Yale University, School of Architecture

On Concert Halls: Conversations with Ralph Kirkpatrick

Author(s): Ralph Kirkpatrick
Source: Perspecta, Vol. 17 (1980), pp. 92-99
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of Perspecta.
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On ConcertHalls:

Conversations
withRalphKirkpatrick

Photo"RalphKirkpatrick",
graphby EugeneCook, School
of Music,YaleUniversity.

The currentrevivalof interestin baroque

music can partlybe attributedto Ralph
Kirkpatrick,who is generallyacknowledgedto be the world'sgreatest
harpsichordistand an eminentscholarin
seventeethand eighteenthcenturykeyboardmusic. Kirkpatrickbeganplaying
baroquemusicin recitalsin Americaand
Europe in the I93os and has since played

in most of the majormusiccapitalsof

both continents.Althoughhe has masteredan extensiverepertoirethat includes
keyboardworks of Mozart,Purcell,
Handel,Couperin,and Rameau,
Kirkpatrickis best knownfor his performancesof Scarlattiand Bachand in I967
completedthe prodigioustaskof recording the entireclavierworksof Bachfor
the DeutscheGrammophonGesellschaft.
He regardshimselfas an amateur
scholar,but Kirkpatrickis highlyrespectedfor his scholarship,especiallyfor
his definitivecriticalbiographyof
DomenicoScarlatti,publishedin 1953.
Mr.Kirkpatrick,who has a B.A. degree
from Harvardin the Historyof Art, is
ProfessorEmeritusof Musicat Yale
University.
The editorsare deeplyindebtedto
Mr.Kirkpatrickwho, havingrecentlylost
his sight, neverthelessworkeddiligently
with them in developingthis interview;
Specialthanksalso go to KentBloomer
who devotedmanyof thesesame hours
and who led the criticalportionsof this
interviewto the resultswe publishhere.
oo0079-958/8o/7P9z-99$03.00o/o0
O I980 Perspecta: The Yale ArchitecturalJournal,Inc.,and The Massachusetts Instituteof Technology

Editors: You haveusedthe term"anthropomorphic"on a numberof occasions to describemusic.Couldyou

explainits use?
R. K.: By anthropomorphicmusicI
meanmusicwhich is relatedto the
humanorganism.I happento believethat
no musicwhichdoes not relateitself
beyondthe ear to the functionsof the
physicalorganismcan be calledmusic.
Musicspeaksto us in threemainways.
First,in arousingour sensationsof singing, of verbaldeclamation;in other
words, all that concernsthe melodicaspect of musicand melodicphrasingis
meaningfulto us only as it arousesin us
some sort of responsederivedfroma
sympatheticreactionor derivedfrom accumulatedexperienceof singingand
speaking.Second,the rhythmicdimension of musicspeaksto us in termsof our
own problemsof bodilylocomotion
againstthe forcesof gravity.It speaksto
us in termsof dancing;it speaksto us
evenin termsof imaginarymovements,
those whichwe ourselvescannotexecute
but of whichwe can graspthe sensation
of their execution.Third,certainlyin
Westernmusic,the ebb and flow of harmonictensionsis respondedto in the
physicalorganismby consequentfluctuations of visceraltensions.The so-called
solarplexus is in manyways a moreimportantcenterof musicalfeelingthan
eventhe ear. It governsnot only all aspects of bodilysensationbut also bodily
movement.No genuinemusicis purely
cerebral.One mightsay that no architecturalplanwhich is purelycerebralis
worth muchto the humanbeing.The examplesof architecturethat I most admire
arethose which areconstructedin relation to a humanscale,in relationto the
physicalexperiencesof humanbeings;to
a certainextent in relationto their size,
and aboveall to theirexperiencesas
mobilepersonagesaroundand within
that architecture.I alwaystook the greatest pleasure,for example,in a Gothic
cathedral,in walkingthroughthe side
aisles.I veryseldomapproachedit by the
nave.I walkedthroughthe side aisles
and the ambulatoryin orderto get the
rhythmof the archesand the piers.As a
matterof fact, I do thatwith classical
buildingstoo. Thereis somethingthat
one gets fromwalkingarounda building
that one will neverget fromlooking at
photographsor studyingit through
plans.That is perhapsa truismin architecturaltheorybut surprisinglyoften it is
disregardedin architecturalpractice,as
Flaubertsaid in his Dictionaryof Platitudes,"Architectshavea tendencyeven
to forgetthe stairways."

