The Wigmore Hall in London is a trully exceptional hall especially for piano an chamber recitals. I love it and I have to travel from Scotland. Shows how fond I am of it.
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My wife and I have enjoyed concerts in #1, #2 and #3 on the list from that article, and concur. We took a quick weekend trip to Boston, heard Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Boston Symphony Orchestra with the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto played at the concert. I have a really nice audio system at home, but it sure doesn't sound like "being there". |
The Kauffman Center has two wonderful sounding halls, especially Helzberg Hall, designed by Acoustician, Yasuhisa Toyota, from Nagoya Acoustics. https://www.kauffmancenter.org |
It should be no surprise to any fan of symphonic music that the "shoebox" design would have superior sonics. It’s been effective for hundreds of years. The newer concept designs listed in the article have not been reviewed yet. It’s widely recognized that the performances by the Berlin Philharmonic in the Jesus-Christus-Kirche, an old church, had superior sonics to the modern Philharmonie concert hall. Today’s acoustic engineers are hellbent on adding absorption, diffusion, and reflection panels decided by computer programs rather than trying the natural design and surfaces of the concert hall first. Granted, they have to deal with some crazy designs put forth by the architects. Here in Philadelphia we have one of the worst designs (acoustically) of any concert hall in the US. It has negative reviews for sonics in newspapers and trade publications, and when a proposal was asked for to overhaul the acoustic design by a top engineering firm, it was rejected by the new board of directors. It’s widely known that the musicians hate the acoustics because they can’t hear each other due to overdamping. |
