The Concert Hall and the Orchestra
Our experience of institutions depends to a surprising degree on their manifestations in the built environment. Winston Churchill no less stated, in reference the old Chamber of the House of Commons, that ‘we shape our buildings and afterward our buildings shape us.’ The Symphony Orchestra and its concert hall are no exception to this rule. The nineteenth-century hall is often regarded as a temple to the concentrated listening that symphonic music requires: no talking to your neighbour and no dancing in the aisles.
The relationship between music and its buildings, and concert halls in particular, is the focus of my research. Through this my work contributes to the MCICM research line ‘Orchestrating social relevance’, which looks at the ways in which orchestra are seeking to engage new audiences and become integrated and meaningful parts of people’s lives. Concert halls are regularly recruited to this cause, with many promises made as to their effectiveness in bringing music to more diverse populations and impacting on communities. Whether current concert buildings are effective in these endeavours is a question that is all too often set aside.This can be seen in my main case study, which looks at attempts to build a new concert hall in Edinburgh, Scotland. To get off the ground this project faced many obstacles: financial, political, economic and social. To overcome these, it required a coalition of support from arts organisations, national and local government, and private money (philanthropist Carol Grigor has pledged at least £35 million). These groups attempt to control the discussion around new halls, advocating for their projects to persuade others of their value rather than soberly considering the impacts of new buildings. As in the nineteenth century, concert hall building remains a process rather distant from democratic debate or any kind of rational decision-making based on most needed. Instead, it is far more about where such coalitions of support successful in gaining support.
What is particularly exciting about the research is considering the potential for buildings to shape new musical experiences. The concert hall has seen only subtle innovation in its ca. 300-year history but there is potential to create radically different buildings and auditoria for the new ways in which people relate to music. There are many areas for exploration: increased flexibility in arrangement, with no stage separating audience and musician; the integration of technologically-assisted acoustics, which can make a small hall sound larger; and the position of halls within the city (whether they are central ‘temples’ of culture or serve smaller, more local communities). With each new hall that is built another chapter is added to the story of the relationship between music and buildings, which can tell us startling truths about our musical culture.
Neil Thomas Smith, postdoc researcher at MCICM
This article was first published in Dutch in deKlank from philharmonie zuidnederland.
Photo by David Iliff