Editors: Therefore,you seemto be implyinga returnto a morehumanist

tradition...
R. K.: Whichis exceedinglydifficultin
our time. It'sthe only one which personally I believein. I think anythingelse is
aberrationand abandonmentof all that
we haveinheritedin termsof accumulatedexperienceand capacityfor feeling.
One understandsthe originsof the reactions thatproducedBauhausarchitecture,for example,which has many,many
virtues;but one of its most sinisterfeaturesis the academicismof its reaction
againstoverblownromanticismand
bombasticsentimentality.In cleaningthe
deck, it swept everything away, very

muchin the samemanneras did the

drasticrestorationsthat had earlierbeen
inflictedon Romanesquechurches.Everything has beencleareddown to the bare
bricks.And thereisn'tmuchcomfortin
that. It'sbeendisinfected,sweptclean.
The best examplesof Bauhausand postBauhausarchitectureachieve,on the
other hand,a wholly admirablepurity,
cleanness,refinement,organization,freedom fromthe confusionof the subsidiary
and the coincidental.They certainlyare
enemiesof those featuresof the picturesquewhich arecommonlymistakenfor
featuresof the beautiful.Of course,I
shouldn'tmakeas manypejorativeremarksaboutthe Bauhausas I seemto
havedone becausetherewere artistslike
Albers,Feininger,and Kleewho were
profoundlyhumanistic,particularlyKlee.
Theirpedagogyis centeredaroundwhat
is human.
It would be interestingto speculate
how successfulman has beenin the effort
to get away fromhimself;the neue
sachlichkeit of the Germans in the i9zos

was, in largepart, an effortto escapethe

immediatepast. And it was a deliberate
dehumanization,one which, I think,
robbedmanyof its productsof lasting
value.

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Editors: It seems,nevertheless,that by
humanismyou meanthe closerstudyof
specificallyhumansensationsand
experience.

R. K.: Indeed.One musthavea body of

accumulatedfeelings,sensations,and,
aboveall, a senseof the architectureof
those sensations:how one coordinates
smallsensationsinto a largerframeof
mind;what is subsidiary,what is important. Sentimentalitycomesin everyart
fromoveremphasisof the subsidiary,
from losingsightof the main issues.Crying overspilt milk is a perfectexampleof
sentimentalityin relationto the problems that face all of us. We havea
tendencyto becomenumbbeforethings
that are reallyimportantand to be animatedfar too muchby thatwhich is not
so important.
Editors: Do you believethat all of these
responsesshouldbe calculatedrationally
or is thereroom for irrationalityin
music?
R. K.: Rationalityis worth nothingin itself exceptas a meansfor cataloguing
what has alreadybeensensed.Rationality
has nevercreatedanything.It can organize; it can criticize;it can supervise
arrangementof materialthat has already
been conjuredup throughother often
verymysteriousprocesses.Good art is ultimatelyexplainableonly by itself.However,thereis far morethan is commonly
believedthat can be organized,sorted
out, freedfrom redundancies,fromdisorder, so that its own shapemay be
clarified.Form,afterall, is nothingbut
comprehensibleshape.And thereis no
limit to the amountof analyticalcriticism
that one can bringto bearin the workshop. But the valueof this analytical
criticismconsistsmainlyin the clarifying
of intentionsand in the assessingof
meansof realizingthose intentions.It is
generallypossiblefor most peopleto
know far betterwhat they aredoing,
without in any way beingendangeredby
suchknowledge.It is doctrinethat is dangerous;but a thoughtneverdid any
harmto anyone.Intelligenceof the right
kindcan only help to illuminewhat
otherwisemightremainobscure.
Editors: Do you feel thatyour threemusicaldimensions,melody,rhythm,harmony,providean adequateaccounting
for humanreactionsto music?

R. K.: As I havesaid before,the basicresponsesto melodyarederivedfrom

speechand vicarioussong, but thereare
other associativeaspectsof melody,like
spacerelationships,mathematicalproportionsof intervals.Our responsesto
rhythmhavemainlyto do with human
mobilityand those to harmonywith our
own innerresponseto the scaleof intensities representedby variousvertical
combinationsof tones. Now musical
form is anotherthing,just as architecturalform is anotherthing;that is
somethingwhich is createdout of these
basicelements.I wouldn'tattemptto
drawa parallelbetweenmelody,rhythm,
and harmonyof musicand corresponding
functionsin architecturebecausethe visual arts and architecturework differentlyfrommusic.They havetheirown
precisions,their own meaningfulmathematics,which is not necessarilythe same
as the meaningfulmathematicsof music.
Therehavebeen in the historyof architectureseriousattemptsat correlation
betweenmusicaland architectural
proportions;I referto the studiesof the
RenaissancefromAlbertito Sarlino.
Editors: Aren'tyour musicaldimensions
a bit schematic,a bit simplistic?Is there
no room for the haphazard,the alietory,
and eventhe absurd?
R. K.: Don't you thinkArt is one of
man'sbest answersto the absurdityof
man'ssituation?
Editors: In what sense?
R. K.: Simplythat it givesas far as is
possiblesenseto that absurdity.It confers
meaningon it.
Editors: You mean"l'artpourl'art"?
R. K.: No. I meanthat anythingwhich
is subjectto the disciplinesthat createartistic form by its verynaturecannotbe
absurd.Youcannothaveformwithout
sense.Youcannothaveformwithout
having communication.

