Bob Laird
January 9, 2006
Edited May 18,
2008
Very lightly
edited for further clarity April 2, 2009
For the full 2008 story, visit http://sirhute.com/eastman-acoustics.htm
If you have heard the new Eastman Theatre and wish to
comment, kindly email:
THE RENOVATED ACOUSTIC OF THE EASTMAN THEATRE:
A SUPERFICIALLY IMPRESSIVE SONIC MUDDLE
Something is wrong with
the sound of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in the Eastman Theatre.
I used to haunt the
place decades ago as a music student, and later as a young adult with RPO
season tickets. In that era there was no orchestra shell. Heavy velvet curtains
were hung onstage at the rear of the Orchestra and on the sides, with an open
ceiling above, all the way up to the catwalks.
It was from that
strategic position that dozens of ping-pong balls were once anonymously
released during an RPO concert, as conductor Laszlo Somogyi began the second
movement of a Haydn Symphony. Seemed at first like the sky was falling, till
the second or third bounce identified the descending objects. A few days later
there appeared on an
The best orchestral
sound I have ever heard in the Eastman Theatre was on a Saturday night around
1970, when Eastman School Director Walter Hendl guest-conducted the RPO in
“Pictures at an Exhibition.”
Back then, thick velvet
valance curtains were hung across the front of the stage, full width and fairly
low. For Hendl’s concert, the valance curtains were rolled way up, out of the
way. The drapes at the sides and rear of the orchestra remained in place,
although slid open at intervals.
That’s all it took to
release the orchestra’s sound into the hall with exceptional depth, brilliance,
warmth, and clarity. The emotional impact of that night’s orchestral sound
persists.
Hendl knew what he was
doing. He had conducted in concert halls worldwide, and had been Associate
Conductor under Fritz Reiner at the Chicago Symphony during an era of sonically
and artistically acclaimed concerts and recordings of that Orchestra. He had
made several recordings himself with the CSO.
Apparently no one took
note of Hendl’s so simple and inexpensive acoustic revelation, or maybe those
in charge simply preferred the more conservatively curtained decor. The valance
curtains and the surround curtains were restored to their traditional position
for ensuing concerts.
The curtains lasted
until 1972, when Kodak underwrote a huge gilded stainless steel ‘eyebrow’
positioned above the full width of the stage and angled outward toward the
hall, as well as a tall multi-panel tan-colored, plastic-damped stainless steel
shell winched down in one of four possible iterations around the orchestra.
Both eyebrow and shell (and a floating ceiling) were intended to reflect sound
down and outward. The house seats were replaced with slightly wider new ones
which also were designed to absorb less sound, and they were reduced in number
from 3,347 to 3,094.
As a fairly naïve young
adult I eagerly looked forward to hearing the improved hall. I’ll never forget
my disappointment.
The 1972 sound became
brighter but not clearer, as it bounced and skimmed off the huge new essentially
flat reflecting surfaces, no doubt also resonating with them to some degree.
Lacking the ability to levitate, I never rapped my knuckles on the floating
‘eyebrow’ after a concert, but the tall brown surround panels had a distinct,
if damped, metallic sound when struck.
The new sound was more
palatable if one moved centrally back in the Orchestra seating until a bit
underneath the Mezzanine overhang, or better yet to the Balcony, where sound seemed
to arrive directly upward from the stage, less affected by reflections and
refractions related to the shell and the eyebrow.
The goal sought and
achieved in 1972 was to greatly increase near reflections of orchestral sound
onstage and to the front of the house, and as well to add a supposedly more
exciting ‘presence peak’ in the frequency response curve of the hall, rather
like turning up the treble knob on a stereo.
After a lengthy gap in
my RPO attendance, I went with a friend to the October 8, 2005 performance of
Torke, Mozart, and Mahler, conducted by
I noticed that Kodak’s
gilded ‘eyebrow’ was gone, the front curtains were raised very high, and a tall
new shell emulating existing Eastman Theatre architecture was in place around
the Orchestra. The music began. Screech, slam, bang, whump, and more screech.
