Page 237 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

The symphony orchestra reached its full glory in the late nineteenth century, developing into a colorful, powerful force of more than 100 players and one of the glories of Western culture. But to hear an orchestra, listeners then had to make a special trip to a large concert hall; computers, smartphones, and electronically amplified sounds were still far in the future. Today, of course, streaming of classical music is only a click away. But accessibility has come at a price; the recent revolution in digitally disseminated music has been accompanied by a general decline in the quality of sound. Listening to Beethoven or Wagner via compressed MP3 or M4A files gives only a vague approximation of the nineteenth-century original. Good headphones can help. But to experience a symphony orchestra at its best, as did listeners in the late Romantic era, we must journey to a large concert hall with great architecture, ambience, and acoustics.
Romantic Values and Today’s Concert Hall
The late Romantic era was a golden age for the construction of large concert halls, not only in Europe but also in the United States. Prior to 1850, the public concert hall was actually a multipurpose theater in which a concert of classi- cal music one night would be followed by
an opera the next, and then perhaps by a
circus or horse show. After 1850, however,
“music-only” auditoriums were built in Vi-
enna (Musikverein, 1870), New York (Carn-
egie Hall, 1891), and Boston (Symphony
Hall, 1900), which were and remain among
the best ever constructed, especially in
terms of their excellent acoustics. The new
Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles
(2003) and the Schermerhorn Symphony
Center in Nashville (2006) continue this tra-
dition. Indeed, the Schermerhorn Center
copies many of the architectural features of
Vienna’s nineteenth-century Musikverein
(compare Figure 1.5 with Figure 14.1). All of
these centers were built to be large concert halls, seating 1,800 to 2,800 listeners, devoted primarily to classical music.
Classical music in many ways is a conservative art. What today’s symphony- goer experiences does not differ much from what listeners of the late Romantic era experienced. The concert hall is about the same size (average 2,500), and the symphony orchestra that performs there includes about the same number of musicians (90 to 100 players at full strength). So, too, has the music on the program remained largely unchanged since the end of the nineteenth century.
Prior to 1800, almost all music was disposable music—popular music, in a sense. It was composed as entertainment for the moment and was then
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Figure 14.1
The Musikverein (Music Center) of Vienna, initiated by admir-
ers of Beethoven and often performed in by Brahms, who lived only a few doors away. It
set the standard throughout the Western world for a “music-only” sanctuary, a temple for classical music. And just as at religious services, people tended to dress up, not down, to hear the divine message.
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