Editors: Yes,but who is to determinethe

orderto the sensein the end?Duringthe
MiddleAges it was clearlyGod who was
the determiningorder;in the Renaissance
they threwthat out and said that Man
was the determinant.Now we don't
know.That'sthe absurdity.
R. K.: Well,I wrote a littlepiece on
Style,in which I discussedvariousconceptsof what constitutedStyleand
Stylishness,Stylisticand Stylization,and
I tossedthe problemsfromone handto
another,and endedup with the conclusionthat those works of art which
havetruestyle and that havetruecommunicableshapeare those which say in
theirway to the beholderor to the listenerwhatwas said to Moses fromthe
BurningBush:I am that I am. One arrivesat a state, at an ultimatewhich can
no longer be questioned. When something has that message-there are few
works that do, and there are certainly
few works of architecture that give us
that message, but when they do they are
there-one deals with them like climbers
of Mount Everest, because they are there.

Editors:Whatyou seemto be leadingto

is the notion of a superiorconsciousness
whichhas confoundedman for ages.And
in a senseGod was a translationof that
senseof superiorconsciousness.And so
one justhas to acceptit oftentimesand it
becomesthe greatestimpetusfor
creation.
R. K.: Indeed.And I thinkthat it is
findingaccessto that impetusthat is the
ultimateproblem.
Editors: That'swhat I was askingabout
before:Do you findany place for irrationalitywithin modernmusicor modern
architecture,in the sensethat sciencehas
proven,especiallyby Heisenbergand
Einstein,that certaintruthsare unapproachablerationally;thereforethat the
only realway of capturingthe essenceof
this consciousnessis to bypassrationality
and go into irrationality,or nonrationality.
R. K.: Rationalitywon't get anybodyto
that consciousness.Thatthey recognize,
andin that sensegreatscientistshavealways seemedto me muchfullerof true
humilitythan manyof the artistsI have
knownand certainlythanmost of the
commentatorsor critics.
If you look at the irrationality,
the absurdityof most of the world'sarchitecture,the frivolity. . ! I once compared
the historyof architecturewith the history of the hat,of headgear.It'salmostas
capriciousand irresponsibleas the work
of millinersin the dayswhen peoplewore
morehatsthan they do now. One is always fed all this stuffaboutthe sublime
missionof architectsto elevateand educate mankind,but how mucharchitecture
has everdone it? The proportionis very
small.So muchof whatwe admirein
architectureof the past belongsmoreto
the domainof the picturesque,of the
haphazard,the fortuitous,than to the
domainof the sublimelybeautiful.It
gives us titillationsof quaintness,of antiquity,of associativevalues.They areall
perfectlylegitimate,but one sees again
and againand againthat a reallybad
piece of work, when it ages,gets forgiven.Moss growsover it, associations
accumulatearoundit, and it is forgotten
what a messit reallyis. It would be interestingto go throughthe architectureof
the past andnominatethose workswhich
seemto representin everyway supreme
achievements,that rise abovethe mere
picturesque,that arecoordinated,those
monumentsof whicheverypart is related
to everyotherpart,and consequentlyto
the whole, whetherthey be functionalor
not.
Editors: Canyou cite any of the Romantic era,whichobviouslydealtwith the
picturesque and the poetic, perhaps with
manifestations arising from the classical
era?
R. K.: Well it's awkward, I think, to
make distinctions between romantic and
classic. One of the architects I was going
to cite from the nineteenth century as
having achieved a high degree of purity
was Schinkel.
Editors: A true masterpiece would transcend merely poetics and also have a high
degree of order and rationality?
R. K.: Yes. One of the plainest examples
is the Parthenon.
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Editors: In what sense is that poetic to

