Is the New York Philharmonic’s Swanky New Space Falling Short?
Sixty years ago, Leonard Bernstein presided over the inauguration of Philharmonic Hall, the chief concert venue at Lincoln Center. The event was broadcast live on network television, with an estimated twenty-six million people tuning in. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy headed a procession of distinguished attendees, who exclaimed over the white-columned monumentality of the façade and the blue-and-gold opulence of the interior. Bernstein led the New York Philharmonic in a program that included the Gloria from Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, the first part of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, and—less celebratory in mood—Aaron Copland’s concussively dissonant “Connotations.” Mrs. Kennedy, greeting the composer afterward, was at a loss for words. “Oh, Mr. Copland,” she said. “Oh, Mr. Copland.” When she was asked about the acoustical achievement, she replied, ambiguously, “I never saw anything like it.”
In fact, the acoustics were a failure, as Bernstein recognized. A document in the Philharmonic archives summarizes his reactions: “Mr. Bernstein said that as he listens in the auditorium the hall has an uninteresting sound except for the horns and clarinets. At no time does he feel that he is surrounded by music. He said that the general effect is like hearing music written on a blackboard—a tableau effect. He said that there is no presence or warmth.” Treble frequencies were too dominant; the cellos were often inaudible; the horns lorded over all.
Thus began a long twilight struggle to fix the problem: an overhaul in 1963, further adjustments during the following decade, a gut renovation in 1976, yet more changes in 1992. Philharmonic Hall became Avery Fisher Hall, then David Geffen Hall. The acoustics eventually rose to the level of the decent, but the sound remained boxy, lacking in resonance. The décor, meanwhile, had devolved into beige boredom. Drastic measures were proposed, including a teardown; teams of architects came and went. Finally, in 2019, a more limited but still ambitious renovation got under way—a collaboration between the architectural firm Diamond Schmitt and the design team of Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. The construction was accelerated during the pandemic, and the hall reopened in early October. Advance publicity promised that the curse had finally been lifted and that the Philharmonic had acquired a world-class venue worthy of its history and reputation.
Certainly, the place looks better. The old hall, with its overextended filing-drawer shape, was a dispiriting place to hear music. The orchestra always seemed farther away than it really was—as if seen through the wrong end of a telescope, Bernstein commented. Now the stage has been moved forward and a bank of seats has been installed behind the musicians. The main floor has been more steeply raked, allowing for better sight lines. Balconies curve around the auditorium and are tapered into aerodynamic forms. Beechwood panelling is molded in rippling patterns. Rose-petal fabric covers the seats, and blue tones appear high on the walls. Anyone who has visited Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall, in Los Angeles, will experience several pangs of déjà vu.
The public spaces at Geffen have been deepened and aired out. Picking up your ticket or exiting on the escalators is no longer an exercise in boarding-gate chaos. Couches and tables in the lower lobby encourage passersby to linger. The over-all visual aesthetic is a swanky jumble of brightly striped upholstery, patterned carpeting, midnight-blue walls, silver- and gold-hued partitions, bronze railings, and frosted-glass parapets. It’s a little too kitschy-cool for comfort: I felt as though I were checking into a W Hotel in the Emirates. The décor will date rapidly—I predict a re-renovation before the decade is out—but for the moment it has an awkward, eager-to-please charm. There’s an auxiliary performance venue, the Sidewalk Studio, with big windows overlooking Broadway. It has a crisp sound, as a noontime chamber concert attested.
The acoustics of the main hall were overseen by Paul Scarbrough and Christopher Blair, of the firm Akustiks. My initial impressions, after three performances, were mixed. The sound is bright and clean, with excellent separation of instrumental voices. When smaller groups within the orchestra are playing at lower volumes, their timbres float and bloom. When the entire ensemble kicks in, though, the sonic picture seems to flatten out and lose lustre. Treble overwhelms bass, and the brass squelch the strings. The music remains stuck in front of you instead of rushing around you. I had the sense that I was listening to a world-class stereo system in a dry room. Such, at least, was my experience in the orchestra seats. When I moved to the back row of the uppermost balcony, the balance was better, the bass fuller, the ensemble richer and more rounded. (Bernstein, in his 1962 notes, made a similar observation about the upper-balcony perspective.)
I thought back to the opening of Disney, in 2003. The L.A. Philharmonic, which had long played in the cavernous Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, generated an almost ear-splitting overload in “The Rite of Spring.” In subsequent years, it learned to handle Disney’s uncommon responsiveness. The New York Philharmonic, likewise, will tailor its sound to its new room, and the Akustiks team is making adjustments. Still, I can’t help feeling that Geffen has fallen short of its apparent model. This became clear when, the other day, I heard the L.A. Phil again on its home ground. At the booming climaxes of Copland’s Third Symphony, I sensed the bass coming up through my feet—a sign that the entire hall was resonating with the music. Nothing of the sort had happened at Geffen.
The Philharmonic’s official opening concert, on October 12th, began with a world première: “Oyá,” a high-tech tone poem by the Brazilian American composer Marcos Balter. Oyá is a Yoruba warrior spirit, and her powers were summoned in hard-edged explosions of electronics and in a psychedelic light display. The work was disjointed in structure but arresting in impact—shades of the apocalyptic assault of Copland’s “Connotations.” The remainder of the program—John Adams’s “My Father Knew Charles Ives,” Tania León’s “Stride,” and Ottorino Respighi’s “Pines of Rome”—showed off various facets of orchestral brilliance. Jaap van Zweden, the Philharmonic’s music director, led briskly and without much insight, as is his wont.
The opening festivities also included the première of Etienne Charles’s multimedia piece “San Juan Hill,” a co-production of Lincoln Center’s programming department and the Philharmonic. San Juan Hill was the Puerto Rican and Black neighborhood that Robert Moses obliterated to make room for Lincoln Center. The Philharmonic joined Charles’s Afro-Caribbean jazz combo, Creole Soul, in a haunting evocation of that lost community, with film segments and recorded interviews supplying a live-documentary texture. As I listened, though, I registered an uncomfortable irony. Emblazoned on the walls of the auditorium were the words “Wu Tsai Theater,” honoring a donation by Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai. Joe Tsai is the co-founder and executive vice-chairman of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which plays a crucial role in China’s draconian regime of surveillance. Perhaps a future event at Geffen could celebrate the Uyghur people, who are being forced into concentration camps in Xinjiang.
Whatever broader agenda Lincoln Center pursues—its new leadership is tending away from traditional classical fare—Geffen Hall ultimately has no purpose for existence except as an arena for orchestral playing. The Philharmonic, under the executive guidance of Deborah Borda, has lately made strides toward modernizing and diversifying its image. What it needs now is an energetic, creative music director; van Zweden, who is scheduled to depart in the spring of 2024, has accomplished little of note. When programs excite the mind and performances seize the heart, questions of acoustics and décor recede into the background. ♦
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October 24, 2022 at 05:00PM
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Is the New York Philharmonic’s Swanky New Space Falling Short? - The New Yorker
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