The Magic of the Concert Hall

In another thread, the question was asked, 'what was the best concert you never went to'. In this thread I want to something more along the lines 'what was the best concert you ever went to', but a little more too.

I'll illustrate with an example. One of the best concerts I've ever been to was Daniel Harding conducting the Bremen Deutsche Khammerphilharmonie (there's a mouthful of a name). In the first place it was given at the Snape Maltings (the concert hall Britten built, or converted, near Aldeburgh) which for my money, especially for chamber orchestras, has one of the finest acoustics around. It was also Harding's penultimate performance with a music director (prior to a proms appearance). The first half contained some Rameau and the Sibelius violin concerto, neither of which blew me away. The second half was Beethoven's 7th symphony. Now, up until then, I didn't know the work particularly well and the performance had such energy it simply blew me away (I was on the edge of my seat the whole way through) and it is now one of my favourite works.

So far, so 'normal' - I went to a wonderful concert. The point is that in looking for CD recordings of the work I'm always hoping to recapture something of this magic and it never quite comes (even in the broadcast from the proms a few days later - but then I have never liked the RAH acoustic).

I could say the same thing about the Ring. While most accounts I have on disc musically outperform the wonderful Scottish Opera ring, the woodbird was transcendent and nothing on disc comes close to capturing that beauty.

I'm tempted to wonder if the beauty of these performances is in part down to the novelty of the music and that is something that will never entirely be recaptured (and that is certainly partly the case with Volkov/BBC Scottish and the 5th door of Bluebeard's castle).

Then again, not always. I was at concert of Mahler 3 at last year's Edinburgh festival given by Donald Runnicles (who is sadly vastly underrepresented on disc) and the BBC Scottish. I was doubly impressed because I think that 3 is one of the hardest Mahler works to do well but it was magical. So magical that the woman I was sat next to (who was among the most fidgety I have encountered) didn't bother me at all. The most wonderful moment came during the 3rd movement and the posthorn solo. I was in the dress circle, quite a way round (normally not ideal) and almost side on to the orchestra. The horn had been placed off stage outside the dress circle doors. In other words, the orchestra was on my right, the post horn on my left. The effect so gained was absolutely magical and, of course, totally impossible to replicate outside of the concert hall.

Fredrik in another thread mentions the joys of finding new things in concerts. I have touched on this. It is often the very thing of the programme I haven't gone for that moves me most. I was at a concert last year of Beethoven 1, the 5th concerto and Tippett's concerto for double string orchestra. Both bits of Beethoven were more than a little disappointing. I didn't know the Tippett at all I found it absolutely captivating, something I have never entirely captured on CD.

I suppose then, that the somewhat rambling point of this thread is to say how wonderful a thing concerts are, how the hi-fi will only ever be something of a poor substitute for the magic that the concert hall can at its best provide and to ask to what extent we can realistically hope to capture that magic in our living rooms.

regards, Tam