Holy Beethoven, Batman! Something is not right at the Eastman Theatre!
When the piece ended, my
companion agreed that the orchestra had sounded painfully bright and harsh, so
as the piano was being readied for the Mozart Concerto we moved farther back,
to seats more central and just forward of the loge overhang. As the stage was
being set up, the players’ random noodling sounded more spacious. Problem
solved?
One might wish. Trouble
was first apparent when the Concertmaster depressed the ‘A’ on the piano for
tuning. I heard not one attack, but two attacks in extremely rapid succession,
as ‘di-dum’. The effect was similar to the sound of a poorly checking hammer
bouncing and striking a piano string twice in succession, but much quicker.
Acoustically such an anomaly is known as ‘slapback,’ whereby a strongly
reflected soundwave arrives at the listener’s ears a split second later than
the direct wave from the source of the sound.
The Mozart began. The
piano sound at our seats was sweet but blurry, and rapid rising scale passages
from the piano suffered from an edgy ripping of that ‘di-dum’ slapback across
the entire run. Extended piano trills were blurry and were heard as if from two
directions; the pitches themselves from the piano, and, bouncing off stage
left, a related but overemphasized low-frequency rumble from the thumping of
the piano action.
The orchestral
accompaniment in the Mozart may have been superb. But like trying to discern
visual details through fogged glasses, the ears could not focus on anything
beyond generalities within the acoustic haze. The hall smeared whatever tight
ensemble likely existed on stage.
For the Mahler, we
retreated further, all the way up to the second to last row in balcony center.
As over past decades, the clarity of inner voices was best in that location,
but now the sound was not so relaxed as in the past. The middle and upper
ranges were unnecessarily loud, and they had a projected edge to them, over top
of a distinctly harsh hall ambience.
The strings sounded
thinner than ever, and the trumpets sounded spotlit. It was the visual analog
of an exploded mechanical drawing, each component thrust separately outward
with little sense of the whole. There was conveyed very little of the richly
contrasting oomph and tenderness that is part and parcel of a Mahler Symphony.
It all felt rather academic. I did not glance at my watch, but the thought occurred
to me that I was basically just waiting for the Symphony to end.
At all three of our seat
positions the bass sounded like an expensive stereo with a mismatched
sub-woofer: close, but no cigar. The very lowest octave of bass was actually
less audible than in the past, overshadowed now by a powerful broad sympathetic
resonance slightly higher up in the ‘bass’ range.
The musicians on stage
currently enjoy a visceral thrill from bass vibrations conducted by the newly
sprung stage floor, which was designed to be both acoustically resonant and
also ballet dancer-friendly. But the most natural bass would result from a
non-resonant floor and a non-resonant shell (or no shell at all, which by
definition would introduce neither mechanical resonance nor standing waves).
It is very difficult to purposely
excite a resonance in a secondary material (the stage flooring) without
detrimentally coloring the attack, decay, and timbre of the original sound. The
bass was being reinforced in an odd manner, calling too much attention to that
part of the spectrum. The effect was not unpleasant in an iPod-ish sort of way,
but it was unnatural.
There is a naturally
appropriate weight to live acoustic bass that provides a satisfying foundation
for middle and higher frequencies. If the latter have been rendered
harsh-sounding by brightly-reflected interference patterns, and thus
experienced psychoacoustically as too loud, the natural bass balance is thrown
off. Unfortunately this became the case to some extent at the Eastman Theatre
after the 1972 ‘presence peak’ was engineered, and it is far more the case now,
since the acoustical changes in 2004.
The bass balance heard
by the audience in the pre-1972 Eastman Theatre was always appropriate. On
stage, it did sound light to the musicians. But blooming into the hall, strong
bass was there when called for, and it could grab you in the gut in Rite of Spring, Firebird, and Symphonie
Fantastique. In a classical symphony, the bass line floated with precision
and clarity out to the audience.
