25/9/14 - BBC SSO Shostakovich 10

[gedsmk]

Think about it, flosshilde: Radio 3 has live relays most nights. They're juggling, probably, many possibilities and quite possibly, for one reason or another, it suited them better to take the Glasgow concert live on the Thursday night because there was something else they wanted to braodcast live on the Friday. Also, there may well be added costs in the hire of digital phone circuits to Broadcasting House from the the Usher Hall (for a live relay) whereas, as you say, those facilities will be built in to Glasgow City Hall.

As far as I can recall, my recent visits to Glasgow City Halls gave me the impression that the refit of a number of years ago took away something of the atmosphere of the space and turned it into a recording venue of much greater clarity and immediacy and rather less warmth. As for Edinburgh, relays from Usher Hall have been hit or miss in recent years.

[RobertLeDiable]

As far as I can recall, my recent visits to Glasgow City Halls gave me the impression that the refit of a number of years ago took away something of the atmosphere of the space and turned it into a recording venue of much greater clarity and immediacy and rather less warmth. As for Edinburgh, relays from Usher Hall have been hit or miss in recent years.

No - you remember wrongly. Before the rebuild the acoustic was good but weak in the bass, and too constricted for bigger orchestral pieces. Since the height of the space was increased that problem has been more or less solved. And also there's more bass in the sound - you can hear the cellos much better than used to be the case. Also, when full, the sound dried up a lot - it has a warmer resonance now. Apart from all that, the 'old' hall was very dowdy, the downstairs walls covered with a horrible municipal sort of formica and the stage far too small and too high. The lighting was anything but atmospheric. It wasn't a pleasant place to attend a concert, apart from the good(ish) acoustic.