Symphony Hall Research Articles

Concert hall acoustics

I will review some work at Bell Laboratories on artificial reverberation and concert hall acoustics including Philharmonic Hall (Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York). I will also touch on sound diffusion by number-theoretic surfaces and the measurement of reverberation time using the music as played in the hall as a ‘‘test’’ signal.

Listening to the acoustics in concert halls

How does acoustics affect the symphonic music performed in a concert hall? The lecture begins with an illustrated discussion of the architectural features that influence the acoustics. Boston Symphony Hall, which was built in 1900 when only one facet of architectural design was known, now rates as one of the world’s great halls. How this occurred will be presented. Music is composed with some acoustical environment in mind and this varies with time from the Baroque to the Romantic to the Modern musical period. Conductors vary their interpretation according to the hall they are in. Well-traveled listeners and music critics have favorite halls. The lecture then presents a list of 58 halls rank ordered according to their acoustical quality based on interviews of music critics and conductors. Modern acoustical measurements made in these halls are compared with their rankings. Music recordings will be presented that demonstrate how halls sound that have different measured acoustical parameters. Photographs of a number of recently built halls are shown as examples of how these known acoustical factors have been incorporated into architectural design.

Boston: Gunther Schuller's ‘Encounters’

Boston's Symphony Hall is celebrated as one of the finest concert halls in the world. It is generally less well known that Boston also has the smaller and equally fine Jordan Hall, located in the New England Conservatory. A fixture of Boston's musical life, Jordan Hall is also literally the heart of the Conservatory, being the venue not only of visiting celebrity solo and chamber music recitals, but of a multitude of the whole range of the Conservatory's student concert activity.

The Resonance of the Cubicle: Laptop Performance inPost-digital Musics

Through recent developments in computer hardware, post-digitalcomposers are now able to perform “live” withrelative ease. This opportunity raises the question of how a livepost-digital performance might differ from its traditional presentationby recordings. Post-digital music has recently grown from the physicalcontext of the electronic dance club, yet now is mostly isolatedfrom that venue. From a formal standpoint, post-digital music is makingvalid and compelling claims to the history of classical electronic music,but has yet to make significant inroads into the sites of its performance.The essay reviews several sites (Internet, symphony hall, art gallery andacousmatic theatre) in which post-digital music is being performed,and discusses the generic constraints imposed by these sites andtheir typical audiences. The author examines the performative symbolismof the laptop computer and how it is viewed as an “instrument” byboth composer and audience alike.

Letter from Boston

Boston can fairly lay claim to the title of Early Music Capital of the Americas. In its earliest days this city, founded in 163o, was dominated by Puritans, a fact that might summon up an image of a dour, cheerless and antimusical little world. However, as Percy Scholes and others demonstrated long ago, secular music actually thrived in colonial New England. It was only in the church that musical practice was restricted to the singing of hymns and the chanting of psalms. When, in the early 19th century, interest in the music of past generations began to assume greater importance, Boston saw the founding in 1815 of the Handel and Haydn Society, an organization that continues to flourish. The earliest American performances of such classics as Handel's Messiah and Haydn's Creation were offered by this venerable presenter. Generations later, with the advent of Christopher Hogwood as artistic director in 1986, H & H, as it is known, slimmed down its chorus of professional singers and decided that henceforth its orchestra would perform only on period instruments. This policy continues under Hogwood's successor, the current director, Grant Lewellyn. Programmes still include works of the Baroque and Classical periods, presented with meticulous attention to appropriate performance practice. However, H & H has increasingly ventured into the Romantic era, offering early to mid19th-century works well established in the repertory of modern instrument symphony orchestras. There is doubtless much to be learned thereby. However, even in Symphony Hall, renowned for its perfect acoustic, but with 2,6oo00 seats, the H & H's smaller and less powerful instrumental forces do not sound to best advantage, certainly not in this later repertory. Happily, a number of concerts requiring even smaller forces are also given in Jordan Hall, also acoustically ideal for its size, seating a mere 1,ooo listeners. H & H resumed touring when Hogwood became director and made a number of fine recordings under his baton.