When Kodak’s 1972
“improvements” artificially projected the mids and highs, making them sound
brighter and louder, the bass heard by the audience began to seem lighter in comparison.
It is a pity that over
the ensuing thirty years we became so used to the brighter acoustic of the 1972
'presence peak' that the imbalance it introduced was apparently taken as a
baseline for further improvement, rather than seeking first to rediscover the
sound of the original geometry and topography of the hall itself.
There is no way for
natural bass to balance with enhanced brightness. But the solution is not to
enhance the bass also. Rather the
solution is to tame the artificial brightness.
Even when natural
acoustic bass does not have to compete with artificial brightness, it may today
seem light to some. Natural bass is of a more relaxed and acoustically genuine
realm than is the amplified electronic bass heard in popular music, or via the
gonad-thumping pulses heard from within various four-wheeled metal vibrators
cruising past the Theatre along Main Street.
The way to obtain a
natural balance of sound in the Eastman Theatre is not by applying to live
classical music acoustical algorithms similar to the standards of rap and hip-hop,
including the gut-thumping whump and the loud outcry of self-validation. There
is plenty of room in this world for a vast variety of music and sound, but the
differences are to be respected, not homogenized. Applied to live orchestral
music this same formula yields a beast of a bright but useless color.
The Eastman Theatre is
currently upholding sonic standards that are inappropriate for classical music,
and which weaken it. Live acoustic classical music must be appreciated on its
own terms. If it is to be performed in a huge hall (N.B. we are talking total cubic
feet of air, here, not just number of seats!), it simply will not sound as loud
as it would in a smaller hall. Attempts to make the music sound louder in the
Eastman Theatre have thus far succeeded. But the piper has been egregiously
paid via reduced clarity, increased stridency, and a poorer balance of
orchestral sound.
A sensitive listener may
ask that a stereo playing at a moderate volume be turned down. Usually it is
not the stereo’s loudness but rather its subtle electronic distortion that
offends the ear. Turning it down lessens the audibility of everything,
including the distortion, while still allowing a listener to ‘hear the tune.’
Distortion can manifest
acoustically in the air in a concert hall, where the sound cannot be turned
down. It can be caused by strong delayed reflections that recombine with the
direct sound wave from the orchestra, adding and subtracting out of phase
energy in a ‘comb’ effect, altering the natural frequency curve of the music,
and blurring the original sound. False brightness and even harshness and can
occur by the same means, particularly during louder and more complex passages.
The resultant muddle interferes with the audience’s ability to listen in
clarity to what the composer intended to be heard.
Since the 2004 changes,
there is a particularly strong sonic reflection in the Eastman Theatre, a ‘slapback,’
or extremely fast and very loud echo, about 80 milliseconds or so (at a guess)
delayed relative to direct sound from on stage.
The undesirable echo
must somehow involve the new shell, the newly hardened walls, and perhaps the
refinished stage floor, because nothing else has been changed, acoustically.
The slapback may travel a circuitous, multi-hop route before banging back into
the direct sound at a listener’s ears a split second too late. The same effect
is heard onstage at some stand positions, potentially confusing ensemble.
Besides the walls, the vaulted ceiling above the chandelier may be involved, as
well as the heavily-painted, hanging, concavely curved surfaces at the front of
the mezzanine and balcony.
The potential for
slapback was likely inherent in the geometry of the hall all along. But now
sound from the stage is projected more strongly outward by the new orchestra
shell, and it is no longer partly absorbed and scattered by the original
composition and original surface topology of the now sealed and hardened
Zenitherm Theatre walls.
The problem with
slapback is that it is too loud at the instant of intersection with the
listener’s ears to fit an ideal decay curve of ambient sound in the hall,
relative to the direct sound. It is this anomalously delayed loudness peak that
makes the reflection objectionable. Rather than politely subsiding into the
hall ambience, the slapback claims autonomy as a discrete faux event that
loudly competes with the orchestra’s direct sound, a split second later.
