Symphony Hall is a
concert hall located at 301
Massachusetts Avenue Massachusetts Avenue may refer to:
* Massachusetts Avenue (metropolitan Boston), Massachusetts
** Massachusetts Avenue (MBTA Orange Line station), a subway station on the MBTA Orange Line
** Massachusetts Avenue (MBTA Silver Line station), a stati ...
in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
, opened in 1900. Designed by the architectural firm
McKim, Mead and White
McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm that came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in fin de siècle New York. The firm's founding partners Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909), ...
, it was built for the
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...
, which continues to make the hall its home. It can accommodate an audience of 2,625. The hall was designated a U.S.
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 1999 and is a pending
Boston Landmark
A Boston Landmark is a designation by the Boston Landmarks Commission for historic buildings and sites throughout the city of Boston based on the grounds that it has historical, social, cultural, architectural or aesthetic significance to New Engla ...
. It was then noted that "Symphony Hall remains, acoustically, among the top three concert halls in the world (sharing this distinction with the Amsterdam
Concertgebouw
The Royal Concertgebouw ( nl, Koninklijk Concertgebouw, ) is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" translates into English as "concert building". Its superb acoustics place it among the finest concert halls i ...
and Vienna's
Musikvereinsaal), and is considered the finest in the United States."
[ and ] Symphony Hall, located one block from Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...
to the north and one block from the New England Conservatory
The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The conservatory is located on Hu ...
to the south, also serves as home to the Boston Pops Orchestra
The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, specializing in light classical and popular music. The orchestra's current music director is Keith Lockhart.
Founded in 1885 as an offshoot of the Boston Symp ...
as well as the site of many concerts of the Handel and Haydn Society
The Handel and Haydn Society is an American chorus and period instrument orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. Known colloquially as 'H+H', the organization has been in continual performance since its founding in 1815, the longest-serving suc ...
.
History and architecture
On June 12, 1899, ground was broken and construction began on Symphony Hall after the Orchestra's original home (the Old Boston Music Hall
The Boston Music Hall was a concert hall located on Winter Street in Boston, Massachusetts, with an additional entrance on Hamilton Place.
One of the oldest continuously operating theaters in the United States, it was built in 1852 and was the ...
) was threatened by road-building and subway construction. The building was completed 17 months later at a cost of $771,000. The hall was inaugurated on October 15, 1900, Architects McKim, Mead and White
McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm that came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in fin de siècle New York. The firm's founding partners Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909), ...
engaged Wallace Clement Sabine
Wallace Clement Sabine (June 13, 1868 – January 10, 1919) was an American physicist who founded the field of architectural acoustics. Sabine was the architectural acoustician of Boston's Symphony Hall, widely considered one of the two or thre ...
, a young assistant professor of physics at Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, as their acoustical consultant, and Symphony Hall became one of the first auditoria designed in accordance with scientifically derived acoustical principles. Admired for its lively acoustics from the time of its opening, the hall is often cited as one of the best sounding classical concert venues in the world.
The hall is modeled on the second Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus is a concert hall in Leipzig, the home of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Today's hall is the third to bear this name; like the second, it is noted for its fine acoustics.
History
The first Gewandhaus (''Altes Gewandhaus'')
The f ...
concert hall in Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
, which was later destroyed in World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The Hall is relatively long, narrow, and high, in a rectangular "shoebox" shape like Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
's Concertgebouw
The Royal Concertgebouw ( nl, Koninklijk Concertgebouw, ) is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" translates into English as "concert building". Its superb acoustics place it among the finest concert halls i ...
and Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
's Musikverein. It is high, wide, and long from the lower back wall to the front of the stage. Stage walls slope inward to help focus the sound. With the exception of its wooden floors, the Hall is built of brick, steel, and plaster, with modest decoration. Side balconies are very shallow to avoid trapping or muffling sound, and the coffered ceiling and statue-filled niches along three sides help provide excellent acoustics to essentially every seat. Conductor Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan (; born Heribert Ritter von Karajan; 5 April 1908 – 16 July 1989) was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, wit ...
, in comparing it to the Musikverein, stated that "for much music, it is even better... because of its slightly lower reverberation time."
In 2006, due to years of wear and tear, the original concert stage floor was replaced at a cost of $250,000. In order to avoid any change to the sound of the hall, the new floor was built using same methods and materials as the original. These included tongue-in-groove, three-quarter inch, hard maple boards, a compressed wool underlayment and hardened steel cut nails, hammered in by hand. The vertical grain fir subfloor from 1899 was in excellent shape and was left in place. The nails used in the new floor were hand cut using the same size and construction as the originals and the back channelling on the original maple top boards was replicated as well.
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
's name is inscribed over the stage, the only musician's name that appears in the hall since the original directors could agree on no other name but his. The hall's leather seats are the originals installed in 1900. The hall seats 2,625 people during Symphony season and 2,371 during the Pops season, including 800 seats at tables on the main floor.
Statues
Sixteen casts of notable Greek and Roman statues line the upper level of the hall's walls. Ten are of mythical subjects, and six of historical figures. All were produced by P. P. Caproni and Brother. The casts, as one faces the stage are:
On the right, starting near the stage:
Faun
The faun (, grc, φαῦνος, ''phaunos'', ) is a half-human and half-goat mythological creature appearing in Greek and Roman mythology.
Originally fauns of Roman mythology were spirits (genii) of rustic places, lesser versions of their c ...
carrying the boy Bacchus
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; grc, wikt:Διόνυσος, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstas ...
