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The Radio 3 Boards > The Radio 3 Boards > Classical Music on Radio 3 > Festival Hall v Barbican v RAH
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Author Topic: Festival Hall v Barbican v RAH  (Read 338 times)
Michael Burnett
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Posts: 12
« on: 14:53:49, 21-04-2007 »
Hullo.
I attended the Philharmonia concerts when the FH was first opened. I recall it as a huge area with superb fittings and those fantastic boxes. But that was through the eyes of a fourteen year old.
Then I didn't attend for the next fifty or so years. Well, last week I was shown around the renovations in progress.
How small. How forlorn. How ridiculous those boxes. I wonder. Why were not the whole cohoots demolished and a new hall built?
To drown my sorrows, I went to the Barbican (BBCSO and yes, recorded live concert for future broadcast
After my London visit I can see why the old RAH is held in such affection. It really is the only London concert hall of enduring stature but Manchester, New Castle and Cardiff have modern halls giving London a run for its money.
Poor old FH. What ravages the years have rent.
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Tam Pollard
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« Reply #1 on: 15:56:00, 21-04-2007 »
My complaint against the RAH is in its size - I went to a performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony there and I think the fact that it was too quiet was down either to the size of the hall or where I was sitting, either way, I was not much impressed. Conversely, the last time I went to the RFH, to hear Mackerras and the Philharmonia do Janacek's Glagolitic mass, I had no complaints about the sound. On disc/radio it's another matter and, all other things being equal, I prefer recordings made in the Albert Hall (but then when doing that you can cheat such issues as volume and balance).

Mind you, I'm curious what it will sound like when it reopens.

bws
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Michael Burnett
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Posts: 12
« Reply #2 on: 10:55:52, 22-04-2007 »
Interesting your comments re recording in RAH.
As a matter of interest I was accompanied by a very old friend, the same who accompanied me to the FH when I was fourteen, who became and still is at 74 a recording engineer now living in NY and who served his apprenticeship with W. Legge. So I value his experience.

I'm getting around in a convoluted way to saying he expressed the same opinion as yourself.

Good to hear from you again. I'm not quite used to these boards yet.
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marbleflugel
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« Reply #3 on: 12:19:25, 13-05-2007 »
I read on a blog yesterday that no journos are being allowed in to the test performances by the LPO et al, so glad you got a preview Michael. SBC in general appears to have gone into purdah pending the re-opening. I suspect
that people will put up with a bit of shunting around if the sound is significantly better. From a performance point of view it was very pin-drop unsympathetic which I think can lead to cautious renditions.
I've found that the gallery area in RAH, likewise ROH, gives the better aural balance. In the case of the latter its
a case of mountaineering to get there but the reward is a clear run at  a bar at half-time.
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'...A  celebrity  is someone  who didn't get the attention they needed as an adult'

Arnold Brown
Rcartes
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Posts: 6
« Reply #4 on: 17:12:28, 16-05-2007 »
I always liked the RFH, though musicians used to say it was completely dead from the performers' point of view, and I also like the Barbican - but my favourite has always been the RAH.

Not for the sound quality, which does tend to swallow smaller groups, but for the overall 'experience' (god, I'm sounding like a marketing consultant). I think that's something to do with the way seats are arranged in an oval - so you're always conscious of the other people there (in a nice way, not because of their fidgeting and coughing - but that's another subject altogether), and it adds to the sense of occasion, which was (is?) missing from the RFH , where you (mostly) face the same way.
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