume,
is accessible only partially to the scrappers,
scrapers,
snoopers,
commissioners
and storekeepers of real,
constant,
undeniable facts; In a word, you have to be an ant,
you have to be a mite,
a rotifer,
a vibrio,
you have to be nothing !
. . .
To observe, observe . . .
– Charles Cros, »La Science de L’amour«, from Le Collier de griffes, 1908
Part I& II
Record Playback:
Thomas Edison- Speech »Electricity and Progress« at the second annual Electrical Show, Madison Square Gardens, New York, Oct. 3, 1908
Ladies and gentlemen,
Those of us who began our love labors at the operator’s key 50 years ago have been permitted to see and assist in the whole modern industrial development of electricity. Since the remarkable experiments of Morse in 1844 and the unsuccessful efforts of Field in 1858 that have come with incredible rapidity–one electrical arc after another. So that in practically every respect civilization has been revolutionized.
It is still too early to stand outside these events and pronounce final judgement on their lasting value.
But we may surely entertain the belief that the last half of the 19th century was a distinct and distinct in its electrical inventions and the results of the first half was in relation to steam.
The lessons of the Jubilee of the Atlantic Cable of 1858 is one of encouragement to all who would act to the resources of our race and extend our control over the forces of Nature. Never was failure more complete, never was higher courage shown, never was triumph more brilliant than that which set 1866 has kept the old world moored alongside the new by cables of steel and copper, the family ties of the civilized world.
When I look around at the resources of the electrical field today I feel that I would be glad to begin again my work as an electrician and inventor and we veterans get only older than our successors, the younger followers of Franklin and of Tolbin to realize the measure of their opportunities and to rise to the heights of their responsibilities in this day of electricity.
Part III, VII, IX–I was always afraid of things that worked the first time
Text: (soprano)
I was always afraid of things that worked the first time
Thomas A. Edison, 1877, upon hearing his voice play back to him from his first tin foil phonograph.[2]
Part IV- Arthur Sullivan
Record Playback:
Sir Arthur Sullivan speech, Little Menlo, 1888, speech recorded on a phonograph cylinder for Thomas Edison at a demonstration of Edison’s phonograoph in London on Oct. 5, 1888; cited from Michael Chanan Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and its Effects on Music (London: Verso, 1995) p. 26. See also »Historic Sullivan Recordings« at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive; and Very Early Recorded Sound at the National Historical Park website. The recording was issued on CD by the British Library (Voices of History 2: NSACD 19-20, 2005)
Myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the result of this evenings experiments.
Astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever! . . ..
But all the same I think it is the most wonderful thing that I have ever experienced, and I congratulate you with all my heart on this wonderful discovery.
Part V/ VI–Young Man Fancy/ Rhythm of big generators
Record Playback:
audio samples from the short film »Young Man’s Fancy«–1952, Edison Electric Institute Production.
Man: some of these large generators have the rhythm of music. Woman: Do you like music? Man: The music of machinery. Woman: sigh”
(with Beethoven’s Eroica in background) ” Man: The rhythm of big generators”
Digital playback/ Record Playback:
a field recording (A. Black, 2008) from a tour through the Hoover Dam (Nevada/Arizona).
Part VI- Record Playback:
»Man: but I do like music! Woman: Swell! The records are right in the cabinet! « »Man: oh… the creation of power, the distribution of power and the design of new machines!«
(»Young Man’s Fancy«–1952).
Part VIII- Hurry up the Machine. I HAVE STRUCK A BIG BONANAZA!
Title:
Thomas Edison: »Hurry up the machine. I HAVE STRUCK A BIG BONANZA« Telegraph sent by Edison to William Walllace, (who was developing an electrical power generator developer for the distribution power) on Sept. 13, 1878, upon developing a working model of the incandescent lightbulb.
Part IX- Glowworm
Text: (soprano)
»Glow worm–not popular-
striving for perfect steadiness, beautiful eyes«[3]
I seize the palpitating air. I hoard
Music and speech. All lips that breathe are mine.[4]
The majestical myth which Physicists seek[5]
The quick and the dead converse, as I reply.[6]
I speak , and the inviolable word
Authenticates its origin and sign . . [7]
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume .. [8]
»Glow worm–not popular-
striving for perfect steadiness, beautiful eyes«
My line of sorrow lies in the realm of technical science-[9]
The majestical myth which Physicists seek.
In me are souls embalmed. I am an ear
Flawless as truth , and truth’s own tongue am I.
I am a resurrection; men may hear
The quick and the dead converse, as I reply.
»Glow worm–not popular- striving for perfect steadiness, beautiful eyes«
PART XIV–Testament (Charles Cros)
Text: (morse-oscillator key, percussion)
A patient waiter is no loser.
(material for the morse oscillator key part and for the rhythms of the piece). Samuel Morse & Alfred Vail–the first text sent by morse code on a public telegraph, January 1838.
Text: (soprano)
Si mon âme claire s’éteint
Comme une lampe sans pétrole,
Si mon esprit, en haut, déteint
Comme une guenille folle,
Si je moisis, diamantin,
Entier, sans tache, sans vérole,
Si le bégaiement bête atteint
Ma persuasive parole,
. . .
(Ne craignez rien, je ne maudis
Personne. Car un paradis
Matinal, s’ouvre et me fait taire.)
– Charles Cros, Testament from :Le collier de griffes. 1908
[1] Quoted in Stankley, »Edison 125-foot Horn« Theodore Edison Oral History, 2, 26.
[2] Quoted in: Edison, His Life and Inventions. Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin, New York, 1910, p. 207.
[3] T. A. Edison, in a letter to the author George Parsons Lathrop in 1890- a character for a planned science fiction book (collaboration between Lathrop and Edison). Quoted in: Edison, Edmund Morris, Random House, New York, 2019, p. 288.
[4] Rev. Horatio N. Powers- first poem spoken into an Edison cylinder: »The Phonograph’s Salutation«, 1877. Transcript in George Gouraud Biographical Collection, TENHP. Quoted in Edison, Edmund Morris, Random House, New York, 2019. p. 545.
[5] Consonant-laden phrase used in 1877 to test the phonograph (quoted in: Morris, p. 546)
[6] Powers, »The Phonographs Solution«, 1877.
[7] Powers, »The Phonographs Solution«, 1877.
[8] “Song of myself, 1892, Walt Whitman
[9] Thomas Edison in a letter to William Ores, 24. Jan.1921, TENHP; (quoted in Morris, p. 15.)