you?
R. K.: Anything which is completely ordered, in which everything has meaning
in relation to itself, is poetic. But there is
also the poetry of the picturesque just as
there is the poetry of the sublime.
Editors: Let me read a statement to you:
"Cezanne rehabilitated the art of painting
as an art of construction and design and
not merely as an art of description."
R. K.: Well, that statement is not accepted by certain writers on Cezanne. I
remember particularly one evening with
an art critic, Novotny, who has written
extensively on Cezanne. I was struck by
his argument that Cezanne was extraordinarily inept at organizing his material
and his composition and that, if I understood Novotny correctly, he was implying
that much of what impresses us today
and moves us in C&zanneis that very
struggle for order. If you compare the
fumblings of a Cezanne with the command over order of a master like Poussin,
you might lead me to think, as much as I
love Cezanne, that Cezanne is a mere
child beside a Poussin, to keep the comparison within the domain of French
painting. The art of Cezanne is much
more attractive to many of us than that
of Poussin. We like the suggestiveness of
Cezanne's imcompleteness, of his imprecisions. On the other hand, the art of
Poussin seems to us hermetic, in a way
independent of the beholder's attention,
since it is so perfectly organized within
itself. A great deal of music of Bach has
that same quality of self-sufficient interior
organization.
Editors: One way or another, however,
you are advocating an architecture, a music and an art, creative expression, that
must have a human viewer in order to be
worthwhile?
R. K.: Absolutely!
Editors: As opposed to those which are
merely ideas, which may be independent
of...
R. K.: Now this could be stretched very
far, because part of humanity is playing
with ideas. It is the vital connection with
that mysterious thing which is the center
of humanity that counts. There is no reason to think that the geometry of
Mondrian, or Albers, is not human. It
may be limited in some ways in its range;
but I don't think practiced with the intensity or the devotion and the commitment that those two painters brought to
their work, that it can be called inhuman.
Editors: Therefore it seems that any creative work of art which has a sense of
order, be it cerebral or physiological, is in
that realm. Or is disorder also a part of

the humanexperience?

R. K.: It is certainly part of the human

drama and certainly much art concerns
itself with disorder, with ultimately surmounting it, not necessarily resolving it.
After all, most of us spend most of our
lives floundering in disorder which we
never totally succeed in organizing. A
successful work of art will give us that vision of organization of which we dream.
In that sense one can understand certain
aestheticians or aesthetes who felt that
they received more eloquent sermons
from works of art than from what was
said in the pulpit.
Editors: There is all of this polarity
within the realm of human experience
which is extremely large, then what
doesn't qualify as architecture or music?
R. K.: Certain forms of rationality, of
so-called objectivity, which exclude
rather than invite human participation.
Editors: That is the basis of modernist
art and architecture, in that objects
reflect objects; in other words, they deal
with self-reflexive signs.
R. K.: Well, there is machine-made
sculpture, for example: sculpture made in
accordance with a set of formulas which
are then put onto a machine without
human intervention. The idea of doing
such a thing, it can be argued, is human.
But the result, as far as I know, is always
inhuman.
Editors: Would you call an automobile
inhuman?
R. K.: It is very inhuman in the sense
that it kills people, it asphixiates them, it
deafens them.
Editors: It also rushes them to the hospital, enables me to visit my distant
relatives and friends ...
R. K.: That is the problem of our time
which is that humanity has extended itself through so many forms of automatism, and machines, and things that are
far out of the reach of the actual physical
human body, that we are in danger of
forgetting who we are. I think this is
where one is in some ways talking in vain
when one speaks of a humanistic architecture, because we are not living in a
time of humanism, and it is only natural
that the architecture reflects our doubts
and our confusions. The inhumanity of
an ordinary supermarket, for example,
textures which are not natural to the
human body, noise which is not what we
associate with what is natural, vicarious
music with which we have nothing to do,
mass-produced, assembly-line stuff.
Editors: But man created these, so therefore they are human.
R. K.: There are two ways of being
human: simply of being good or of being
bad. And humans are capable of creating
just as much that is bad, of fabricating
their own destruction, as they are of elevating themselves in a more positive
sense.
Editors: Now we are back to the question of ethics, which one can see in all
the morality of the Victorian era and
how much damage it did to society and
to people's psychology.
R. K.: Well, it was a false and limited
morality.
Editors: So who is to come up with the
new morality? Architects?
R. K.: Never!

Editors: How about the indigenous

builder, who often has an audience of
great architects?
R. K.: And he often has a great achievement. This has a lot to do with this
business of getting in touch with the central source. Some people do it the hard
way. As products of highly educated civilizations who sign their names to
everything they do, they have to reconquer an innocence that has been lost long
since. The simple, uncomplicated person
is often far wiser than the educated person who has to regain any natural
approach to his endeavors.
There is no such thing as ethics in art.
You cannot be moralistic. You can only
try what you yourself believe.
Editors: Can you write prescriptions?
For example, one for architects might be
that the building should work. It should
keep the rain out; insulate itself in the
winter; cool itself in the summer.
R. K.: Well, you can write the prescription but it is an open question whether
the patient will ever take the pill or
whether the pill will effect any kind of
cure. The number of buildings that work
are few indeed. That, of course, in its
way, is a very human quality. That is a
very accurate reflection of the human
condition. Alas!
Editors: On concert halls, in your
memoirs, you say that "the worst halls
are generally the most recent, victims of
those acousticians who believe that music
is made of sound waves, frequencies, resonators, and echoes, and who totally
overlook the fact that music was never
made to be judged by scientific instruments, and that it cannot even be judged
by the human ear alone, since it is directed toward those immeasurably complex and unpredictable psychological and
physical reactions of the entire human
organism and toward its qualities of
imagination and remembered
experience."
R. K.: Yes, I'll stand by that quotation.
K. B.: What basic, very fundamental architectural features seem to recur in these
bad concert halls?
R. K.: That is a little hard to say, because there are bad concert halls that
externally correspond to what I might describe as a good concert hall. But I think
the essential feature of the bad concert
halls is their failure to present, intact, the
music that is being performed in them.
K. B.: Then you are not addressing any
subject other than the music itself in your
judgment of concert halls?
R. K.: I don't see how one can possibly
judge a concert hall except in the way in
which it transmits music from a performance to the listener. That is, after all, its
sole function, presumably.
K. B.: Is there such a thing as a concert
hall which is too big?
R. K.: Not necessarily.
K. B.: Or too small?
R. K.: Not necessarily.

