Concert Halls
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Benedikt Stampa CONCERT HALLS In German Music Council / German Music Information Centre, ed., Musical Life in Germany (Bonn, 2019), pp. 274–299 Published in print: December 2019 © German Music Information Centre http://www.miz.org/musical-life-in-germany.html https://themen.miz.org/musical-life-in-germany Kapitel | Cologne Philharmonie CONCERT HALLS 10 Germany, a country with a rich and varied musical tradition, has a dense network of concert venues, including several excit ing new buildings of recent vintage. Here Benedikt Stampa writes about developments in Germany’s concert hall land scape. 274 275 Concert Halls | | Benedikt Stampa District, one of the city’s most disadvantaged areas until well into the 1990s. The neighbouring city of Bochum celebrated the opening of a newly erected concert hall in autumn 2016: the Anneliese Brost Music Forum Ruhr. Dresden followed CONCERT HALLS suit with its completely modernised Kulturpalast in early 2017. At almost the same time Berlin opened the new Pierre Boulez Hall, a spectacular venue for chamber recitals. Concert halls are among the great attractions of the cultural landscape. Visi- ble from far and wide, these centres of classical music contribute essentially to Germany, with its rich and varied musical tradition, has a high density of musical a city’s image and set culture in the heart of society. Just how great their mag- venues. Almost every medium-sized city has at least one hall for musical perfor- netism can be is clearly exemplified by the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Ever mances. In many cases the question of which conditions must be satisfied for the since it opened its doors in January 2017 it has been not only a cultural edifice very appropriate performance of music, especially the orchestral repertoire from the much in the public eye, but a milestone in Germany’s concert hall landscape. It classical period to the modern era, has even led to heated concert hall disputes. has rekindled debates on what repertoire a concert hall should offer, how much it Saarbrücken, Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Munich are currently raising the question should cost and what it stands for, and has transported those debates into public of what a concert hall should mean for their respective cities: a building where awareness. Similarly the Dortmund Konzerthaus demonstrates just how strong music is performed, where people can meet or where events can be held for pur- an impact such an institution can have in an urban context. Ever since it opened poses of prestige? The discussions surrounding Munich’s concert hall in particu- in 2002 it has developed a visibility far beyond the confines of its region. Its lo- lar have drawn great attention from the media. Two renowned orchestras, the cation in downtown Dortmund has helped to raise the value of the Brückstrasse Bavar ian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic, need a venue for their concerts, and the urgently necessary renovation of the Gasteig Cultural Centre, beginning in 2020, made the cries for a new building louder than ever. In particular the site became a bone of contention between the city’s administrators, inhabitants and art experts. The choice ultimately fell on a former industrial area currently being developed as a new urban district with residential flats, educa- tional facilities, start-ups and service providers. Here the new hall is scheduled for completion by 2021. Like Munich, Nuremberg too, after an architectural competi- tion held in 2017, found a winning design for a new concert hall, scheduled to be built adjacent to Meistersinger Hall beginning in 2021. DEFINING FEATURES: WHAT IS A CONCERT HALL? Philharmonie and Tonhalle, Konzertsaal and Konzerthaus, Kulturzentrum and Musikzentrum: these terms all designate much the same thing, namely, a building constructed primarily for the performance of classical music.1 But what does a con- The Pierre Boulez Hall in Berlin, inaugurated in 2017. cert hall do in particular, and how do the facilities differ from each other? A number This concert hall for renowned artists also provides an international forum for young talent as part of the Barenboim-Said Academy. of aspects have to be taken into account, such as the proportion of classical music 276 277 Concert Halls | in the repertoire, the range of genres or the importance of guest performances. The star among concert halls: Unlike an opera house, which can be described as a performance venue with the Elbphilharmonie. Built above independent staff and management that mounts its own productions of stage an old warehouse in Hamburg’s works, the term ‘concert hall’ cannot ultimately be captured in a general defini- docklands, it caused an inter- tion. Nonetheless, concert halls have defining features of their own. They involve national sensation with its spectacu - architectural aspects and questions of use, operation and artistic profile. These lar architecture. In 2017, the year aspects can all be drawn upon to describe a concert hall and set it apart from of its inauguration, 850,000 people other buildings. attended its sold-out concerts