History of Classical Concert Halls

Construction of the Concert Hall
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History of Classical Concert Halls
The Western world is currently enjoying one of the best classical concert halls. Even though some concert halls were made in the 21st century, some have employed a concept of previous centuries. To understand the current classical concert halls successfully, it would be critical to understand the history of the previous halls, the improvements made to them, and the concepts that the current classical concert halls have borrowed from the previous halls.
Western World history consists of an outstanding connection between music development, musical ensembles, and the spaces where the music will be performed. A perfect example of this development is the connection between Byzantine and Early Christian religious practices. The socially and politically unstable medieval times prompted the church to be a primary vestige to continue advancing in the creative arts and scholarly knowledge. This process made the sacred music based on the church liturgy more prominent during this period. Most of this music embraced a chant that monks and clergy performed during certain parts of the Mass.[Peno, Vesna, and Zdravko Peno. "Byzantine church music between tradition and innovation." Journal of ISOCM 3 (2018): 248-252.]
These chants' slow-moving and monophonic nature highly depended on the church's architecture during this period. For instance, the largest part of the church was constructed using stone and was possessed extraordinarily by the long reverberation times. The reverberation was too much, making the audience struggle with the speech. The monastic choir also used the chant to show the text of the Mass in such a way that it improvised on the effect of spiritual and ethereal sounds, which resounded in the larger spaces.
Throughout different ages, it was evident that the composer, performers, and conductors understood a link between music and architecture. The following understanding made the rise of the orchestra and the Baroque period. Most wealthy mobility employed composers and musicians as private servants during this period. This factor made the performances exclusively performed in private and courtly circles such as salons, ballrooms, halls, or drawing rooms. The performing music ensembles were small due to the intimate nature of the following rooms. Later the composers moved from composing music that employed the combination of instruments that was composed of woodwind, strung, and brass instruments.
During this period, the Baroque and classical periods the place-bound composers. The two reasons that prompted this were the boundaries of the church or courtly employment situations and the risks and inadequacies among the available transit. The following composers were, therefore, more familiar with the limitations and their ability regarding the performing forces and the acoustic rooms in which they were playing this music. This understanding made researchers like Berlioz and Dart investigate the relationship between instrumentation size, early orchestral Baroque music, and the acoustic room nature hosting this performance.
The 18th century started to mark the beginning of another era. For example, similar to when there were instrumental improvements, public concerts replaced the fading private performances and courts of musicians. The first public concert occurred in 1672 in London, where John Banister, a violinist, advertised and charged admission for his performances each day at four o’clock afternoon. This transformation made most of England's music rooms have taverns common features, advertising the concerts to attain a popular attraction. Despite the country's outstanding benefit through this measure, other countries such as Germany and France did not employ this process until 1722 and 1725, respectively. This period marked a new beginning since the countries started to create public concerts. By the mid-century, these public concerts had already been established as the dominant purveyor of the musical arts.[Harbor, Catherine. "‘At the desire of several persons of quality and lovers of Musick’: pervasive and persuasive advertising for public commercial concerts in London 1672–1749." Journal of Marketing Management 33, no. 13-14 (2017): 1170-1203.]
The increased popularity of public concerts caused concerts strictly for the nobility to start dying out. For example, by the late 1700s, the previous royal patronage of musicians was greatly extinguished. Moreover, since the orchestra's audience and players increased, the halls' architecture was supposed to employ new features. For example, the England construction of Hicksford's Rooms in 1738 and the Holywell Music Room in 1748 improved the sitting capacity to 300 people. Moreover, the Holewelly Music room increased the reverberation time to 1.5 seconds. The following changes created room for other changes in the future. For example, there was improved sitting capacity and longer reverberation times. For example, there was the construction of Hannover Square rooms in London in 1775 which had a sitting capacity of 800 people and reverberation of approximately 1 second. Later in 1781, Leipzig Altes Gewandhaus was constructed, with a sitting capacity of 400 people and a reverberation time of 1.3 seconds.[Herr, Christopher R., and Gary W. Siebein. "An Acoustical History of Theaters and Concert Halls."]
