![]() At only 35 minutes long, the performance was unusual for a piece of musical theatre, but its catchy tunes caught on and an expanded version of the show transferred to the West End the following year. Directed by Frank Dunlop of London’s Old Vic, the sung-through musical featured an exciting blend of pop-rock music from a young composer called Andrew Lloyd Webber, and a spiritually-charged Biblically-inspired story crafted by lyricist Tim Rice. Julian Lloyd Webber is Principal of Birmingham Conservatoire.Fifty years ago, in August 1972, a new musical premiered at the Haymarket Ice Rink in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. So, although I know that it won’t resound around its leather-clad walls, I’m going to whisper something quietly: the RFH is a bloody good concert hall. The slightest mistake is immediately heard - but then so is the beautiful playing of a phrase that would have been lost in a sea of reverberation in the Royal Albert Hall. In fact its acoustic distinguishes the men from the boys, and the finest musicians raise their games accordingly. It has proved to be the exception to all known acoustical rules. It is no coincidence that some of the greatest performances I have ever heard have been at the festival hall. Just because a concert hall doesn’t bathe its performers in a comforting wash of sound doesn’t mean it is not a good hall for the listener. Trying hard to be generous, I thought that maybe there was a little more bloom to the sound, perhaps it was slightly better? But £111m better? Not in 111 million years.īut here comes the rub – and the reason why I think some people are being way too sensitive: all my criticisms of the RFH come from the perspective of the performer, not an audience member. It's no coincidence that some of the greatest performances I have ever heard have been at the festival hallīefore the results of this costly overhaul were revealed, I took part in a private acoustic test in the hall. So when, less than 10 years ago, the inevitable team of acoustic engineers were drafted in to carry out their £111m improvement they were on the back-foot from the beginning as they were not allowed to alter the very things that were causing the problems in the first place. Then there are the lavishly upholstered seats, the art deco carpets – which apparently are listed – and the strangely padded walls covered with sound-absorbent material which are no doubt listed too. Has there ever been a clearer explanation of the saying you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? To begin with the platform is preposterously wide and the ceiling is monstrously high, meaning that absolutely nothing comes back to the performer on stage. In the case of the RFH, they didn’t just get it wrong once but twice. In Simon Rattle’s memorable words: “ After rehearsing for half an hour in the Royal Festival Hall you lose the will to live.” In my case, it only took five minutes! You seemed only to be able to hear yourself, and what you heard was the worst it had ever sounded. I had never felt so exposed on a concert platform. ![]() Initially I was shocked by its acoustic: it was like playing under a microscope. My own first encounter with the hall as a soloist was in 1974 with a performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto, a work I came to play there on many subsequent occasions. It is extraordinary and unforgivable how often new concert halls' acoustics are judged to be unsatisfactory Opinions were divided from the start: critics bemoaned its “dry and sterile” acoustics while protagonists celebrated its cutting-edge design and “crystal clear” sound. The Royal Festival Hall was unveiled in 1951. By all accounts the shoe box-shaped Queen’s Hall was acoustically superb but, after the war, everything needed to be new, and the decision was taken to build a brand new concrete structure south of the river. ![]() It is true that London doesn’t have a world-class hall for orchestral music to match our world-class orchestras, and the reason for this dates back 70 years when a plan to rebuild the bomb-damaged Queen’s Hall near Oxford Circus was shelved. As someone who has both played and listened many times in all the London concert halls I would answer yes, to both questions.
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