Royal Albert Hall - Love it? Loathe it?

[Mr Pee]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/michaelwhite/100070122/a-great-ring-playing-in-a-wretched-albert-hall/

Couldn't agree more about the Albert Hall. It's a barn, fine for tennis, but hopeless for classical music.

[Nick Armstrong]

Royal Albert Hall - Love it? Loathe it?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture...d-albert-hall/

Couldn't agree more about the Albert Hall. It's a barn, fine for tennis, but hopeless for classical music.

It can be ok for some things (Bruckner...), if you are lucky enough to be in the handful of decent spots pretty close in to the stage... But by and large I too agree.

I cycled down Portland Place this morning, and rounding the corner past Broadcasting House, shed a silent tear (as I always do) on seeing the dreadful post-war grey concrete block on the site of the Queen's Hall and wishing to goodness it had been possible to extinguish fully that incendiary bomb in the early hours of 11 May 1941*... then the Proms would have continued in that (by all accounts) glowing acoustic (and it would have been a damn sight easier to pop out for an interval pint in W1 than in SW7...)



* .....other buildings were hit just as indiscriminately, like the Queen’s Hall in Langham Place. Just a few hours earlier, the Hall had held 2,400 people listening in rapture to Malcolm Sargent conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Now, the only voices were those of Tom Clark, the electrician, and Bob Rhodes, a fireman permanently stationed in the 21,000 square foot of the Queen’s Hall. The pair had just swept the building for incendiaries and found nothing amiss. They put their feet in the caretaker’s room just inside the artists’ entrance in Riding House Street and filled the kettle with water. Suddenly they heard a heavy thud on the roof. They ran into the Hall and saw through the skylights sparks and flames coming from the side of one of the oval windows at the back centre of the ceiling, as though one of the workmen up there was ‘welding an acetylene lamp’. Rhodes thanked his good fortune. A 50-foot hose was positioned just at that spot, and with the help of Clark the incendiaries were quickly extinguished. Clark told Rhodes he could turn the water off, but before Rhodes had moved the hose went dry. ‘It’s turned itself off, Tom,’ said Rhodes. Then there was a hiss, a sudden tremendous explosion of energy and the flames were roaring from the incendiary once more. Clark hurtled into the caretaker’s room and phoned the fire service. They said they would be there as quickly as they could.

Half an hour later flames were threshing back and forth across the entire roof of the Queen’s Hall. When debris from the roof began to fall into the Hall there was still no sign of a fire engine; nor was there when the seats caught fire or when the blue-green paint started to wriggle down the walls. They hadn’t appeared when the gilded pipes of the towering organ cracked and toppled, nor when the flames writhed their way underneath the platform into the band room where the LPO's instruments were stored. Inside they destroyed without discretion, devouring Amatis and Guarneris and Stradivarius and cheap, worn instruments that lay beside them.

(The Longest Night: 10-11 May 1941, Voices from the London Blitz , Gavin Mortimer)

[MrGongGong]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture...d-albert-hall/

Couldn't agree more about the Albert Hall. It's a barn, fine for tennis, but hopeless for classical music.

You must have missed Cosmic Pulses a few years ago at the proms
tremendous stuff IMV

(or is that not what you mean ? )

[Don Petter]

It was Ted Ray, as I recall, in an edition of 'Does the Team Think?' who suggested concreting round the inside and using it for a 'Wall of Death'.

[MrGongGong]

It was Ted Ray, as I recall, in an edition of 'Does the Team Think?' who suggested concreting round the inside and using it for a 'Wall of Death'.

Jelly Mould
I was seriously thinking of going into business a few years ago and getting some made
I remember a childrens book ?? where the Albert Hall is used to make a giant jelly

[Mary Chambers]

Jelly Mould
I was seriously thinking of going into business a few years ago and getting some made
I remember a childrens book ?? where the Albert Hall is used to make a giant jelly

Oh yes, The Great Jelly of London, I think it was. I used to read it to my children, but I can't remember much about it now.

I've sung in the RAH a few times, and the view of the hall from the choir is wonderful, but the acoustic feels awful, and I have never been so hot in my life. This was some years ago, though, and it may have improved a bit since then.

[salymap]

And the last work to be played in the Queen's Hall was The Dream of Gerontius, the LPO left their instruments for another concert next day. Apparently other musicians rallied round to help them. From

Queen's Hall,a very good book by Robert Elkin

But Ilove the RAH,while recognising its' faults. I knew no other London hall until the RFH was built in 1951 for the Festivalof Britain.

When I first visited the RAH in 1947 the echo was staggering, in the early morning there was a smell of gas from the gas lighting and it was freezing in winter. However, I have wonderful memories of the old place.

[Hornspieler]

From a player's point of view, it's about as bad as it's possible to be.

Stifling.
Difficult to hear clearly.
Over resonant (nobody likes their mistakes played back to them)
Ugly Victorian architecture and decoration.

But then the Barbican is not ideal, the RHF has never been acoustically satisfactory and the Fairfield Hall sounds "thin" in places.

For me, the best concert venue in London is Watford Town Hall, closely followed by Walthamstow* Town Hall.

* A favourite venue for the recording companies and they should know what gives them the best results.

HS

I forgot to mention: Draughty in winter. Dusty in summer (bad for the lungs and the state of one's glad rags)

[amateur51]

It has its major drawbacks as others have noted but it is a grand place for Mahler symphony no 8 (Sir Colin Davis); Mahler symphony no 7 (Sinopoli); Schoenberg Gurrelieder (Andrew Davis); Messiaen Turangalila; Messiaen Aux Canyons des Etoiles (was it Rattle or Myun-Whun Chung?); Wagner Ring cycle (ROHO/Haitink) etc

[VodkaDilc]

I'm firmly in the "love it" camp. Unique atmosphere in a stunning setting. I agree with The Telegraph writer about the tacky things the BBC does in with the decor though.

(I've never seen queues for toilets - perhaps it's just for the ladies. Queues to have your ticket zapped when getting fresh air in the interval are my main complaint.)

[MrGongGong]

From a player's point of view, it's about as bad as it's possible to be.

Every time I do things there I never seem to have enough space for the numbers of instruments etc ?
which is odd as its a huge barn of a place
I do like the way you can drive your car underneath and push everything onto a lift
and there's a free wifi on stage so you can browse the internet in long rests

(must remember to turn Skype off when doing gigs though !!)

[teamsaint]

One up side is that lots of people can see the concerts.

[Ferretfancy]

It's wonderful for Bruckner, Shostakovich, Mahler etc. but it can also be surprisingly intimate. Some of the late Proms have been beautifully transparent from the Arena with a great link between small groups of performers and the standing audience close to them.Other venues do not offer that.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've sung in the RAH a few times, and the view of the hall from the choir is wonderful, but the acoustic feels awful, and I have never been so hot in my life. This was some years ago, though, and it may have improved a bit since then.

My experience, too, Mary - five events between 1986 - 92. But as a member of the audience, there have been so many wonderful concerts there that the place is indelibly stamped with a glow of affection in my memory.

[Prommer]

Er, The Gothic anyone? I can't really imagine that anywhere OTHER than at the RAH!