Even when not discerned
as a discrete slapback, the loud echo is there all the same, doing its dirty
work. Not all listeners, at all seating locations, will hear the anomaly as a
slapback, but they will hear its effects throughout all the music, including
blurring and edginess, or even harshness on louder and more complex passages.
In our Orchestra Center
seats just forward of the Mezzanine overhang (during the Mozart Concerto), the
sound seemed at first very spacious. But it was a hazy, confusing spaciousness,
which the ear tried unsuccessfully to decode. Very little clarity of musical
information was retrievable from the jumbled waveforms arriving at our seats.
There is an excellent
graphic example of slapback shown in the final oscilloscope trace (which
contains the words “audible echo”) near the bottom of http://sirhute.com/slapback-discrete-strong-echo.htm
Note that as the attack is smoothly
decaying, a strong reflected spike suddenly obtrudes upon the listener. This is
what is currently going on all the time throughout the Eastman Theatre, most
noticeably in the Orchestra seating and, alas, onstage.
The same web page compares
the measured clarity of the Eastman Theatre in 1959 (during the heyday of the
Mercury recordings – see below) with that of other halls worldwide, in
measurements taken by famed architectural acoustician Leo Beranek. The 1959
Eastman Theatre comes up almost dead center in the preferred range, leaning
just slightly toward clarity and away from excessive reverberation. Why did we
give that up? And why did we predicate the 2004 “improvement” upon the failures
of the 1972 “improvement,” rather than upon the original hall and the original
curtained and shell-less concert set-up?
The renowned acoustics
of the original hall (which admittedly only Producer Wilma Cozart of Mercury
Records and later conductor Walter Hendl seemed to fully understand,
mid-century) have long been lost in tampering. In 1972 it would have been a
heck of a lot cheaper just to remove the low-hung valence curtains, as did
Hendl for Pictures at an Exhibition, or to remove both valence and surround
curtains as did Mercury for its recordings, and maybe to pull up the carpet.
Had that been done, my bet is that the 1972 changes would never have occurred,
and that any 2004 changes would have been strictly mechanical, not acoustical.
“The brass sounds
wonderfully warm and sonorous, the strings rich and full, the woodwinds
brilliant and clear.”
—Audience member comment
about Severance Hall in
Honestly now, is this currently
how the Eastman Theatre sounds? It did in Walter Hendl’s day (although with
relatively small string sections), before the two renovations it subsequently
endured. The 1972 renovation subtracted warmth from the hall. The 2004
renovation subtracted both warmth and clarity, adding a muddled bright blur, a
false spaciousness.
Back in 1972 there was
initially a very positive response to the strongly-sold changes, just as is
claimed today of the strongly-sold alterations of 2004. It is only human for strongly-sold
and poorly-examined beliefs to be readily bought into. We patrons may feel out
of our element and so prefer to trust what others say. What is also operative
is that the ear is often intrigued with any
change at first, particularly if louder or brighter.
Acoustical tampering
with natural sound based upon a belief that the public prefers their
entertainment ever louder, brighter, and with more impact, is a slippery slope
toward long term dissatisfaction. Some today believe that the public seeks
impact more than content. This bias already dominates TV and video. But the fact that classical music must
presently compete in a noisier world than, say, that of Beethoven’s Pastoral
Symphony doesn’t mean that classical music must emulate that which it is not. Much
ingenuous joy is trampled under such a game plan.
If you walk from the din
of the street into a stereo shop and buy the first system that grabs your
attention with its ‘impact,’ ‘presence,’ and ‘detail,’ you will likely tire of
its sound soon after you get it home. You may not recognize why. Perhaps you
will even entertain inchoate suspicions that you just don’t like music quite so
much as you had thought. Can anyone perceive the threat to live classical music
attendance that is inherent in causing the Eastman Theatre to sound just
initially loud and exciting, like a bad stereo?
The unique ability of
classical music to draw a listener in rather than resorting to foisting itself
aggressively upon him is usurped by intentional acoustical foisting in a
concert hall. Listening in such a hall, it becomes easy to believe that
classical music attracts you less than you had thought. There is probably no
way to measure audience attrition related to this effect.
