We're going to build a new hall....Transformative or Excessive?

It's happened.  Sir Simon Rattle is coming home.  Conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic since 2002, he had announced his retirement from that vaunted ensemble over two years ago, effective at the close of the 2018 season.  (The orchestra members, responsible for most artistic and administrative matters, vote on a successor May 11.)  Then he will assume Music Directorship of the London Symphony Orchestra.

The announcement has been met with general euphoria across Great Britain, and it appears that the feeling is mutual.  UK composer Thomas Ades states that Rattle "is as brilliant and devoted an interpreter as any composer could wish to find."  The Guardian quoted the conductor, "It feels like a homecoming."  Tweeting via the LSO, Rattle also stated, "I can't imagine a more inspiring way to spend my next years, and feel immensely fortunate to have the LSO as my musical family." 

The news has been met with acclaim across the globe.  Michael Cooper wrote in the New York Times, "Their long flirtation is over, and now they are engaged."

There is--and has been since discussions began--a sticking point.  Rattle has called the LSO's home, The Barbican Centre, "serviceable" and is lobbying for a concert hall worthy of both the orchestra and its city.  (See my assessment of London's venues here.)  Rattle went on to add in a BBC interview, “The music lovers of London and the country deserve to have something where orchestras can flourish. You have no idea how wonderful an orchestra like the London Symphony Orchestra can sound in a great concert hall.”  A number of political and arts figures are leaping onto the bandwagon.  Chancellor George Osborne has announced "a feasibility study to progress plans to give London a world-class concert hall comparable to those present in other major cities across the world.”


Given the economic climate across Europe, is this a wise move at this time?  Are there more pressing needs across the city and the country?  That remains to be answered in the UK.

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Over the past few decades, several orchestras in this country have moved into new concert spaces.  Sometimes such _____ are necessitated due to seating capacities (too large or too small), aging facilities, or--primarily--inadequate acoustics.  Well-known are the various attempts to shore up those problems at Lincoln Center ("the hall formerly known as Avery Fisher").  Most ensembles choose to simply build anew.  But have these decisions been transformations for the home orchestras or (I would argue in the case of NY) excessive wastes of money?  Oftentimes it is obvious from the start and other times the reality needs a few years to sink in.

Here are some recent examples:

Philadelphia - Paying the landlord

Of the original Big Five* of the orchestral world, Philly is the most recent to seek out a new home.  Ensconced in the historic 1856 Academy of Music from 1900-2001, the orchestra rose to a level of fame nearly unequaled in much of its storied history.  Many insisted that the Academy's acoustics were grossly inadequate, particularly for orchestral performance.

Academy of Music, Philadelphia.  Interior.

Thus, after many years of discussion (dating back as far as 1908!) a new concert hall arose in the Kimmel Center and the orchestra first performed at Verizon Hall on December 16, 2001.

Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center.
The organ is by the Dobson Company of IOWA!

While hailed as a vast improvement over the Academy, Verizon has not been without its naysayers and it (like the former Avery Fisher) has required millions of dollars in "retuning."  Peter Dobrin of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote here in the fateful year of 2011 (when the orchestra became the largest arts organization in the country to undergo Chapter 11 reorganization).  More about the hall's improvements are found on its own website here.

One could argue that a great orchestra will sound great wherever they play.  Philly rose to prominence due to two conductors of unmatched longevity:  Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy.  Both performed in the Academy, which, it must be noted, the orchestra actually still owns!  At the Kimmel Center, the orchestra is a tenant, probably the most lucrative form of income for the hall's owners.  Could this be some of the reason for the orchestra's bankruptcy?  I suppose that's left up to the accountants.

*In addition to the NY Phil, the other orchestras of the "Big Five" are:

• Boston Symphony in Boston Symphony Hall since 1900.
• Cleveland Orchestra in Severance Hall since 1931.
• Chicago Symphony in Orchestra Hall since 1904.

Many might argue that the LA Philharmonic makes this list a Big Six.