(Roman copy of an original from the Hellenistic Period. Naples); Apollo Citharoedus
An Apollo Citharoedus, or Apollo Citharede, is a statue or other image of Apollo with a cithara (lyre). Among the best-known examples is the '' Apollo Citharoedus'' of the Vatican Museums, a 2nd-century AD colossal marble statue by an unknown (pr ...
(Roman artist. Excavated from Cassius' Villa near Tivoli in 1774. Vatican); Young Woman of (Excavated from Herculaneum
Herculaneum (; Neapolitan and it, Ercolano) was an ancient town, located in the modern-day ''comune'' of Ercolano, Campania, Italy. Herculaneum was buried under volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
Like the nea ...
in 1711. Dresden); Dancing Faun
The faun (, grc, φαῦνος, ''phaunos'', ) is a half-human and half-goat mythological creature appearing in Greek and Roman mythology.
Originally fauns of Roman mythology were spirits (genii) of rustic places, lesser versions of their c ...
(Rome); Demosthenes
Demosthenes (; el, Δημοσθένης, translit=Dēmosthénēs; ; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prow ...
(Rome); Seated Anacreon
Anacreon (; grc-gre, Ἀνακρέων ὁ Τήϊος; BC) was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ...
(Copenhagen); Statue of a tragic poet with the head of Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful e ...
(Vatican); Diana of Versailles
The ''Diana of Versailles'' or ''Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt'' (french: Artémis, déesse de la chasse) is a slightly over-lifesize marble statue of the Roman goddess Diana (Greek: Artemis) with a deer. It is currently located in the Musée du ...
(Paris);
On the left, starting near the stage:
Resting Satyr
In Greek mythology, a satyr ( grc-gre, :wikt:σάτυρος, σάτυρος, sátyros, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( grc-gre, :wikt:Σειληνός, σειληνός ), is a male List of nature deities, nature spirit with ears ...
(Praxiteles
Praxiteles (; el, Πραξιτέλης) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubita ...
, Rome); Wounded Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
( Polycleitus, Berlin); Hermes Logios (Paris); Lemnian Athena
The ''Lemnian Athena'', or ''Athena Lemnia'', was a classical Greek statue of the goddess Athena. According to geographer Pausanias (1.28.2), the original bronze cast was created by the sculptor Phidias circa 450–440 BCE, for Athenians living ...
(Dresden, with head in Bologna); The Lateran Sophocles
Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or co ...
(Vatican); Standing Anacreon
Anacreon (; grc-gre, Ἀνακρέων ὁ Τήϊος; BC) was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ...
(Copenhagen); Aeschines
Aeschines (; Greek: , ''Aischínēs''; 389314 BC) was a Greek statesman and one of the ten Attic orators.
Biography
Although it is known he was born in Athens, the records regarding his parentage and early life are conflicting; but it seems ...
(Naples); Apollo Belvedere
The ''Apollo Belvedere'' (also called the ''Belvedere Apollo, Apollo of the Belvedere'', or ''Pythian Apollo'') is a celebrated marble sculpture from Classical Antiquity.
The ''Apollo'' is now thought to be an original Roman creation of Hadrianic ...
(Rome).
Organ
The Symphony Hall organ, a 4,800-pipe Aeolian-Skinner
Æolian-Skinner Organ Company, Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts was an American builder of a large number of pipe organs from its inception as the Skinner Organ Company in 1901 until its closure in 1972. Key figures were Ernest M. Skinner (1866– ...
(Opus 1134) was designed by G. Donald Harrison, installed in 1949, and autographed by Albert Schweitzer
Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was an Alsatian-German/French polymath. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran minister, Schwei ...
. It replaced the hall's first organ, built in 1900 by George S. Hutchings of Boston, which was electrically keyed, with 62 ranks of nearly 4,000 pipes set in a chamber deep and high. The Hutchings organ had fallen out of fashion by the 1940s when lighter, clearer tones became preferred. E. Power Biggs, often a featured organist for the orchestra, lobbied hard for a thinner bass sound and accentuated treble.
The 1949 Aeolian-Skinner reused and modified more than 60% of the existing Hutchings pipes and added 600 new pipes in a Positiv division. The original diapason pipes, in length, were reportedly sawed into manageable pieces for disposal in 1948.
In 2003, the organ was thoroughly overhauled by Foley-Baker Inc., reusing its chassis and many pipes, but enclosing the Bombarde and adding to it the long-desired Principal (diapason) pipes, adding a new Solo division, and reworking its chamber for better sound projection. The original 1949 four-manual console was replaced with a low-profile three-manual console, to allow a better line of sight between the organist and the conductor when the organ and orchestra play together.
See also
* List of concert halls
A concert hall is a cultural building with a stage that serves as a performance venue and an auditorium filled with seats.
This list does not include other venues such as sports stadia, dramatic theatres or convention centres that may ...
* List of National Historic Landmarks in Boston
This is a list of National Historic Landmarks in Boston, Massachusetts. It includes 57 properties and districts designated as National Historic Landmarks in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Another 131 National Historic Landmarks ...
*
References
Citations
General bibliography
* Boston Symphony Orchestra, ''Symphony Hall: The First 100 Years'', January 2000. .
* Boston Symphony Orchestra, ''Program Notes'', October 1, 2005
* Boston Symphony Orchestra, ''Program Notes'', April 8, 2006
* Leo Beranek, ''Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture'' (2003), .
External links
Symphony Hall
{{Authority control
Buildings and structures in Boston
Concert halls in Massachusetts
Culture of Boston
Fenway–Kenmore
Landmarks in Fenway–Kenmore
National Historic Landmarks in Boston
Music venues completed in 1900
Music venues in Boston
1900 establishments in Massachusetts
Event venues on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Boston