In a really good hall,
at any dynamic level, the sound of live acoustic music is imbued with warm
understatement and burnished subtlety set upon velvet silence. In such a hall,
the music can draw the listener in, engage him, caress him, excite him, and sometimes
even wallop him when the score calls for it. But never, in a good hall, does
the sound of the music badger the listener, or scream at him, “Listen to me.”
Ideally, an auditorium
should provide many variegated surfaces from which to reflect sound. When this
is so, the sound becomes well dispersed, and its highest overtones are to a significant
extent spent in transit, while leaving intact the lower, ‘warmer’ overtones.
When multitudes of such
softer, well-dispersed reflections bump back into the orchestra’s direct sound,
harshness or even ‘screech’ does not
result. Instead, the orchestral sound becomes warmer, richer, and smoother, as
the direct sound from onstage is nudged and stirred a bit from many different
directions by a whole lot of softer, lower-overtone reflections.
The problem in the
Eastman Theatre is not the general property of ‘reflection,’ which in quicker
and more variegated iteration could indeed make the hall sound simultaneously
exciting and mellifluous. The problem exists because there is a dominant
Eastman Theatre reflection that bounces with significant delay from very large,
essentially flat or else focusing curved surfaces (likely either the fronts of
the Mezzanine and Loge or the rear of the balcony). This resultant ‘slapback’
reflection presents to the listener, and to at least some of the musicians
onstage, a secondary discrete event continuously subtending the direct outgoing
sound from the orchestra.
The slapback’s peculiar
bundle of coherency, loudness, and very briefly delayed temporal relationship with
the orchestra’s direct sound is confusing to the ear. The music does sound more
spacious, but it is a blurry spaciousness. As well, higher pitches and upper
overtones become screechy during louder passages, as loudly coherent secondary
waveforms slam into the original waveform and combine with it, yielding a resultant
smeared phase-jumbled waveform of tremendously incalculable complexity. At
times, particularly during louder passages, the effect is harsh enough to make a
listener cringe.
When a listener cringes,
even subliminally, she automatically adopts a psychoacoustic stance of caution,
and remains partially shut down for a time. For a while she misses subtleties
that follow. Thus her total listening experience suffers, continuing well
beyond just the screechiest moments.
Even a single tympani
stroke excites a richly complex waveform, which begins to decay (audibly die
away) immediately after the drumhead is struck. A listener in ‘cringe mode’
will miss the full richness of the attack and decay. The listener may be
cringing in response to the ‘enhanced’ tympani attack itself, or she may still
be reeling from an acoustically ‘improved’ violin crescendo a few bars back.
We are genetically
programmed to pay greater attention to higher-pitched sounds, for the sake of
safety and survival. Our ancestors in forest and jungle needed to differentiate
the relative threat of any sudden audible event. Nearby sounds commonly deliver
more high frequencies to the ear than do distant ones. The rustle of tall grass
six yards away automatically redirects attention away from the sound of a
waterfall toward which one is hiking. Until the source of the rustling is known
and safely resolved, the waterfall, still every bit as loud, is heard only
vaguely by the listener, psychoacoustically speaking.
Much the same battle of
attention occurs when we attempt to engage our ears with the rich symphonic
waterfall of a Brahms symphony. Listening either on an excessively bright
stereo or in an overly bright hall, we remain programmed to attend first to the
continually arising potential emergencies represented by various shrieks from
the violins, or by anomalous bright harshness flanking us off the walls.
With the attention so
engaged by false alarums, we miss the holistic symphonic message Brahms
intended. We are simply unable to parallel process the inner voices and
subtleties while dealing with semblance of threat. It is not a matter of
choice; it is genetic.
Attention aside, loud
sounds of any pitch can ‘mask’ simultaneous softer sounds. That, too, is a part
of what goes on when louder than normal higher pitches (brightness) deny the
listener full access to subtleties in the score.