Boston, Symphony Hall: Harbison's ‘Requiem’ and Carter's ‘Boston Concerto’

Any Bostonian who cared about newer music, particularly newer American music, had long been resigned to the unhappy knowledge that nothing of any particular interest was ever likely to be going on at Symphony Hall. It was a shock, therefore, when it became apparent this fall that there were quite a few things happening in the current season of the Boston Symphony which one would very much want to hear. This new and happy state of things can almost certainly be directly attributed to the Music Director Designate, James Levine. Levine's commitment to newer American music was made manifest by the one program that he conducted this season, which included, along with the Brahms First Symphony, Roger Sessions's Piano Concerto and John Harbison's Third Symphony. Works have been commissioned to celebrate Levine's first season as Music Director, 2004–2005, from Milton Babbitt, Yehudi Wyner, and Harbison, among others. This re-connexion of the orchestra to one of the proudest features of its history under Serge Koussevitzky is cause for celebration. This spring's concerts by the Boston Symphony have included two new works of more than passing interest.

Birmingham, Symphony Hall and Manchester, RNCM: Muldowney's Piano Concerto No. 2 and ‘Serenade’

The world première of Dominic Muldowney's Second Piano Concerto on 7 November came as part of a concert marking the 80th birthday of the BBC. The work was fashioned for Angela Hewitt, who was accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin. Hewitt's core repertoire of Bach, Ravel and Messiaen was reflected in the style of Muldowney's new piece, which married Classical with neo-Classical idioms yet at the same time sounded thoroughly post-modern in its cheerful eclecticism, witty sidesteps and theatrical leaps of imagination.

The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933 (review)

In The Soundscape of Modernity, Emily Thompson takes up architectural acoustics at the end of the nineteenth century, when it had become clear that neither the ancient prescriptions of Vitruvius nor anything developed subsequently was effective in taming the acoustics of large public spaces such as concert halls. Thompson begins with the story of Wallace Sabine, a Harvard physics professor who undertook the task of finding a remedy for the faulty acoustics of a campus lecture hall and who applied the empirical methods he learned from that experience to shaping the acoustics of Boston's Symphony Hall. The methods of architectural acoustics, the expectations regarding the aural environment, and the ways of perceiving that [End Page 399] environment all changed dramatically between that moment in 1900 and the opening of New York's Radio City Music Hall late in 1932. Thompson examines this period from different perspectives in charting the technological developments and other social forces that drove these changes.

The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933

The American soundscape changed dramatically during the early decades of the twentieth century as new acoustical developments transformed both what people heard and the ways that they listened. What they heard was a new kind of sound that was the product of modern technology. They listened as newly critical consumers of aural commodities. Reverberation equations, sound meters, microphones, and acoustical tiles were deployed in places as varied as Boston’s Symphony Hall, New York’s office skyscrapers, and the sound stages of Hollywood. The result was that the many different spaces that constituted modern America began to sound alike—clear, direct, efficient, and non‐reverberant. While this new modern sound said little about the physical spaces in which it was produced, it has much to tell us about the culture that created it. This talk will explore the history of modern sound and modern culture in early twentieth‐century America.

