Disney Hall in LA
Posted by: Wolf on 02 July 2003
Here's some interesting news on the new LA Philharmonic home due to open in October. bout my series tickets already and just waiting for the event. those who gave 5 mil were invited to the first trial concert last week, I however could not attend due to prior engagements. Ha!
The early results of a hall always are suspect. There are numerous factors that affect the sound, ranging from how musicians play to the fact that the materials have not yet settled. The concrete in the Disney won't be fully dry for two years. The Philharmonic bass players must learn not to force their sound the way they did in the Chandler. The players Monday also were rusty, having just returned from a four-week vacation.
Nor is the ear to be trusted right away. In new surroundings, everything can sound new and different as well, and the Disney's interior is intended to have a radically different acoustical effect from the Chandler's. Gehry's design, especially with the skewed organ pipes that look like French fries glued above the stage, is likely to produce a psycho-acoustical reaction in many a first-time listener.
But the sonic differences are real. Toyota is a specialist in the so-called vineyard-style auditorium, in which the audience is seated on different terraces surrounding the stage. In such halls, there can be a feeling of direct contact between musicians and listeners, but the enhanced sonic presence also can be discomfiting and even overwhelming.
From his experience in designing such halls in Tokyo and Sapporo, Japan, Toyota says that one thing he has discovered is that "the first sounds you hear are always the worst."
But neither the acoustician nor Salonen was guarded in his judgments Monday. One rule of acoustics is that it is easier to take away than supply. If the sound is too bright or too loud, one can tone things down by adding absorbing materials to the walls and behind the stage. But if the bass is missing, there is little that can be done.
Salonen said Monday that the hall's powerful bass resonance was the greatest birthday present he could have received. Hearing an orchestra with and without bass, he said, is like the difference between a color and a black-and-white picture.
He also was taken with how sensitive the hall was, allowing him to easily hear inner lines, such as a second clarinet part, often lost in the mix. During the private part of the rehearsal, Salonen said, the orchestra played a part of "Petrushka" that features a triangle, and the brilliance of it stopped everyone cold.
"No one could believe that all that sound was coming from a little triangle," he said.
Like musical instruments, concert halls require tuning by adjustments in how different frequencies are not only absorbed but also reflected. As far as the conductor is concerned, however, he now needs to do only some fine-tuning, and he said he was uncertain how much of that would be of the hall and how much of the orchestra.
"The Philharmonic still shows the weight of the Pavilion," he said, "and we must now learn to work in sync with the new hall rather than struggle against the old one as we used to." But he described that process as mostly intuitive.
The early results of a hall always are suspect. There are numerous factors that affect the sound, ranging from how musicians play to the fact that the materials have not yet settled. The concrete in the Disney won't be fully dry for two years. The Philharmonic bass players must learn not to force their sound the way they did in the Chandler. The players Monday also were rusty, having just returned from a four-week vacation.
Nor is the ear to be trusted right away. In new surroundings, everything can sound new and different as well, and the Disney's interior is intended to have a radically different acoustical effect from the Chandler's. Gehry's design, especially with the skewed organ pipes that look like French fries glued above the stage, is likely to produce a psycho-acoustical reaction in many a first-time listener.
But the sonic differences are real. Toyota is a specialist in the so-called vineyard-style auditorium, in which the audience is seated on different terraces surrounding the stage. In such halls, there can be a feeling of direct contact between musicians and listeners, but the enhanced sonic presence also can be discomfiting and even overwhelming.
From his experience in designing such halls in Tokyo and Sapporo, Japan, Toyota says that one thing he has discovered is that "the first sounds you hear are always the worst."
But neither the acoustician nor Salonen was guarded in his judgments Monday. One rule of acoustics is that it is easier to take away than supply. If the sound is too bright or too loud, one can tone things down by adding absorbing materials to the walls and behind the stage. But if the bass is missing, there is little that can be done.
Salonen said Monday that the hall's powerful bass resonance was the greatest birthday present he could have received. Hearing an orchestra with and without bass, he said, is like the difference between a color and a black-and-white picture.
He also was taken with how sensitive the hall was, allowing him to easily hear inner lines, such as a second clarinet part, often lost in the mix. During the private part of the rehearsal, Salonen said, the orchestra played a part of "Petrushka" that features a triangle, and the brilliance of it stopped everyone cold.
"No one could believe that all that sound was coming from a little triangle," he said.
Like musical instruments, concert halls require tuning by adjustments in how different frequencies are not only absorbed but also reflected. As far as the conductor is concerned, however, he now needs to do only some fine-tuning, and he said he was uncertain how much of that would be of the hall and how much of the orchestra.
"The Philharmonic still shows the weight of the Pavilion," he said, "and we must now learn to work in sync with the new hall rather than struggle against the old one as we used to." But he described that process as mostly intuitive.