Kansas City - transformative

A move from the staid Lyric Theater to the new Kaufmann Center has been a watershed moment for the arts across the country.  As municipalities are increasingly asked for funds to build arenas for sports combat, very few would ever put up the funds for an arts complex.  

K.C.'s Lyric--originally a Masonic Hall

One has to note that the entire cost of the multi venue Kaufmann Center (somewhere in the $400 million ballpark) was privately raised.  I could easily argue the aesthetics of the project, seen below,

Kaufmann-two dead snails?

the interior of the concert hall has been a boon for the orchestra and community.  As Rodgers and Hammerstein so aptly wrote, "Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City."

Kaufmann interior

Nashville - a hall that looks as one should

This is the Kenneth Schermerhorn Center, home of the Nashville Symphony and named for the orchestra's long-time conductor and music director.  From the outside, the edifice is impressive in its classical style.

Now this looks like a concert hall

On the inside, one might swear we've been transported abroad.  Does this not remind one of the Musikverein?

...and this?  Got to be European.  Nope, it's Nashville.

As many have long argued, it's hard to improve on the shoebox....

The Domino Effect

During the past few years we have experienced a distressing domino effect among arts organizations across this country (and its not just limited to the U.S.)  First, members of the Detroit Symphony went on a six-month strike beginning October 4, 2010.  Then, the Philadelphia Orchestra became the first major ensemble to declare Chapter 11 reorganization (April 16, 2011).  Two major orchestras: Minnesota (2012-2014) and Atlanta sent their musicians packing in protracted lock outs.  The venerable Metropolitan Opera narrowly avoided a strike and suspension of their season this past autumn.  Other, smaller ensembles are in jeopardy or have simply closed shop.  Case in point: the Green Bay (WI) Symphony is currently presenting its 100th (and last) season of concerts.

A different kind of domino effect is taking place in the conducting world as three very important posts will be up for grabs in 2017-18.

Chief among these is music directorship of the Berlin Philharmonic, a post held by Sir Simon Rattle since 2002.  His departure was well-documented and announced in January 2013.  While many names are being bandied about, a successor has not been named.  One thing is certain:  it will not be an American.  Here is a list of the principal conductors of the BPO:

• Ludwig von Brenner (1882–1887)
• Hans von Bülow (1887–1892)
• Arthur Nikisch (1895–1922)
• Wilhelm Furtwängler (1922–1945)
• Leo Borchard (May – August 1945)
• Sergiu Celibidache (1945–1952)
• Wilhelm Furtwängler (1952–1954)
• Herbert von Karajan (1954–1989)
• Claudio Abbado (1989–2002)
• Sir Simon Rattle (2002–2018)

Munich's atrocious Gasteig

I predict a German--just a hunch.  That said, Mariss Jansons, is very unhappy in Munich as the government has reneged on its promise of a new concert hall, opting instead to renovate the atrocious Gasteig.  While Valery Gergiev is conductor of Munich's "other" orchestra, he's not headed to Berlin. It can probably be safely said that Berlin will not go the way of the "youth movement."

On top of all this, rumors have been circulated that Sir Simon is being courted for a return to his native Britain to lead the London Symphony.  The conductor has, thus far, not indicated that he has any interest especially due to the fact that London possesses no concert hall of international stature (see S & P, 1/22/15).  However, suddenly support for a new London hall seems to be gaining traction.  Who knows what will happen?

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On this side of the pond, announcements of conductor departures have been swift:

• Earlier this month, Alan Gilbert of the NY Phil, announced his resignation effective 2017.  This could not come at a worse time as the orchestra will be homeless starting in 2019 to accommodate yet another renovation of the hall formerly known as Avery Fisher.  The orchestra has little time to name a successor and recent searches haven't always gone as planned.  In 2000, the rumor mill was rife with news that Riccardo Muti was the top choice but he (apparently repeatedly) turned them down, making Gilbert--at best--a second choice.  Muti, of course, went to Chicago.  However things turn out this time, whomever is selected will still live in the shadow of Leonard Bernstein.  Although he has been gone almost 25 years, Bernstein remains, for many, the face and voice of the Philharmonic and much of America's music, for that matter.