False brightness may be
defined as any emphasis of upper partials that deviates from their natural
diminution within the ascending harmonic series. Put another way, if the
violins sound a bit strident, rather than rich and warm, false brightness is
occurring.
Any alteration of
frequency response that deviates toward false brightness breeds tension as the
ear and brain try to resolve what is really going on. The possibility of
listening deeply into the score is subverted. On the other hand warm, natural,
acoustic sound induces the listener to ‘lean forward’ metaphorically and even
physically, to more fully apprehend its beauty.
Sadly, the role of false
brightness in interfering with musical perception is not usually recognized
except in retrospect, when the artificial enhancements that cause it have been
removed. Suddenly there is nothing to cringe from and far more to listen to. We
know not what we miss, until the impediment to our knowing is removed.
In 1964, Supreme Court
Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote that it was difficult for him to define
“hard-core pornography,” but that, “I know it when I see it.” Hard-core live
acoustic music of phase coherency and naturally diminishing upper partials is
recognizable by any who hear it, even though defining its peculiarly fulfilling
sound and affect may be difficult. Its naturalness is recognizable by the human
nervous system even if, until encountering it, we had not realized what we were
missing (with all due respect for the late Justice Potter, to whose responses the
public was not privy).
The ear can be fooled into
considering false brightness an improvement at first. Rather like turning up
the treble knob on a stereo, there seems more ‘presence’ during softer
passages. But soon the untoward screech of a louder, more complex passage
compels one to turn the treble back down to a more neutral, more harmonically
accurate setting.
There is a delicacy to
string overtones that should never degenerate into a muddled screech, no matter
how loud or complex the writing, or how tightly bundled the harmonies. Penderecki’s
“Threnody,” written for fifty-two strings alone, contains the densest and most
effectively dissonant string writing imaginable, replete with rich overtones
combined in searing purity. Only when such a piece is presented in an ambience
free from blur and screech can it be fully apprehended by the audience.
Listening to “Threnody” is all the more a moving and empathic experience when
the ears can open wide and lust freely for every iota of intense sound coming
their way, rather than cringing from the louder passages.
It would be disastrous
to attempt to convey Penderecki’s “Threnody” in the presently garbled acoustics
of the Eastman Theatre. A lot of audience members would decide, for the wrong
reasons, that they just don’t have an ear for modern music.
It would yet be possible
to regain warmth and clarity in the Eastman Theatre, although likely not at
sound pressure levels (loudness) currently deemed desirable.
The shape of the hall
remains unchanged since it was built, and only certain surfaces were altered,
or else new surfaces interposed, both in 1972 and in 2004. It was as a result
of those very large, flat, newly reflective surfaces that the sound in both
eras became not just brighter but also harsher, supporting a perception that
the bass level needed to be increased in order to try to balance what had
become wrong in the treble.
The effects of the most
recent changes to the Theatre, completed in 2004, are far worse than were the
already detrimental 1972 changes. The recent alterations have yielded an
acoustical parody of a great hall, a misguided attempt to make the sound of
classical music louder and more impressive, and damn the consequences to
natural warmth and clarity.
The recent acoustical
changes in the Eastman Theatre were undertaken after U of R personnel visited the
renovated Severance Hall in Cleveland, home of the Cleveland Orchestra. The
sonic results at Severance Hall were found impressive by
The photographic essay
available on line at http://www.clevelandorch.com/html/Severance/SevHistory.asp
shows clearly that we are a long way from apples to apples with Severance Hall;
specifically in the manner the far more variegated and convoluted interior
architecture of the house and stage at Severance, helping to broadly disperse
the sound in small packets rather than as huge slapping wavefronts. Compared
with the interior of the Eastman Theatre, there is nary a broad, flat, hard
surface to be found anywhere at Severance Hall.
It is possible to accomplish
mellifluous dispersion of sound without introducing harshness. At Severance
Hall, this is done by using many surfaces of different shapes, sizes,
materials, locations, and angles of incidence to disperse sound relatively
equally throughout the hall. We sure could use some of them apples.
