Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture
by Leo Beranek
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Book Summary Information
Author: Leo BeranekEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-11-03
ISBN: 0387955240
Number of pages: 640
Publisher: Springer
Accessories:
- Transducers and Arrays for Underwater Sound (Underwater Acoustics) (The Underwater Acoustics Series)
- Psychoacoustics: Facts and Models (Springer Series in Information Sciences)
Book Reviews of Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture
Book Review: Deeply interesting
Summary: 5 Stars
The author of this book greets us with an endearing smile on the back flap of the dust cover, and has every reason to. Imagine spending a significant part of your life touring concert halls and opera houses all over the world, sitting in on concerts (often changing seats in the course of the program), in order to assess the acoustic properties of the venue at hand. Fortunately, dr. Beranek has been kind enough to lay down his findings in this scholarly yet enchanting book. It offers invaluable insights into the workings of acoustics and the many factors that determine a hall's aural properties. It does so by elucidating the general principles of acoustics, and by addressing topics like building materials, hall shapes, balconies, etc., separately. But the bulk of the book is taken up by a kind of gazetteer describing in detail 100 concert halls and opera houses from around the world. Each of the descriptions includes data on all significant hall properties, as well as plans, cross sections, and (black and white) photographs looking from the auditorium towards the stage and vice versa. Yet you need not fear a dry, scientific inventory; on the contrary: the writing is never anything less than engaging, and the author never forgets that in the end it is all about the joys of music, which he clearly savours himself. The text is strewn with anecdotal quotations from conductors, players and reviewers alike - the author is acutely aware that a hall's reputation rests as much on the writings of critics and the overall audience experience as it does on quantifiable acoustical qualities. For those who like hit parades, yes, there is a top 20, though dr. Beranek is too much of a scientist to present it without heaps of caveats (though it is clear throughout the book that Boston Symphony Hall is his acoustic Walhalla).
Of course, a book like this can never be quite complete, and though I encountered the two halls I'd expected to see from my own country (the Amsterdam Concertgebouw again featuring as one of the world's top three), I was inevitably slightly disappointed to see my own town's hall disregarded, even though it is generally acknowledged to surpass the Concertgebouw when it comes to classical and early romantic repertoire. In a more general sense, the question is how random the selection was. You will find all the great halls you would expect in a survey like this (though Russia is conspicuously absent), but like me many readers are bound to be aware of hidden gems undiscovered (or at least unaddressed) by Beranek. London and Japan seem to be disproportionately represented (no less than 9 Tokyo halls are listed!), nor did I find all the US entries equally compelling (one wonders also why all countries are listed alphabetically, but after the US?). It should be noted, too, that the images serve to give a general impression of a hall, but are mostly of moderate quality, and sometimes quite bad. Finally, and then I'll stop complaining and resume the praise, opera houses are very much underrepresented and almost seem like an afterthought; they might as well have been left out, the focus is clearly on symphonic concert spaces.
None of this detracts in any significant way from the wonders of this unique book, which is, by the way, beautifully produced, featuring smooth, glossy paper. Whether an acoustic scientist, a regular concert goer or an architecture buff, this book will be fascinating reading for you. It may, indeed, even help you select the best available seat when you're booking a ticket in a hall you've never visited before (avoid those three back rows on the Boston Symphony Hall middle balcony!).
Summary of Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture
This illustrated guide to 100 of the world's most important concert halls and opera houses examines their architecture and engineering and discusses their acoustical quality as judged by conductors and music critics. The descriptions and photographs will serve as a valuable guide for today's peripatetic performers and music lovers. With technical discussions relegated to appendices, the book can be read with pleasure by anyone interested in musical performance. The photographs (specially commissioned for this book) and architectural drawings (all to the same scale) together with modern acoustical data on each of the halls provide a rich and unmatched resource on the design of halls for presenting musical performances. Together with the technical appendices, the data and drawings will serve as an invaluable reference for architects and engineers involved in the design of spaces for the performance of music.Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning Books
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