Philharmonic (concert) hall as a component of the infrastructure of musical life

Abstract

Relevance of the study. The study of the infrastructure of musical life is a very important part of modern historical musicology. In this essay, I summarized information about philharmonic (concert) halls. These locations are the basic components of the musical life infrastructure.
 The purpose of the study. The main goal of the research is to reveal the fundamental differences between the philharmonic hall and the opera house (at the stage of its formation), the ways of evolution and the factors that led to the transformation of the philharmonic (concert) hall in our time. The goal defined in this way determines a set of local tasks, the solution of which will allow it to be achieved. This is, in particular, a parametric, morphological and functional comparison of the philharmonic and opera halls; determination of the direction and dynamics of the object's evolution until the moment of stabilization; historical and cultural factors that influenced the change in the configuration and functioning of the hall in the second half of the 20th - the first decades of the 21st century. Research methods are determined by the set goal and tasks and include both a quantitative approach (for parametric characterization of objects) and comparative and historical-cultural types of analysis.
 The results and conclusions. Appearing a century later than publicly accessible opera houses, a philharmonic became a stage of stabilization of the new European intonation concept. Belonging to the enterprises of the artistic sphere, it was influenced by the processes of democratization caused by the revolutionary movements of the 19th century. Experiments with increasing the size of the hall made it possible to draw a conclusion about the parametric limitations caused by the anthropocentrism of the new European culture. In the last third of the 19th century, a set of requirements for the philharmonic was formed, which were embodied in the halls of Vienna, Leipzig, Amsterdam, New York and Boston. In the 20th-21st centuries, due to the spread of non-academic intonation practices and the appearance of sound-amplifying equipment, a philharmonic hall underwent significant transformations, in particular, a sharp increase in size. At the same time, the desire to preserve the very phenomenon of an acoustic concert caused the appearance of halls of a new configuration, not a traditional "shoe box", but a "vineyard". Therefore, the ways of development of concert halls in our time are characterized by adaptation to market conditions and reflect two diametrically opposite trends: orientation either to enterprises in the artistic sphere or to creative industries.