Simon Rattle and the new London concert hall...

[Nick Armstrong]

Totally with you about the RFH.

Funnily enough, at a rough glance at the map, a New Queen's Hall in Langham Place would be about the same distance from the RFH as the Barbican is, so duplication arguments don't work (assuming one takes the latter out of the equation).

[Zucchini]

If a new hall is going to cost of the order £200 million maybe it would be better used to create an endowment fund to generate income sufficient to provide £1 million pa income for the country's symphony orchestras (and other performing groups) and make them financially secure.

ACE isn't doing it. Neither are local authorities. The provision of extra concert seating in London is putting the cart before the horse until the basics are in place - that all UK orchestras can appoint the very finest players on improved contract terms, and the greatest and emerging soloists can be engaged with financial confidence.

[MrGongGong]

Anyway, I like the RFH , and where it is.
all they really need to do is retune the organ .

I can assure you that it is perfectly in tune

[muzzer]

This is going to be very interesting to watch as it plays out, imho. Can London really support a brand new classical or multi-arts venue, unless in somewhere like Olympic Park?? Without massive public subsidy? Is there the political will to be tapped, even by a figure as big as Rattle.....? Any major upgrade - even if possible - to the Barbican would mean closing it for a while, surely? Is that really going to happen and be done in the next 3 years? I've just bought tickets for next June, so it couldn't close before then.....The RFH has only really recently recovered from its last makeover - is there some suggestion the LSO would relocate there for/with Sir SR? If the nation doesn't in some way do its best to make him feel wanted, what is going to happen..? ;) Shall we open a book on it......?

[Ferretfancy]

I can assure you that it is perfectly in tune

Experiences at the Royal Festival Hall are so variable where sound is concerned, even after the massive upgrade of a few years back. Last week I had a very nice front stalls seat for the Salonen / Philharmonia concert, and was struck by how much warmer the bass sounds at that location. Normally I'm further away ( and cheaper! ) and the bass simply bleeds away. In fact, it's possible to move just a couple of rows and the sound is quite different.

Considering that they replaced the entire floor of the stalls, removing and replacing six inches of concrete, not to mention raising the roof level, I can't help wondering why the improvement have been so modest, considering the millions spent on it.

Enough said. I still love the RFH, and have done since 1952,

[Alison]

If you can put up with the change of perspective I still think an orchestra sounds more exciting in the RFH choir seats than anywhere else in my experience!

The Barbican is regularly disappointing acoustically though a few recordings and broadcasts don't sound so bad.

[MrGongGong]

Experiences at the Royal Festival Hall are so variable where sound is concerned, even after the massive upgrade of a few years back. Last week I had a very nice front stalls seat for the Salonen / Philharmonia concert, and was struck by how much warmer the bass sounds at that location. Normally I'm further away ( and cheaper! ) and the bass simply bleeds away. In fact, it's possible to move just a couple of rows and the sound is quite different.

Considering that they replaced the entire floor of the stalls, removing and replacing six inches of concrete, not to mention raising the roof level, I can't help wondering why the improvement have been so modest, considering the millions spent on it.

Enough said. I still love the RFH, and have done since 1952,

Having had the privilege of being allowed to walk about the RFH while people are playing on stage both before and after the acoustic revamp, I would say that the sound now is much more even. Before the refurbishment if one walked up the stalls towards the back while someone played on stage the volume would drop off massively when you got under the balcony, it still does BUT not to anything like the same extent.
There were some interesting things about this in the acoustics report that I was shown by a colleague (who could understand the maths).

The acoustic testing sessions were also very interesting.

[Nick Armstrong]

Oh and if they rebuild the Queen's Hall, can the Proms please move back there?

[LHC]

There have been suggestions lately that Rattle will take on the LSO provided some sort of deal is worked out to build a new concert hall. There's a nice historical irony here.
When the Barbican was being designed, the LSO were very keen to secure a permanent residency there. They even formed the LSO Club in order to demonstrate to the City of London that they had a large support base. However,they did not show much interest in helping to plan the building when they could have done so, it seems that they preferred to stand back and let others do the job.
Thus we now have an unsatisfactory concert hall with indifferent acoustics and no room on the platform for a large chorus, and no organ. I can only hope that the LSO remembers its past mistakes if it has a part to play in building a new hall in future.

I thought the LSO specified a classically shaped concert hall (ie like the Concertgebouw, Musikverien etc) and said specifically that it shouldn't be wider than it was long. However, the Barbican Hall was designed to fulfil a multitude of functions, including conferences etc and the LSO were just one of many users whose views had to be considered. In the end their wishes lost out against the extra revenue to be gained from other uses. They were very disappointed when they were presented with the final designs and the Hall had every design feature they had advised against.

[Flosshilde]

Perhaps those disatisfied with the quality of London concert halls should visit the City Halls in Glasgow - Sir Charles Mackerras thought that it was "a pleasure to make recordings in this Hall! Not only are the acoustics marvellous for concerts but they are particularly good for recording." and Michael Tumelty, music critic for The Herald, said that "the new City Hall has proved an acoustic winner. I’ve now lost count of critical colleagues from London papers who have been gaga at the quality of sound in the place.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Having had the privilege of being allowed to walk about the RFH while people are playing on stage both before and after the acoustic revamp, I would say that the sound now is much more even. Before the refurbishment if one walked up the stalls towards the back while someone played on stage the volume would drop off massively when you got under the balcony, it still does BUT not to anything like the same extent.
There were some interesting things about this in the acoustics report that I was shown by a colleague (who could understand the maths).