• Even more recently (this past week) the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. announced the departure of Christoph Eschenbach.  It seems as though the NSO has always been deemed a second-tier ensemble and Eschenbach hasn't really helped things.  His programs are sometimes fine and sometimes horrible, as evidenced by a disastrous 2013 Cosi fan Tutte in Salzburg.  And despite his track record, he was among the highest paid music directors in the world.  What will become of this post?   Contemporary criticism has it that the orchestra has been largely rudderless since the tenure of Antal Dorati, who left in 1977.  That said, Kennedy Center has a new boss in former Chicago CEO Deborah Rutter.  If anyone can get the job done in a short time, she can. 

Any way they stack up, I'm available!

Poland's Concert Hall Building Boom

Like much of Germany, Poland was decimated during World War 2.  Caught between the Nazi forces (set out to wipe the state from the map) and--eventually, following Hitler's ill-fated attempt to overcome the Russian winter, the Soviets--the country suffered nearly intended fate of the German Socialists.  The initial attack began on September 1, 1939.  Both the UK and France would declare war on Germany, but no one came to Poland's aid and its own army surrendered in October.

First, the Nazis established the Jewish Ghetto and then began shipping the inhabitants to Auschwitz.  The ghetto was eventually destroyed along with most of the capital, Warsaw.  The entire country lay in ruin.

85% of Warsaw was in ruins following the war.

Following the war, the country was given over to the Soviets as one of its satellites behind the Iron Curtain.  Any investment at all was made in restoring the country's basic infrastructure, 80% of which was destroyed nationwide.  Up until recently, very little was put forth into cultural amenities of the nation of Chopin.

But since the fall of communism, a movement which began in Gdansk (the city formerly known as Danzig, which has an interesting history of its own), we have seen what the New York Times calls Poland's Concert Hall Revival.  Among some of the more significant developments include

• Warsaw:  Among the first buildings to be bombed, the Warsaw Philharmonic Hall was not reconstructed until the mid-1950s.  It's rendering was a pastiche between its former grandeur and Soviet realism.

Current Philharmonic Hall

A design contest was held to build a replacement.  Combining both the shoebox (for acoustics) and arena (for sight lines) styles, Austrian architect Thomas Pucher has proposed an exciting 1,800 seat venue, looking something like this:

Sinfonia Warsovia Concert Hall

• Krakow:  Among Europe's newest concert venues is the city's Congress Hall, resplendent with a 2,100 seat concert space (that's large for Europe).  

Other new sites in smaller Polish cities include:

Polish National Radio Symphony Hall, Katowice

Philharmonic Hall, Szczecin
This really doesn't work for me...

interior

National Forum of Music, Wroclaw

National Forum of Music, interior

Lest one believe that everything is new, efforts were completed in 1965 to restore and actually enlarge the magnificent Grand Theater of Warsaw, home to the Polish National Opera.

Grand National Theater, Warsaw (1,841 seats)

the stunning interior

One has to believe that, if such building can take place in once-war-torn Poland, it should be able to happen anywhere.  Of course, there needs to be a commitment to a country's culture.

The many homes of the Detroit Symphony...

Beginning its life in 1887, the DSO is the fourth oldest orchestra in America.  Concerts were held from that time until spring 1919 (with a hiatus from 1910 to 1914) at the old Detroit Opera House.

Old Detroit Opera House, 1906

The summer of 1919 was spent in a whirlwind of construction.  Russian pianist and conductor Ossip Gabrilowitsch had accepted a contract extension under the condition that a new concert hall be built worthy of the increasingly-renowned ensemble.  It took less than five months to build Orchestra Hall and the inaugural concert was held October 23, 1919.  One of the printed programs from the previous season summed up the orchestra's sentiments, “The new hall not only fills a demand, but marks a new era in the annals of musical history in Detroit. It will be the center of Detroit’s musical life.”

Orchestra Hall, 1924

1970, long after the move. Decaying grandeur.