and 4.5 million visited its publicly Building accessible plaza. The basic architectural prerequisite for a concert hall is an auditorium filled with seats, suitable both in size and acoustics for the performance of classical music and capable of accommodating several hundred listeners. Most German concert halls also have additional rooms that serve especially for the performance of chamber music and solo pieces. Besides buildings constructed specifically for concert oper- ations, this also includes those originally set aside for other purposes. The Düs- seldorf Tonhalle, for example, originated in the 1920s as a planetarium. Not until the late 1970s did it become a new central venue for classical music to succeed the Tonhalle destroyed in World War II. Use In addition to architectural features, manner of use is decisive for classifying a building as a concert hall. Here, for the most part, classical music is performed. Nor is its public perception as a concert venue disturbed by wide-ranging, even non-musical offerings, as happens for example in most municipal auditoriums. Certain buildings, however, such as the Stuttgart Liederhalle or Munich’s Gasteig, augment their musical offerings with many other events, especially congresses. Here, as elsewhere, the lines of demarcation are fluid. Opposite page, top: an aerial view of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Middle: the plaza. Bottom left: the foyer. Bottom right: the Grand Auditorium 278 279 Concert Halls | Below: the Anneliese Brost Music Forum Ruhr in Bochum. Opposite page: the Neubrandenburg Concert Church Musical use of secularised churches: the Marienkirche in Neubranden- burg has become a concert venue, while the former Church of St Mary in Bochum now forms the foyer Artistic profile of a concert hall and music school auditorium in the Anneliese Brost Perhaps the most important distinguishing feature of a concert hall, as opposed to Music Forum Ruhr. other musical venues, is its artistic profile. Ideally, besides being open to the largest possible international circle of artists, it should present and develop the full range of the concert repertoire. This is usually done within an organisational structure Guest performances headed by an intendant (managing and artistic director) and sporting a distinctive profile in its programming. A concert hall’s alignment also reflects an understand- Concert halls regularly feature performances by visiting artists. Not only are they ing of its role as a cultural institution: it is expected to offer artistic impulses and available as venues for largely regional orchestras, they also give national and project a distinctive identity through intelligent programming, thereby actively international ensembles opportunities to perform at various points in the year. shaping the musical life of its particular location. It is no longer enough to present Some halls have their own ensembles, such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra celebrated musicians on stage: rather, what is needed is an effective dramaturgy or the Berlin Philharmonic. No fewer than two ensembles have their home in the sustained by every department of the hall and projected to the outside world with Cologne Philharmonie: the Gürzenich Orchestra and the West German Radio Sym- self-confident aplomb. phony Orchestra. And since the 2016-17 season the former North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, now rechristened the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, even SITES AND DEVELOPMENT bears the name of its new venue. The crucial thing for such concert halls is, how- ever, that the resident ensemble, despite its many special rights and privileges, The German Music Information Centre lists 15 institutions in Germany that does not exclusively determine the concert programme. possess the above-mentioned features of a concert hall. They are spread across the entire country and can be found in the most varied of regions, from the Rhine- Main area (the Alte Oper in Frankfurt) and southern Germany (the Gasteig in Munich, 280 281 Concert Halls | the Stuttgart Liederhalle, Baden-Baden Festival Hall) to Saxony (the Leipzig Ge- Concert hall architecture is domi- wandhaus, the Dresden Kulturpalast) and northern Germany (Die Glocke in Bre- nated by two types of floor plan: men, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and Laeisz Hall, the Lübeck Music and Congress a rectangular space with podium Hall). They are especially numerous in North Rhine-Westphalia, with the Essen at the front (‘shoebox’), and a Philharmonie, the Dortmund Konzerthaus, the Cologne Philharmonie and the Düs- polygonal or circular space with seldorf Tonhalle all located within a radius of roughly 100 kilometres. Berlin, too, seats grouped around a central is represented by two concert halls: the Philharmonie and the Konzerthaus. All in podium (‘arena’ or ‘vineyard’). all, 13 of these concert halls, plus four in Austria, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands, have joined forces in the German Concert Hall Conference (Deutsche Konzerthauskonferenz), founded in 2001 with the goal of promoting the conser- vation, expansion and further development of concert life.