The transformations that occurred in the 19th century also played a huge role in creating classical concert halls. For instance, as the audiences' halls and orchestras grew, the orchestras adapted new works and created new styles that would fit the following time. For example, the large halls were created to have longer reverberation times. The larger orchestras also meant that the individuals would have varied instrumentation, which would likely offer them several arrays of sound combinations at the time of disposal of the composer. When the following factors were combined, they created a long-held focus on the contemporary music movements and contrapuntal music in other creative arts, which made the stage for Romantic period composers to start embracing expressionism and tone color as the primary compositional tools. One of the outstanding features of the tone color was that it was mainly based on the art of orchestration, which was having a purposeful combination of different instruments that helped set up specific effects. This process was highly reliant on the contemporary concert halls' reverberant acoustic since, without a "live" sound, the instruments would fail to have a ring and blend, which could make the tone color have a convincing effect.
This period also made the concert halls more specific, where they started to meet the musical establishment goals and the space requirements of the larger orchestra and the audience. For instance, by 1879, Vienna Grosser Musikvereinssaal was constructed, with a reverberation time of 2.2 seconds and a seating capacity of 1680 people. New York's Carnegie Hall was also created, with a sitting capacity of 2760 people and 1.7 seconds of reverberation time.
Different compositions took advantage of the new developments. For example, Wegner had a clear sonic conception regarding his compositions and conceptions. Therefore, he employed orchestral tone color and effect manipulation, which helped him attain outstanding results in his career. Similarly, Bayreuth Festspielhaus also employed this development. For example, as an opera house, he designed the concert hall to play from a deep pit just before the stage. The following pit was combined with the house, which helped only to perform the artistic needs since it was set in such a way that it was reverberant to blend the expressive tonal colors.
The 20th century also greatly impacted the development of classical concert halls. One of the main reasons which caused this transformation was the new technical basis regarding the acoustic behavior of the rooms, which helped different designers and architects to employ their findings in the new buildings instead of depending on past empirical successes. Even though this new freedom permitted fresh ideas to flourish in the whole century, it also suffered from a series of failures. One of the most famous failures was the one that occurred in Avery Fisher Hall in New York. These mistakes also helped them have new knowledge, which helped them successfully attain the design goals intended for them.[Lipman, Samuel. "Music: Musical New York in Crisis." Commentary 76, no. 4 (1983): 61.]
In addition to the freedom of the new science, other factors caused the popular ideas regarding the acoustical features which the hall was supposed to have caused the improvement of these concert halls. For instance, during this period, the Romantic composers looked forward to long reverberation times to incorporate their extensive use of tone color effects and lavish compositions at the 20th-century dawn. This instance prompted composers like Schonberg and Igor Stravinsky to write music more dependent on rhythm and tone distinctness as compositional devices. The following works were best suited in the halls, with a lower reverberation time of around 1.5 seconds than the Romantic composers favored.
In the late 20th and 21st centuries, most people started paying attention to the concert hall's design and the sound produced by the auditorium. In this instance, the architects should be more careful since they knew that the sound produced from the stage would likely affect the overall acoustic quality. This process made them concentrate on various architectural conditions such as the finish, interior design, and the material used. Furthermore, since individuals were more concerned about comfort and view, the current classical concert halls have been created to have comfortable seats. The concert halls are created so the audience can easily see the auditorium.
Construction of Concert Halls and Recital Halls
Over the years, there has been an improvement in the construction of the concert and recital halls. One feature in the construction that most people have employed is the shape of these concert halls. In most instances, the shape and size of the room depended highly on the purpose the room intended to perform. For instance, these features were crucial in determining the sound quality. For instance, some concert hall rooms, such as the H Art Hall, were designed as a 'Shoe-Box' type. The main reason was that this type was outstanding since it offered reverberations that would serve better for the concert hall due to the reflection of sound in parallel sidewalls. On the other hand, if it was created as a sound refraction on the sidewall, it is likely to be poor due to the long distance between the stage and the ...