Despite a beautiful (and acoustically sound) concert hall, the orchestra could not overcome the financial difficulties cause by the Great Depression, and left their own home for greater security offered by Detroit's Masonic Auditorium--the largest such facility in the world.

Aerial view of the Masonic campus

Detroit Masonic Auditorium interior

Although blessed with a very large and attractive facility, there were obvious drawbacks to performing at the Masonic facility.  With 4,404 seats, it was virtually impossible for the orchestra to "sell out" its concerts.  Thus, in a move similar to the Chicago Symphony (which had been holding its concerts in the 3,900 seat Auditorium Theater), the orchestra sought out another "new dig."  In 1946, the DSO moved into the renamed Music Hall.

Music Hall:  not really an external beauty

I once saw a movie (Greatest Story Ever Told?) from the balcony

Yet another move took place with the construction of Ford Auditorium on the riverfront in 1956.  Located near Cobo Arena (former home of the Detroit Pistons) and later, Joe Lewis Arena (soon-to-be former home of the Red Wings), Ford was a troublesome space from the start.  With an overly wide house (and other never-solved problems) the acoustics were atrocious.  Despite that, the DSO created a number of landmark recordings for the Mercury "Living Presence" label during that time.  The hall did have a fabulous Aeolian-Skinner organ so buried in the fly-space that it could barely be heard.

Ford Auditorium, 1950s chic

Not exactly a shoebox (I'd hate to sit under that overhang!)

Finally bringing her down in 2011.

By the 1970s, efforts were afoot to reclaim Orchestra Hall and, following a nearly 20-year renovation (the building had been re-used as a theater, among other things), the DSO moved home.  What goes around comes around and despite money troubles and labor strife, the DSO lives on.  In a city so recently bound for the dumpster, great things are happening in MidTown (and soon there will be a new hockey arena!  Ugh)

Magnificent Orchestra Hall...a thing of beauty.

Concert halls: the "gold" standard

As I have often written, little has been done to improve (at least for acoustical properties) upon the "shoebox" design.  Back before acousticians and their extensive computer models, concert hall design was basically hit or miss.  But somewhere in the nineteenth century, someone came upon what would prove to be the biggest "hit."

Another consideration--at least in my view--is that the exterior of the hall should not detract from the interior.  A concert hall should not necessarily be an artist's or architect's statement; rather, the simpler the better.  Cases in point:  Carnegie Hall and the old Met are/were no great beauties from the outside, but once inside the house, the beauty was apparent.  It could be the basic simplicity of Carnegie or the almost gaudy pretentiousness of the old Met (though I love it).

Here are the concert halls, limited in number, upon which all others are compared.

Musikverein exterior: classical simplicity

The Great Hall of the Wiener Musikverein, Vienna.  Designed by Danish architect, Theophil Hansen, and opened in 1870, the hall is itself rather small by "American" standards, with seating capacity of 1,744 and standing room for an additional 300.  But, oh the sounds! 

Inside the "golden" hall

The sounds of one of the world's great orchestras resound through architect Adolf Leonard van Gendt's famed Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.  Completed in 1888 on land that was, at the time, devoted to pasture, the hall has a commanding presence in the central part of the modern city.  It, too, is not overly large, with seating captain of 1,974.  I'm sensing a pattern here.....

Concertgebouw--shares a square with the Royal and Van Gogh Museums

Nothing "in the way" of the resonance of the hall

And the final part of our golden triumvirate belongs to an American hall and no, it's not in New York, Chicago, Cleveland (although Severance Hall is a fine space) or Los Angeles.  Symphony Hall in Boston came into being rather late, having opened in 1900.  It was, in fact, one of the first concert halls designed with the aid of an acoustician, Harvard physics professor Wallace Clement Sabine.  With an overall design based upon Leipzig's Old Gewandhaus (destroyed during WW2), it has required only one renovation: a $250,000 restoration of the stage area in 2006, employing original materials and construction techniques.  The 2,625 leather seats are all original.  Symphony Hall remains a monument to its city and to the great orchestra that performs there.

Symphony Hall...looks familiar

So does this....the design that can hardly fail...

Up next:  New(er) halls done right...