Pictures, Tears, Lights, and Seats

James Cuno recently said something that bears repeating: the end, this is what our visitors want most from us: to be provided works of art in order to change [themselves], to alter their experience of the world, to sharpen and heighten their sensibilities to it, to make it come alive anew for them so they can walk away at a different angle to the world. This is the basis of the art museum's public trust, he says. For an art museum actually to do what he describes takes it beyond being an educational institution in the conventional sense. It acknowledges the museum's duty to the artists who made the work and its obligation to further the audience's spiritual and intellectual growth. I agree, and I want to explore this particular aspect of our public trust. In order to take full opportunity to serve the public, art museums have chosen to do many different things. They educate their visitors, adults and children alike, in the history of art and in other subjects that art illuminates vividly. They entertain them with films and food and shopping and family fun. They boost civic awareness and help create bonds among people who wouldn't otherwise mingle. We learned after September 11 that art museums can provide a kind of refuge and reassurance to people disoriented by brutal, incomprehensible events. All these functions are healthy, economically beneficial, and certainly growing. They are also of strictly secondary importance. Functions like these, if we were at a concert instead of a museum, would include the program notes; the drinks and pleasant milling around at intermission; Boston's fine foursquare Symphony Hall on Huntington Avenue, or the elegant music shed at Tanglewood. These things make us happy and build support for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but

The first vineyard concert hall in North America

The first vineyard or surround concert hall designed and built in the Western Hemisphere is the Sala Nezahualcoyotl in Mexico City. The Hall was completed in 1976 and is part of the Cultural Center at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. The hall was named after a Toltec poet, architect, and musician who lived in the 15th century and was the Renaissance man of his day. In order to provide the familiar traditional sound of the rectangular (shoebox) European Hall, the acoustic designers set the criteria for reverberation times through the frequency spectrum and the Initial Time Delay Gap at every seat in the house to match the measurements taken at the Grosser Musik vereinssaal in Vienna and Boston Symphony Hall. In this paper we discuss the techniques used to create the traditional sound in a vineyard hall and the reaction of musicians and audiences to the completed facility. The Sala was the model for Suntory Hall in Japan which in turn spawned a number of vineyard halls in Japan. Most recently, the vineyard style seems to be appealing to more and more symphonic organizations in Europe and North America.

The Making of Symphony Hall, Boston: A History with Documents

The Making of Symphony Hall, Boston: A History with Documents

The ‘‘Concerto for Conductor:’’ A new musical form

In May of 2001, at Boston’s Symphony Hall, conductor Gil Rose walked out onto an empty stage with a coil of wire trailing from the back of his jacket. As he raised his hands in a starting gesture, the first chords of the Grieg Piano Concerto rang out. Subsequent gestures finished the initial flourish of the Grieg, and after several more bars of sampled orchestral and environmental music, orchestral musicians started slowly filtering onto the stage. The rest of the performance featured some very fun and energetic music making, reflecting both a sense of humor and a sense of inventiveness with a completely new form. This was the premiere performance of the world’s first ‘‘Concerto for Conductor.’’ The new musical form was the brainchild of this author, who wanted to develop a way to combine the ‘‘Conductor’s Jacket’’ sensor interface with live musicians on-stage. Composer John Oswald, whose imaginative setting was highly praised by the Boston press, was chosen and commissioned because of his reputation for inventive use of sampled sound. Aspects of his composition, the electronic systems behind it, and the possibilities for future Conductor Concertos will be discussed in the public presentation of this paper.

The role of musical acoustics in teaching engineering

A new course, Technology of Sound, is being offered at Dartmouth College to introduce students in the liberal arts to science and engineering. The course is designed to demonstrate how the science of sound is being applied to enhance the quality of life through music making and listening. The fundamentals of acoustics are studied to understand the relationships between the vibrations and sounds of string, wind, reed, brass, and percussion instruments. Associated properties and design criteria of materials, structures, and control mechanisms including musicians are studied. Key features of the course include lecture demonstrations of individual instruments, term projects and laboratory investigations, and studies of architectural acoustics. Specific examples of student projects and the development of a web site as a teaching tool and resource will be discussed as well as student comments and evaluations. A visit to Symphony Hall in Boston is a highlight at the end of the course.