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K. B.: Are there shapes which are particularly unsuited to concert halls?
R. K.: Yes. Those shapes which fail to
recognize the directional quality of most
musical instruments and ensembles;
those shapes which fail to permit performers on stage to hear each other; those
shapes which produce too great a discrepancy between one side of the hall and
another, between nearness to the stage
and distance away from it. But any good
concert hall will always have certain variability in all of its parts. There is no such
thing as uniformity through all sections
of concert halls. Music is not like that.
Music is made for people who move
around and who seize different aspects of
it according to whether they are near or
far away from it; or on the side of the
first violins or on the side of the cellos
and violas. This is all perfectly natural. It
needs a certain judicious balance. Experimental shapes, complicated shapes,
shapes that rely on acousticians for correcting are usually failures. Shapes that
pay more attention to sight-lines than to
lines of sound are usually failures. This
involves in certain kinds of halls putting
the stage too high so that the sound goes
up over the heads of the first seats in the
orchestra. In general, sound rises. Some
of the worst concert halls are too broad
and too shallow. They are made broad to
increase visibility with the result that the
variation between one side and the other
is too great. The construction of balconies can often destroy the sound of
what is beneath them, especially at the
rear of the hall. The presence of multipurpose installations such as velvet curtains, theater sets, flies, the absence of a
proper concert shell can all be prejudicial
to the reflection of sound from the stage.
In fact, the very existence of any kind of
procenium is problematical; sometimes
works, sometimes doesn't. Even the timehonored custom of placing an organ and
its pipes in the back of the stage is not
always favorable, either to the music
made in front of that organ case or to the
organ itself. The problem of avoiding
these discordant qualities in a hall is the
same as that of avoiding unresolved features in the construction of an instrument
or of an efficient tool. There is no overall
blanket solution. There is only the harmonizing and coordination of all component elements.

K. B.: Could you say a little more about

the property of directionality in music in
relation to a concert hall?
R. K.: Yes. Certain instruments are
strongly directional. Keyboard instruments, for example, always sound better
on the side away from the keyboard because the sound goes out diagonally, or
rather perpendicularly to the curve of the
bent side. Those who want to hear keyboard instruments best are well advised
in most halls not to sit on the keyboard
player's side where they can see his
hands. Fiddles are strongly directional
and need to be seated so that they are
facing outwards. Certain wind instruments are also directional. There is much
to be criticized in the customary seating
of orchestras, since it favors the directionality of some instruments above
others. Even the human voice is directional, and certainly you are less likely to
understand any words of a singer if her
back is turned to you. It is almost axiomatic that any attempt at building a
concert hall in the round, so to speak, is
doomed to failure from the very start. It's
absurd. One is at a loss to understand
how common sense can be so totally
lacking.
K. B.: You have referred to the problems
attending the interior shape of a concert
hall. Do you have any memories of poor
entrances to concert halls, poor transitions between the interior and the
exterior that would affect the experience
of going to a concert hall and hearing
music?

R. K.: I am not terribly concerned about

that. The worst features of the transition
from the outside to the inside are simply
those which allow outside noise to penetrate into the concert hall and disturb it.
It makes eminent sense, for example, to
build a concert hall with walls that protect it from the outside and not build it
like the ex-Philharmonic Hall in New
York with glass walls, which is an aesthetic absurdity as well as a practical
one. One could pay for dozens of orchestra rehearsals with the money it costs
just to keep that glass clean. Many urban
concert halls, especially the older halls in
New York, have very little space in either
the front of the auditorium or behind the
stage; this is conditioned by the dimensions of the city block. Carnegie Hall, for
example, is ridiculously cramped, both
in front and behind. The old Metropolitan Opera House was also fairly
cramped. It is nice for a performer to
have a decent, comfortable dressing
room, but no performer, who is a trouper
in any way, has been led necessarily to
expect it. He is accustomed to changing
his clothes in a locker room and having
not even so much as a glass to drink out
of, to using his bare hands while trying to
avoid splashing his starched shirt. But
the essential thing which makes a concert
hall memorable is the way in which it
transmits sound.
K. B.: Is the transmission of sound
favorably aided by the electronic devices
that have been designed for modern
halls?
R. K.: In my view, no. They are, at best,
if they work at all, simply patchwork
jobs to counteract the deficiencies of the
hall, to correct the errors of the architect
and the acousticians.
K. B.: Does this mean that electronic
boosting is unnecessary in virtually all
cases, including the very large concert
hall?