Lincoln Center's Money Pit

In the late 1950s, a group of New York's most important civic leaders, led by John D. Rockefeller III, pushed forward the idea of a unified arts campus for the major performing arts organizations in the city.  Previously, these entities were scattered throughout New York:  the Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera at its famous old house at 14th and Broadway, City Opera at the New York City Center Theater, and the City Ballet at the City Center of Music and Drama.  This project, a part of Robert Moses' urban renewal projects of the 1950s and 60s, would have a wide-ranging impact on each organization, continuing to 2015 and beyond.

Grandeur of the old Met: the final performance

The Metropolitan Opera, the last of the buildings to be completed, is a behemoth of a theater, with nearly 4,000 seats.  It replaced the "old Met" and its famous "Golden Circle.  Upon moving to Lincoln Center, the Met organization convinced the historical commission to deny the building any landmark status, this despite the plea from Leopold Stokowski, “I beg you to help save this magnificent house.”  Even the protestations of luminaries such as Leonard Bernstein, Mayor John Lindsay, and even the governor, failed to save "the house that Caruso built."  The old Met was demolished in 1967 to avoid any competing company taking over the facility.

The "new" Met, probably the iconic symbol of Lincoln Center, has little of the status of the former house and itself is plagued by the lack of sufficient storage space, one of the qualms of the older house.  These days the new house is best known for having barely survived a major work stoppage in the Spring and Summer of 1914.

City Center, outside and in.

City Opera, called the "people's opera by founder and major, Fiorello LaGuardia, called the New York City Center its home from 1944 to 1964.  The opera's first home was the former Mecca Temple, a Shrine Building eventually taken over by the city after the crash of 1929.  City Center would also host the City Ballet company until 1966 when both organizations moved to the New York State Theater, now the David H. Koch Theater, (capacity c. 2,500) named after the conservative businessman who financed the 1910 renovation.  This reworking of the house was due to the fact that the State Theater had been constructed as a multi-purpose hall for use by the ballet and city opera.  The latter's insistence of acoustical improvement would be the company's downfall:  as a nomadic company during reconstruction, NYCO presented few productions and the audience quickly drifted away, resulting in NYCO's collapse in Fall 2013.

David H. Koch Theater, interior

The Philharmonic's founding dates from 1842.  Performing first in the Apollo Rooms (seating 600), the ensemble would move to Castle Garden, a former fort and eventually immigration center (predating Ellis Island).

Castle Garden Theater

The simple--yet stunning--interior of Carnegie Hall

By the 1880s, the need for a legitimate concert hall was acknowledged throughout the cultural community.  The "Music Hall," later named for its major benefactor, Andrew Carnegie, opened in a gala concert (conducted by Tchaikovsky) on May 5, 1891.  After turning down an opportunity to purchase the building, the "NY Phil" moved from one of the most famous halls in the world to one of the most infamous:  Philharmonic Hall (later Avery Fisher Hall) at Lincoln Center.

Avery Fisher: the hall that keeps on taking...

Avery Fisher Hall....look familiar?

The first of Lincoln Center's halls to open (1962), the originally facility cost $18 million dollars (c. $140 million in 2014 dollars).  It was plagued from acoustical problems from the start, causing conductor George Szell to comment, “Tear it down and start over.”  The hall underwent at least four acoustical "tweakings" from 1963 to 1972, costing in the neighborhood of $2-3 million ($18.5 million today), and still the product was deemed substandard.

Thus, a much more ambitious plan was hatched.  Philanthropist Avery Fisher donate $15 million to help defray the cost for further acoustical improvements.  The actual work would take place in the summer of 1976 when the hall was mostly "dark."  Cyril M. Harris, a professor at Columbia University, was called upon for the acoustical design.  Some of his thoughts on the hall include:

