TONE TEST
by Nicholas Brooke

LINCOLN CENTER Festival 2004
Nick Brooke's opera Tone Test is based on the Edison Company's infomercials from the 1920s, in which Thomas Edison enlisted the Metropolitan opera diva Anna Case to show that his records when "compared to the living artist reveal no difference."

Notes from the composer: In 1915, Metropolitan Opera soprano Anna Case walked into a phonograph store in Des Moines, Iowa, and began singing alongside her own record. The audience at the store said they couldn’t tell the difference. The idea caught on: between 1915 and 1920, the Edison company organized over 4,000 “tone tests” across the nation. Case gave the most famous tone test on March 10, 1920 in Carnegie Hall, which featured the “so-called dark scene, where the artist steals from the stage, while the phonograph is playing.” Case later admitted to having trained her voice to sound like the phonograph.

Considering himself a music connoisseur, Thomas Edison often person-ally chose the musicians who recorded on his label. Case was his favorite because of her straight, non-vibrato tone. Newspapers report Edison traveling many miles to see Case’s concerts, and he asked to hear a recording of her on the first transcontinental phone call.

For the fancier tone tests in major cities, the Edison company procured the services of a light person who would create dramatic fade-outs and generally keep the audience in the dark about whether the performer was lip-synching. Phonograph trade magazines suggested that the tone test stage be set like a living room, with carpet, standing lamps, and recliners. This reflected a general conflation of the concert hall and living room during the period. The new Edison phonograph was promoted for its ability to bring the most famous singers into the living room, and many domestic musicians gave up performing when their families bought Edison’s new “musical instrument.”

Tone Test is composed almost entirely from samples of Edison Diamond. Disc recordings, and reflects a general cross-section of the Edison catalogue circa 1917.

Nicholas Brooke
Brooklyn , 2004

AOP Presentations of Tone Test:
July 22-24, 2004: American Opera Projects and the Lincoln Center Festival presented the WORLD PREMIERE of Tone Test at the Clark Studio Theatre ( Rose Building , West 65th Street and Amsterdam Ave in NYC) at 8:30 pm with the following cast and crew:

Music and Libretto Nicholas Brooke
Director David Herskovits
Music Director Alan Johnson
Set and Costume Design Carol Bailey
Lighting Design Beverly Emmons
Technical Director Dan Dryden
Anna Case Dina Emerson
Bob Gregory Purnhagen
Live Sound Mixer, Keyboard Christopher Tignor

March 13, 2004: American Opera Projects presented a concert reading of excerpts from Tone Test , music and libretto by Nicholas Brooke. Directed by David Herskovits. Starring Gregory Purnhagen and Dina Emerson. Workshop performance, co-produced by Department of Music at Hamilton-Murray Theater, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. 8:00 pm.

Oct 31-Nov 1, 2003: American Opera Projects presented a concert reading of excerpts from Tone Test as part of the AOP First Chance series. Music and libretto by Nicholas Brooke. Directed by David Herskovits. Starring Gregory Purnhagen and Dina Emerson. South Oxford Space 138 S. Oxford Street, Brooklyn, 8 pm.

About the creator

Nicholas Brooke (Composer and Librettist) composes for a variety of musical media, from orchestras to computers and instruments he builds himself. His works have been performed by the Paul Dresher Ensemble, the Nash Ensemble of London, Orchestra 2001, Dan Druckman, and New York’s Gamelan Son of Lion. He has received awards and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, ASCAP, the Rockefeller Foundation, Djerassi, and the MacDowell Colony. He has also received commissions from the ZOOM: Composers Close-Up series at Merkin Hall and Swarthmore College. Brooke’s music is recorded on the Opus One label and on the gamelan CD Bending the Gending (2002). Originally a clarinetist, he is also an avid instrument builder, thereminist, and researcher/collector of early musical automata. During a two-year fellowship to central Java, he studied gamelan and collaborated on musical projects with Javanese composers, dancers, and visual artists. He holds degrees from Oberlin and a doctorate from Princeton; he has also studied with Steve Mackey, Paul Lansky, Louis Andriessen, and Christian Wolff.