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R. K.: I think it is, in general, highly undesirable. It is true that many auditoriums that are used as large concert halls
are multi-purpose auditoriums. Either
they are sport palaces or congress halls,
and suffer as much by the adjustments to
this multi-purpose use as by their size.
There is, however, a factor of presence;
there is no question that being near an
orchestra, or being near an ensemble,
lends a quality of immediacy, a quality of
participation. Berlioz once wrote that
hearing chamber music in too large a hall
is like seeing a fire without being
warmed by it. I feel this acutely, for example, in operas of Mozart. The psychological subtleties of an opera like Figaro
get totally lost even in an opera house as
small as the Metropolitan. Anyone who
has had the experience of hearing Mozart
in an opera house that holds zoo to 300
people knows the difference. And this, to
a certain extent, holds true of the subtleties of chamber music, not to mention
those of my own instrument. It is much
more exciting to be immersed in the middle of a big orchestra than having the
feeling of looking at it through the wrong
end of an opera glass. There is no electronic device that will compensate that
properly.
K. B.: Would an air conditioner be helpful? Does heat, oppression, and humidity
make the hearing of music more difficult?
R. K.: For those who don't care about
music, yes. For those who care about it, I
think, it makes very little difference. But
air conditioning is the number one enemy
of the modern concert hall. Most air
conditioning systems are noisy and get
noisier as they get older. In the ex-Philharmonic Hall in New York, there have
been many occasions when the air conditioning simply had to be turned off
because of the noise it was making on the
stage. The air conditioning in the auditorium of the Metropolitan Museum is
not obvious, but it fills up all those moments of silence on which music so much
depends. It also raises havoc with tuning,
because it usually is not turned on during
the day and turned on just before the
concert, so that the humidity is changing
all the time during the concert. But that
constant hum makes it impossible; it
throws a kind of greyness over a performance. I always notice the difference in
an audience reaction when I am playing
in the presence of air conditioning and
when air conditioning is absent. The actual performance is not that much
different, and the audience, I think, isn't
aware of what is happening, but the intensity of the communication is diminished. It is like a drawing that has been
allowed to get dirty, so that the differences between the white paper and the
lines have become obscured, and half the
effect is thereby removed.
K. B.: In the language of architecture
what would you regard as basic to a good
concert hall, since we have been speaking
mainly up to now about bad concert
halls?
R. K.: You are speaking about the shape
of the building?
K. B.: Yes.

R. K.: Well, I have developed the superstition that there are two basic shapes
which seem to be common to most of the
halls that I have come to admire: the
shoe box or rectangle, and the amphitheatre. Both of them have their advantages and their disadvantages. The shoe
box has the disadvantage, at its rear, of
distance from the stage and of poor visibility. It needs compensating, and often
the most successful shoe boxes are those
which have the stage on a level lower
than the public; otherwise there is a tendency for the stage to be too high. The
amphitheatre is full of pitfalls for the
infirm, because it has so many steps; it is
awkward to get in and out of. On the
other hand, it has good sightlines and
good sound-lines and one is brought into
a certain intimacy with the performers
on stage. And this can work, sometimes,
in very large amphitheatres. The finest
example of an amphitheatre I have ever
seen is the Greek theatre at Epidarus, in
which you can hear a whisper from any
part of the stage, in any part of the theatre. And furthermore, you have a sense
of spatial relationships with the different
parts of the stage. When the chorus
moves from one side of the stage to the
other you hear it; that is, there is an association between sound and movement.
There isn't this deadly uniformity which
has become the ideal of so many acousticians, in imitation, I suppose, of the
loudspeaker.
K. B.: Recognizing the basic shapes that
you just mentioned and recognizing the
extraordinary complexities of other aspects of a concert hall, how would you
proceed to design one, and by this question I don't mean design one with the
kind of knowledge that a practicing architect would have, but to design one
with the knowledge that you have right
now. How would you proceed if you
were commissioned as a prime
consultant?
R. K.: I would beg for the maximum
flexibility in the construction, for a construction that would have the minimum
of factors that could not be changed and
regulated. I would start with the basic
shell which would allow for the possibilities of regulating sound absorption
and sound reflection on a purely pragmatic basis, on an experimental basis. I
would advise either shoe box or amphitheatre. I would be tempted to advise a
stage which is below the level of the audience rather than above it, although this
is not essential. I would be tempted to
advise giving up any attempt at creating a
multi-purpose hall, of any attempt at
combining a concert hall with a theatre
or a lecture platform, although in some
cases, this has been perfectly successfully
achieved.

