London Times On Concert Hall Mess In New York

[lennygoran]

London must learn from the concert hall mess made in New York

It’s all gone pear-shaped in New York. Last week the city’s biggest arts complex, Lincoln Center, announced that it was ditching a project, planned for 13 years, to gut its main concert hall, home of the New York Philharmonic, and build a new auditorium within the shell of the old building.

The escalating cost (half a billion dollars at the last estimate) was only half the reason for pulling the plug. There was also the dawning realisation that the project would make the NY Phil homeless for three years, at a time when its finances are precarious and its subscriber base shrinking.

So this humiliating volte-face was inevitable. Even so, it must be galling for Deborah Borda. Only seven months ago this legendary orchestral manager was lured back to New York from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where she had overseen the building of the stunning Walt Disney hall. Now she finds herself running a second-tier orchestra with a third-rank conductor (the forgettable Jaap van Zweden) in a fifth-rate venue.

The new plan is to try to improve the dead acoustics, dated appearance and impersonal ambience of the 1960s hall by “incremental” steps. As Londoners will recall, however, from the ill-fated attempt ten years ago to conjure up a similar miracle cure for the Royal Festival Hall, that’s a chronically expensive way of generating mass disappointment. The only solution to badly shaped, barn-sized postwar concert halls is dynamite.

Unfortunately there’s an added complication in New York. Money. No, not the hundreds of millions still to be raised for the hall’s redevelopment, but the $100 million already pledged by David Geffen, the film and music mogul — in return for which the hall was named after him. Geffen said last week that he is “happy” with the abrupt change of plan, adding: “I know they will do something great.”

That sounds suspiciously magnanimous for a man who has forked out $100 million for a project that has been dumped. It transpires, however, that so far Geffen has handed over only $15 million. The rest was to follow in instalments as the rebuilding project hit certain targets, which of course it now won’t. So will the centre still get the full $100 million from Geffen, who has meanwhile pledged hundreds of millions to other cultural projects?

If not, will the hall be “de-named”? And where’s the rest of the money to improve the place going to come from? In an interview this week Geffen castigated other ultra-rich New Yorkers for not following his lead and backing the project — but if you were a Fifth Avenue billionaire, why would you bankroll a scheme that has another’s name on it?

There’s a British angle to all this, and I don’t just mean the spectacle of the ubiquitous Thomas Heatherwick (who was masterminding the hall’s redesign) losing another high-profile assignment so soon after the brutal crushing of his London Garden Bridge dream. This week the Barbican and London Symphony Orchestra announced the architect for London’s proposed new concert hall. Their choice is ironic and perhaps risky, given the coincidence of timing. It’s an American company, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which has also been closely involved in transforming the concrete brutalism of Lincoln Center.

Unlike the abandoned Geffen Hall project, however, the Barbican plan is to build a new hall from scratch on a different site. More than ever this looks like the right way forward. Yet it too relies on the precarious strategy of offering naming rights to one super-rich philanthropist or corporation, while being careful not to alienate others whose money will also be needed. That will require silky diplomatic skills, to put it mildly — but at least those managing the London project can look at the mess in New York and avoid making the same mistakes.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/time ... -mrqknvlx5

[Ricordanza]

a second-tier orchestra with a third-rank conductor

Wow. That's a harsh (and unjustified) comment.

[lennygoran]

a second-tier orchestra with a third-rank conductor

Wow. That's a harsh (and unjustified) comment.

Henry don't know enough about conductors but that sure does seem harsh! Regards, Len

[jserraglio]

a second-tier orchestra with a third-rank conductor

"Like that's just your opinion, man." The Dude abides.

[John F]

a second-tier orchestra with a third-rank conductor

Wow. That's a harsh (and unjustified) comment.

Also untrue - loose talk, cheap talk. The New York Philharmonic is a brilliantly virtuosic ensemble that can play anything, even at sight. It is one of the oldest and most famous in the world. It is located in one of the "first-tier" cities in the world for classical music. There's no higher tier than that. As for "tiers" of conductors, even he couldn't define that, but he doesn't bother.

Richard Morrison, who wrote this piece and is the chief music critic for The Times of London, has a web site which he has named muckrack.com. The Times itself has been for nearly 40 years a subsidiary of a subsidiary of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch's media empire. I don't know whether Morrison aspires to be the Times's Norman Lebrecht, but there are signs of it.

The quoted sentence is not the only part of this article in which Morrison tries to pass off his opinion, not widely shared, as fact. By most accounts, the renovation of the Royal Festival Hall was a success - and not that expensive a success either at £91 million, compared with building a new hall from the ground up, which London is now undertaking to do at an estimated cost of £250 million which will surely soar when construction actually starts. Dynamite, indeed.

All Morrison knows about the Geffen Hall renovation is what he's read in the papers. We read the same papers and don't need his rehash of what we already know. Even less do we need half-baked and unsound opinionating from the likes of him.

[jbuck919]

a second-tier orchestra with a third-rank conductor

Wow. That's a harsh (and unjustified) comment.

Unfortunately, it is not. Many of us who have attended NYP performances are able to detect inexcusable problems. The last time I was there (with our member Ralph Stein) they performed Schoenberg's Pelleas et Melisande (sorry about the missing accents), and the piccolo under Alan Gilbert was horridly shrill.

The new plan is to try to improve the dead acoustics, dated appearance and impersonal ambience of the 1960s hall by “incremental” steps.

I wish somebody could tell me how this qualifies as a new plan. If there is anything unfair about the article, it is not the comment on its well-known poor acoustics, but its description as having a dated appearance and impersonal ambience. I suppose the Brits cosey up to each other in the Royal Albert Hall.

[maestrob]

The idea that NY is a "second-tier" orchestra is sheer nonsense: it's our current conductor who is second tier most of the time, although he has his moments of inspiration. Jaap Van Zweden may be too polite for some, but his recent recordings show that at least he knows how the music should go (I'm thinking of a very good Mahler III in Dallas at the moment.). I've come to the conclusion that the Philharmonic is still an excellent orchestra that needs an exciting leader, such as Honeck (currently in Pittsburgh), Edward Gardner, or perhaps Vasily Petrenko, currently in Liverpool.

Morrison also writes a column for BBC Magazine, which I read and enjoy, in spite of its bias toward British orchestras and conductors. He tends to be on the bombastic side, but he's no Lebrecht, and to make such a comparison is unfair.

Classical music concert series have always been uneven, no matter what era we're referring to. We professional listeners have become spoiled by recordings, which represent the best efforts of the forces involved (at least that's what's in my library). Also, here in NY, we have Carnegie Hall, saved from the wrecking ball by the visionary violinist Isaac Stern, which presents orchestras and recitalists from around the world with their best programs in superior acoustics. There's no way the NY Philharmonic can stand up to that on a week-by-week basis, without a Bernstein at the helm, and he ain't available.

[THEHORN]

I agree . To call the New York Philharmonic a "second tier orchestra " is truly asinine . I haven't heard much of Van Zweden's conducting so I can't pass judgment on him, but he has become one of today's leading conductors ,is said to have done outstanding work with the Dallas symphony and raised its playing standards to unprecedented heights , his live recordings of so far, half of Wagner's Ring with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, his other orchestra , for Naxos have been very well received and many of his recordings with the Netherlands Radio symphony have also been well received .
I liked his set of the Brahms symphonies with this orchestra, the only recordings of his I've heard so far very much . Only time will tell how he and the NY Phil. will work out, but from all reports the orchestra really likes him and they would not have accepted him as music director if they did not .
He's about to inherit the toughest and most thankless job in classical music , and I wish him the best .