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RE: Update on accoustically enhanced concert halls

Posted by Amphissa (A) on March 8, 2011 at 16:39:00

In Reply to: RE: Update on accoustically enhanced concert halls posted by Chris from Lafayette on March 8, 2011 at 14:20:47:

Chris, I am not a fan of spot microphones in recording either. Yet, I have attended concerts in which I was really impressed with the ability of the orchestra to play at levels that allowed each instrument section to be heard (isolated through conscious effort) and allowed solo passages to rise above the orchestra at a reasonable level.

I think back on a concert I attended at Carnegie Hall, featuring Hillary Hahn playing the Shostakovich VC 1, backed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Chailly. I was floored by the audio presence and quality, warm and yet defined. I had never been in a hall that good, with an orchestra that good.

Last year, I attended a chamber music concert at the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall and had much the same reaction, listening to a sextet. In comparison, Avery Fischer sounds like a rehearsal space, dry and hard.

So, it can be done through engineering. But it costs many, many millions of dollars. Most regional and city orchestras around the country cannot afford to build that kind of space. But, through the generosity of one wealthy donor, they could afford a sound system that would be a remarkable improvement for their current space.

Yes, as purists, we can say that we much prefer to hear orchestras untouched by any electronics in a great hall. But for the vast majority of Americans, that will never happen.

I suspect that the majority of the audience were totally wowed by the VPO in Berkeley. Even you were wowed. It's easy to criticize afterwards, saying it wasn't "real" or whatever. But for most people, it is this *experience* of music being playing in your presence that creates the goosebump factor. It is still a live performance. They are not lip-synching to a recording. And as you yourself pointed out, even after learning the sound had be shaped to improve the acoustics of the hall, they *still* sounded so much better than other orchestras you've heard in that same space. So you can still discern the special quality of that orchestra.

I know that you and most classical musicians are nauseated by the very idea of amplification and electronic reshaping of the sound created by the orchestra. I am a patron of orchestras and have known many orchestra musicians in every city I've lived in. I understand the traditions and the misgivings.

But I am also a passionate music lover. And I can't count the number of times I've suffered through what I *think* were good performances in dreadful settings, making it impossible to truly appreciate the talent of the musicians and the commitment they invest in their performances.

Carnegie Hall does not need a Meyer Constellation System. Many of the places I've been in would be dramatically improved by that. And 99% of the people attending concerts in those halls would rejoice at the improvement in audio quality -- probably while the orchestra simmered in disgust at the offense to their traditional way of performing.


"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)

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Kimber Kable

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