K. B.: Flexibility is a word that is used a

great deal in architecture and it often refers to folding walls, doors, and other
machines of flexibility. What instruments
and devices of flexibility might come to
mind to you?
R. K.: Well, I am thinking of such things
that are, on an experimental basis, movable; even temporary sound absorption
bodies or temporary sound reflecting
bodies which can be replaced by permanent installations. The same would be
true for seating, simulation of the difference between an empty and a full hall,
in other words, retaining the possibility
of modifying surfaces. There is a common superstition that if a concert hall is
paneled in wood it is automatically good.
I have found this not to be necessarily
true. In fact, one of the unsuccessful adaptations of the ex-Philharmonic Hall
was lined from floor to ceiling with
plywood. I think it was plywood.
Plywood, incidentally, is not the most
resonant form of wood. Plain, ordinary
pine, fir, or spruce is probably as resonant as anything you can get; oak is not.
And yet I have played in many halls
which had an absolute minimum of
wood, in which the construction was
basically in stone and plaster.
K. B.: The property of resonance seems
critically important?
R. K.: Indeed. It is true that in a construction that is entirely made of wood,
you can hardly go wrong, but this, of
course, is not compatible with fire laws
or building codes of a concert hall of any
size.
K. B.: Would it be fair to say that the
compositional possibilities between the
resonant and non-resonant materials deliver the framework for flexibility?
R. K.: Yes. It is like furnishing a house.
Most empty houses sound dreadful until
you get furniture in the house that breaks
up the surfaces and there is a moment
when you have enough things with respect to sound and there is a moment
when you go too far.
K. B.: Do you have any other materials
that you might refer to as good resonators as compared with fir, pine, or
spruce? Steel, aluminum, glass?
R. K.: Usually not good. Any of them.
K. B.: Very thin masonry walls?
R. K.: Masonry has been used since time
immemorial, with conspicuous success.
K. B.: As a resonant material?
R. K.: Yes. Think of all those limestone
churches. Incidentally, one of the most
successful examples in my experience of
twentieth century acoustics is Corbusier's
chapel at Ronchamp. In 1958, together
with its cure I conducted extensive acoustical experiments in all parts of the
building.

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K. B.: Have you any prejudices against

very complicated and faceted surfaces,
such as those that might be produced by
sculptures and moldings?
R. K.: They often are exceedingly favorable. Think of the stucco work of the
Baroque, or the paneling of the French
eighteenth century. But now I think certain problems have been brought out into
the open by the current fashion for simplicity, for unornamented surfaces.
K. B.: Therefore, the choice of elements
in designing a flexible background for
tuning up a concert hall should by no
means be limited to a small palette or a
small number of elements. The experimental possibilities are enormous.
R. K.: Indeed, they are.
K. B.: In fact, one could possibly, by this
process, make new discoveries?
R. K.: How many really good discoveries have been made in the art of
cooking, for example? I think that things
which mask as discoveries are more often
than not specious and turn out to be
clinical or pseudo-scientific, and these are
elements which we don't want. We want
something that tastes good, we want
something that sounds good. There have
been a few thousand years in which experiments have been conducted in this
direction.

K. B.: In that case, it would be reasonable to come forward with a limited

palette of materials?
R. K.: I think so, yes. I think that just as
some of the best cooking is made with
the simplest elements, and certainly the
best art, so there can be an excessive profusion of elements in a way that never
did anyone any good.
K. B.: Having created, let us say, the
conditions for flexibility as you described
them, whom would you call on to choreograph the elements? Who would judge
the quality of the concert hall as the elements were adjusted in time?
R. K.: There will never be complete
agreement in many of these judgements
but I would call upon a group composed
of musicians and intelligent listeners. The
things that need to be judged are the
sound on the stage as the musicians hear
it, the communication between musicians
on the stage, in the case of ensemble music, and the reactions of the hall to
various combinations of instruments,
from solo instruments through chamber
music to all the kinds of sound generated
by the large orchestra.
Incidentally, a great deal of walking
about is desirable from one part of the
hall to another. One can tell a great deal
by simply clapping one's hands throughout different parts of the hall before
proceeding with further refinements.
Sometimes one can tell simply by speaking what a hall is like, but it is amazing
what the handclap will reveal.
K. B.: Then it seems to me that you are
describing a goal in the design of a concert hall which is to achieve a highly
refined, highly sensitive instrument or
tool. In fact, a hall which has the greatest
and most impeccable sensitivity to
sound?
R. K.: But not a clinical sensitivity! A
normal human sensitivity. There has been
far too much fiddling with sensitivities
that are merely clinical. That we don't
want.

