I don't recall ever having been to a concert hall before it was open to the public. The Acoustic Tuning concert at the Royal Festival Hall yesterday was probably the most sought after event in London: I was lucky enough to have a ticket to sit in the newly renovated concert hall and listened to the London Philharmonic Orchestra played a variety of works - from string trio to a big fat romantic Brahms symphony. The audience was asked not to spoil it by revealing anything to the public - so I won't - but I have to say my expectations were met and am much looking forward to many more years of great concerts at this iconic venue.
Those of us London-centric folks easily forget there are great concert halls in other parts of the world. I remember as a young kid buying DG LPs with von Karajan on the front cover conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. So as my first visit to the city, a visit to the Philharmonie to listen to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra was a must. Ivan Fisher started the evening's concert with Haydn Symphony 88. A light and delightful work. As I'd expected, the acoustic of the hall was amazing - probably a good 2.5 second of reverberation - and much more generous than the Royal Festival Hall in London. The strings sounded sweet and the timpani came through clearly with definition. The audience was then treated to Béla Bartók's Seven Pieces for Choir and Chamber Orchestra: the Berlin Phil reduced in size occupying only half of the stage while the Netherlands Youth Choir took the other half. These young performers (all female) sang in Hungarian from memory - not easy at all - and rea...
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