The Public Spirit of the Corporation

Imagine yourself sitting in the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, listening to a concert given by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. On the stage-bill is the Second Piano Concerto by Johannes Brahms. I especially like this concerto because it comes as a nice double pack: Hidden in the third movement is a wonderful cello concert. Therefore, you can be sure that this important cello-solo will be played by Dr. Faust, the first solo-cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic, on an original Stradivari from 1798. Dr. Faust discovered this extraordinary instrument on one of the many tours of the Orchestra. His enthusiasm, however, was immediately dampened as he realized that neither he personally, nor the Orchestra, nor the Association of the Friends of the Orchestra, could afford to buy it. But then, Dr. Faust recalled a recent conversation with Hilmar Kopper, at that time CEO of Deutsche Bank AG. The Deutsche Bank, a public stock corporation, showed public spirit and financed the cello.

Concert hall acoustics at Bass Hall

Traditionally, multi-purpose halls are believed to have less than adequate symphonic acoustic listening characteristics compared to one room concert halls such as Boston Symphony Hall. Over the last two years, students and faculty of the Sonics Program at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute conducted a series of measurements at the multi-purpose Bass Performance Hall in Forth Worth, Texas. In this investigation, Bass Hall is shown to have excellent concert hall metrics when configured for that purpose. Measurements of reverberation time, early decay time, clarity (C80), and center time (Ts) were taken according to the ISO 3382 standard. This data was compared to data from the great one-room concert halls. This comparison demonstrates that Bass Hall can function as an equally excellent concert hall, in spite of being a multi-purpose hall. [Research supported by the Bass Foundation.]

The Making of Symphony Hall—Boston A History with Documents

The Making of Symphony Hall—Boston <i>A History with Documents</i>

Subjective assessment of stage environments for chamber music

Stage acoustics were evaluated in four halls regarding chamber music performances. Sensations about hearing oneself, hearing others, ease of ensemble, and overall impression were expressed by players of violin and piano sonata, piano trio, and brass quintet. Evaluations were taken at two locations with and without detached reflectors in each hall. Subjects in the audience were asked about the balance among players. In additional to the well-accepted support factor (ST1), calculated measures included a similar parameter early-to-direct energy ratio (ED80), where the energy integrated from 20 to 100 ms was substituted by the energy from 7 to 80 ms since recital halls were normally smaller than symphony halls. As a result, most acoustical environments were acceptable to the players. Overall impression was significantly correlated with all of the subjective attributes and there was a strong relation between hearing others and ease of ensemble (r=0.921). The players of brass quintet favored higher ED80 values than did the others. For the audience, significant variances of perceived strength were found in cello for piano trio and in horn for brass quintet. On-going research is conducted to collect data in other halls. [Work supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan.]

Peformances of Ballet Mécanique

George Antheil’s 1924 Ballet Mécanique, written for two pianos, three xylophones, four bass drums, tam-tam, electric bells, three airplane propellors, and between 4 and 16 synchronized player pianos, is one of the great ‘‘lost’’ pieces of the 20th-century instrumental repertoire. This paper describes the efforts that were made between 1996 and 2000 to revive this remarkable piece, using modern computers, MIDI, digital samplers, and MIDI-compatible player pianos. It talks about how the project same about; the musical and technical decisions that needed to be made; the problems of transcription, synchronization, and rehearsal; and the practical, artistic, and logistical issues of presenting the piece in three different concert spaces: Durgin Hall at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Carnegie Hall in New York, and Louise Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening

Extending the inquiry of his early groundbreaking books, Christopher Small strikes at the heart of traditional studies of Western music by asserting that music is not a thing, but rather an activity. This new work outlines a theory of what Small terms musicking, a verb that encompasses all musical activity from composing to performing to listening to a Walkman to singing in the shower. Using Gregory Bateson's philosophy of mind and a Geertzian thick description of a typical concert in a typical symphony hall, Small demonstrates how musicking forms a ritual through which all the participants explore and celebrate the relationships that constitute their social identity. This trip through the concert hall will have readers rethinking every aspect of their musical worlds.