K. B.: Would you say more about a normal human sensitivity?

R. K.: A sensitivity of a cultivated musician or a cultivated listener. I mean the
sensitivity of someone who is literate
enough to know what to expect that a
given composer's score can yield. The
concert hall is ideally nothing more than
an extension of anthropomorphic music.
It is music made by and for human
beings, and it ought to be possible to
hear it as if one were a human being.
R. K.: You have asked me for a list of
good, bad, and mediocre concert halls.
This is a random sampling out of my
own experience and quite open to differences of opinion. My judgement is not
based on the peculiar exigencies of the
instrument I happen to play; it is based
on my feeling as a listener to music as
well as a performer. At another time I
might shift the categories under which
some of these halls are listed. There are
many other halls which I have forgotten
or cannot indicate with any precision.
Most of the good halls fall into the category of the shoe box or the amphitheatre, but the Berlin Philharmonie
combines both. A striking disproportion
is to be noted in this list between the
good halls built before World War II and
those built afterwards, and in the bad
halls built before World War II and those
that followed it.

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Bad

Good

Prewar
Maryland, Baltimore

Prewar
Connecticut, New Haven

Museumof Art
New York, New York

SpragueHall
Illinois, Chicago

Town Hall

Concert Halls

OrchestraHall

France, Paris

Maryland, Baltimore

SallePleyel
Postwar

Massachusetts, Boston

Peabody(both halls)
JordanHall
SymphonyHall

Connecticut, Hartford

TrinityCollege
Iowa, Iowa City

Universityof Iowa

Massachusetts, Cambridge

PaineHall
SandersTheater

Maryland, Annapolis

St. John'sCollege

New Hampshire, Durham

Universityof New Hampshire

Massachusetts, Cambridge

M.I.T.KresgeAuditorium

New York, New York

CarnegieRecitalHall

Massachusetts, Wellesley

WellesleyCollegeConcertHall

New York, Utica

MunsonWilliamsProctor
Institute

New York, Buffalo

Universityof Buffalo
New York, New York

AveryFisherHall
MetropolitanMuseum
MetropolitanOpera
TullyHall

Ohio, Cleveland

ClevelandMuseumof Art
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Academyof Music
Texas, Austin

Hogg Auditorium

France, Marseilles

MarseillesUniversity

Virginia, Williamsburg

Governor'sPalaceBallroom

Germany, Bonn

Beethovenhalle
Liederhalle(both halls)
Stuttgart
Italy, Milan

Washington, D.C.

CoolidgeAuditorium
DumbartonOaks
Austria, Bregenz

Milan Angelicum

Landestheatre
Austria, Salzburg

Fair

Mozarteum(both halls)
Austria, Vienna

Konzerthaus(both largerhalls)
MusikVerein(both halls)

Prewar
New York, New York

Belgium, Antwerp

CarnegieHall
Ohio, Cleveland

RubensHouse
England, London

SeveranceHall

Victoria& AlbertMuseum
WiltonHouse Double CubeRoom

England, London

WigmoreHall
Sweden, Stockholm

France, Caen
France, Paris

Both concerthalls
Postwar

EcoleNormalede Musique
Salle Gaveau
Theatredes ChampsElysees

California, Berkeley

Herz Hall

France, Strasbourg

Conservatoire

Germany, Munich

Herkulessaal

Germany, Augsburg

Jesuitensaal
Germany, Bayreuth

Markgrafentheater
Germany, Bielefeld

Oetkerhalle
Germany, Hamburg

Musikhalle(both halls)
Germany, Hanover

BeethovenSaal
Germany, Ludwigshafen

Badsf
Italy, Perugia

PerugiaCathedral
Italy, Rome

Sta. Cecilia(Viadei Greci)

Italy, Venice
"Epidaurus Theatre", Photograph Collection, Art and
Architecture Library, Yale
University.

PalazzoLabia
Italy, Vicenza

TheatroOlimpico
Switzerland, Zurich

Tonhalle(both halls)

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"Berlin Philharmonie", plan,

architect, Hans Scharoun, Photograph Collection, Art and
Architecture Library, Yale
University.

Interior of Guthrie Theater's

auditorium

Postwar
Georgia, Atlanta
Concert Hall
Iowa, Grinnell
Grinnell College Auditorium
Minnesota, Minneapolis
Tyrone Guthrie Theater
Washington, D.C.
Kennedy Concert Hall
Germany, Berlin
Philharmonie
Germany, Frankfort
Deutschebank
Germany, Leipzig
Post Office Auditorium
Portugal, Lisbon
Gulbenkian Foundation (both
halls)

"Teatro Olimpico", Vicenza,

Italy, plan, Photograph Collection, Art and Architecture Library, Yale University.

"Teatro Olimpico", design by

Palladio, Photograph Collection, Art and Architecture Library, Yale University.

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