He discussed the hall one part at a time, beginning with the ceiling. Actually it had two ceilings, for, in the course of the 1969 remodelling, a new ceiling had been installed below the original one. But Harris was discussing the new ceiling only. Its shape was not good, Harris said, because it was essentially flat-a series of smooth plywood surfaces-and it was also too light in weight. It was not a good sound diffuser, for it absorbed some of the low frequencies. Harris thought it would have to come down. Then, the basic shape of the hall was strange -- not rectangular but curved, like a Coca-Cola bottle -- and the faces of the very long side balconies presented a pair of large concave surfaces. Such surfaces either cause echoes or concentrate sound in one area at the expense of other areas and so create dead spots. Some large concave surfaces can be rescued by putting bumps all over them, but the side-balcony faces needed bumps far bigger than they could accommodate. The side balconies, Harris believed, would have to be removed. As for the side walls, he did not approve of the way they were constructed, and he regarded their shape as wrong like the ceiling, they were not diffusing sound properly. The best thing to do with the side walls, Harris thought, would be to get rid of them. The rear wall, which was also curved, was creating a concave surface set of problems of its own. The rear wall would also have to be eliminated. The profile of the concrete floor, as it was shown in the drawings, was "far from optimal," as Harris put it. Part of it needed to be chopped away. Part of it needed to be raised by the addition of more concrete. But even then, Harris said, the floor would still be concrete, and in his opinion a wooden floor was essential to a good concert hall. The concrete floor, with its profile corrected, could serve as a foundation for a wooden floor, with an air space between the concrete and the wood. Though not much, Harris's verdict on the floor was the nicest thing he had to say about the hall.

Having demolished the ceiling, the side balconies, the side walls, the rear wall, and all but part of the floor, Harris had only the stage left. The shape of the stage, he explained to Ames, was acoustically undesirable; it was constructed in such a way that it absorbed a lot of the orchestra's low-frequency bass tones. The stage, Harris thought, would best be done away with, too.

This plan necessitated a great deal of work in a very short time.  This included demolition of the entire interior and a total rebuild--in less than five months.

Avery Fisher amidst the construction

The hall was completed by the planned gala reopening on October 19.  Still, the results were less than favorable and it has been determined that a major problem included the decision to add some 400 seats to the original design.  When the entire Lincoln Center complex was renovated around 2010 (for some $1.5 billion), the Philharmonic Hall was excluded, due to necessary work and excessive costs.  On November 13, 2014, Lincoln Center officials announced their intention to remove Avery Fisher's name from the Hall and sell its naming rights to the highest bidder as part of a $500 million (significantly more than the cost of the original hall) fund-raising campaign for its refurbishment.  Said Lincoln Center chairwoman Katherine Farley,"It will be an opportunity for a major name on a great New York jewel." Fisher's three children agreed to the deal for $15 million.  Not bad--get an extra $5 million for doing nothing!

Beginning in 2019 (or so), the building will close for two years and all that will remain of the original will be its exterior shell.  One only has to hope this will improve this boondoggle of boondoggles.

Acoustician Christopher Blair offers a ray of hope:

With today’s improved knowledge, there is no physical reason why a shoebox concert hall of the basic interior dimensions and volume of Avery Fisher Hall shouldn’t possess magnificent acoustics. Some of the problem lies in the presence of the third level of the side balconies, which both reflects too much early energy to the floor and effectively destroys a potentially resonant “hard-cap” in the room....

Another problem in the design of Avery Fisher Hall is the limited volume of the stage enclosure surrounding the orchestra platform. Sound levels on this stage are much higher than they should be for the orchestra to hear itself and the room response well (“forward masking” again rearing its ugly head). Experiments have been made in recent years with Mostly Mozart concerts of moving the orchestra farther out into the room. The result creates less masking and better balance of early to late energy for both orchestra and audience. This approach should make even more of an auditory improvement with larger orchestras and is worthy of additional study.

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Thus, Philharmonic/Avery Fisher/whatever they're going to call it Hall, remains imperfect after millions of dollars of alterations.  Now it's said that $500 million is needed; one has to wonder why they just don't tear the whole thing down.  Either way, the Philharmonic is going to experience its own two-year nomadic existence and Carnegie--with its own busy schedule--probably will not be an option.  One can only hope that a great orchestra ends up with a great hall:  that or move to Boston!