The acoustic testing sessions were also very interesting.

Wasn't there permanent electronic enhancement in the RFH, installed in the 1950s?

[Tony Halstead]

Does anybody on these boards - apart from me - read Norman Lebrecht's 'Slipped Disc' daily blog?
Here are a couple of interesting observations about Sir Simon, posted in the last 24 hours:

ROBERT KENCHINGTON SAYS:
February 15, 2015 at 5:46 pm
I agree with Norman’s description of Rattle’s media blitz on Britain: last night’s BBC2 Documentary, ‘The Making of a Maestro’, was nothing but a free advert for the conductor with every single interviewee trying desperately to outdo each other in their limitless praise for him. This combined with the tone of relentless reverence of James Naughtie’s narration made you think Rattle was the greatest musician who had ever walked the earth…a man devoid of all failure, of any character flaw whatsoever. I have never seen a television programme that has so deified a musician in this way – no, not even the various documentaries about Karajan or even the martyred tributes to Jacqueline du Pre. This was shameless, highly subjective and grossly biased publicity for Simon Rattle, neatly timed to coincide with his London concerts with the BPO.
I mean, what is it about the man that is so special? At 60 he conducts technically in exactly the same way as when he was 16 – which is to say no technique at all, his tentative, inarticulate rehearsal methods offer no insight into actual interpretation and his actual performances are bland, cosy love-ins where the orchestra does its own thing completely divorced from what is happening on the podium – which in my opinion, is practically nothing.
I’m not saying Rattle is an actual charlatan and his enthusiasm and capacity for hard work is not in doubt but having attended many of his concerts with various orchestras down the years as well as having heard many of his recordings, I have failed every time to be convinced that he is the ‘great maestro’ the BBC would have us believe. He’s a thoroughly nice guy and may well, in his own words, reach his potential at 65 (But nice guys are not the stuff of which great conductors are made). But the relentless idolatry of last night’s documentary would make you think that he is the only conductor that ever existed.
What’s worse of course, is that if anyone dares to offer a balanced criticism of Rattle’s work, it’s tantamount to heresy. And I have no doubt my posting will elicit a storm of aggrieved harrumphing by Rattle’s many admirers, who are deaf to the fact that he is one of the most overrated conductors in the history of the profession. Well, grumble away but I would prefer to see a more accurate representation of Rattle’s life and work devoid of the brainless iconography contained in last night’s documentary.



PETER PHILLIPS SAYS:
February 15, 2015 at 7:26 pm
This post reflects what we thought when we watched the programme last night – a piece of commercialised hagiography, just this side of idolatry. My wife wondered whether Rattle was about to be beatified. It must be said that he has been remarkably loyal and attentive to his two orchestras, unlike some conductors who jump from one band to the next before they’re rumbled, sometimes holding multiple posts, unable to do anything meaningful in any of them. In that respect at least, Rattle is in the honourable mould of Barbirolli and Gibson (remember him?) What particularly irks me is that the pre-Rattle CBSO is portrayed as a basket case band. We lived in Birmingham in the 1970s and well remember the excitement which was generated by the concerts and recordings with Louis Fremaux and the CBSO. Whatever the circumstances of his leaving the orchestra, the groundwork for further development was laid by Fremaux, as extant recordings demonstrate. I recall their performance of a Tchaikovsky symphony a couple of weeks after the Leningrad Phill had played one at the Town Hall; many, admittedly partisan audience members felt that the CBSO performance was tauter and better played. It does not, or should not, belittle Rattle’s real achievements in Birmingham to acknowledge the valuable work of his predecessor, Louis Fremaux, a fine musician and, incidentally, an exceptionally brave man.
- See more at: http://slippedisc.com/2015/02/the-ra....TMwYLiWP.dpuf

[pastoralguy]

I'm sorry, but who are Robert Kenchington and Peter Phillips?

[Zucchini]

Before the refurbishment if one walked up the stalls towards the back while someone played on stage the volume would drop off massively when you got under the balcony, it still does BUT not to anything like the same extent.. The acoustic testing sessions were also very interesting.

THSH (Performances Birmingham Ltd) produced a very fine booklet about Symphony Hall entitled "Hearing is Believing" which explains all manner of detail as well as the overall conception. The pages on the influence of shape on acoustics and the great reverberation chamber are fascinating. If of interest and if you ask nicely and copies are still available, the offer to pay postage (essential) or bung them a fiver might get you one. Or try Marketing at the CBSO...

[jayne lee wilson]

Those slipped disc posters need to get out more - or maybe stay in more: when did you ever see a documentary about a musician, especially a living one, that WASN'T a hagiography? Nature of the TV beast, I'm afraid. I recall watching one about Quincy Jones, thinking, "I wish someone, just ONE person, PLEASE, would say how much they hated him".

It would have made him more likeable to say the least..

So, The Rattle film? Not very good, on any level, no. So? What did they expect?
Oh, I would love to hear scurrilous tales of the Three Wives of Sir Simon Rattle, but it doesn't seem in the offing just yet...
And if they don't rate his CBSO recordings much (the bloggers, not the wives), they can't have listened to them much, either...(except to confirm their prejudices, of course).