Applying a hard coating
to the original Zenitherm blocks comprising the Eastman Theatre auditorium wall
surfaces may have been a bad move. This was done to make them reflect more
sound.
I say ‘may have been,’
because I did not hear the effects of the new shell alone, prior to the
application of the coating to the walls. But at the October 8, 2005 concert,
there was a strong sonic glare bouncing from the nearby wall to our initial
seats in
Zenitherm is a 1920’s
blend of wood fiber and magnesium salts used as a faux-stone wall covering or
flooring. It was manufactured in various colors, patterns, and shapes. It is in
evidence locally in the form of rectangular gray blocks covering walls at the
Eastman Theatre, Kilbourn Hall, and the
The original
manufacturer’s brochure for Zenitherm contains this acoustically relevant
statement:
"The surface texture
and composition of Zenitherm break up reverberation of sound. Where Zenitherm
has been used in churches, theatres, or auditoriums, the acoustical values of
the interior have been greatly increased.”
—Source: http://zenitherm.ftldesign.com/
under the section “Zenitherm, the Universal Building Material,” quotation buried
in ZS04.jpg
The smooth, hard,
polyurethane coating now covering the Zenitherm walls strongly reflects all
frequencies, including the very highest. Is that desirable? At the Eastman
Theatre, the sound is now too bright.
What were the frequency
curves of absorption, refraction, and reflection of the original Zenitherm? Did
anybody bother to measure them? Maybe the Zenitherm should have been left
alone, or maybe there was a happy medium, not known, because not looked for.
Was any empirical
testing done before just slapping a coat of polyurethane on the Zenitherm?
Temporarily hanging smooth Masonite panels on the walls and listening to the
result would have been a logical move before permanently altering the walls’
reflective qualities for all future generations. Mounting a few Zenitherm
panels in an acoustically isolated box and measuring the frequency curve and
loudness of sound reflected from them, both before and after applying
polyurethane, would also have been a good move.
Consider the many years
of dedicated hard work and extreme attention to detail it takes to deservedly
occupy the RPO stage or podium. Consider the consensus of peers about
musicianship and instrumental sound represented by the decisions of audition
committees. Should the irreversible alteration of the sound of a venerable
concert hall be approached more haphazardly than all that leads to the creation
of music on its stage?
Perhaps the resultant
sound turned out differently than expected. All the more reason to ask where
any due diligence was applied before commitment to irreversible change. The
sonic results of the new wall coating are now imposed upon tens or hundreds of
thousands of concertgoers in perpetuity.
If the manufacturer’s
claims about Zenitherm were correct, it broke up reverberation of sound, which
would ameliorate both slapback and harshness. Such artifacts may have been
always potentially present in the geometry of the hall, but at a low enough
level to be not problematic. Altering the acoustic properties of the walls may
be what has brought to the fore a pre-existing potential problem.
To be fair, though, this
may be only a part of the story. There may be occurring a sort of negative
synergy, whereby the new shell focuses higher levels of brighter sound more
directionally out into the hall, while the newly coated walls toss it about to
a fault.
There are simple
inexpensive ways to determine and repair what has gone wrong. Some of them are
discussed below. But nothing will change unless concertgoers courageously
suspend belief in the official hype long enough to listen dispassionately for
themselves, and then undertake to voice loud concern, if indeed they feel any.
The Eastman Theatre was
completed in 1922. Its acoustics sufficed for nearly fifty years. After the 1972
acoustical changes, a slowly recognized dissatisfaction with the resultant
sound eventually grew to the point of trying again in 2004.
Perhaps the real
problem, though, was the misguided 1972 attempt, itself. Was there subtle
pressure felt to bring the sound of the Theatre into closer competition with
modern developments in entertainment?
Loud rock and roll was
well established, and surround-sound movies had appeared in theatres. Blazingly
powerful home stereos had become available, and stereo vinyl records had been
around for a little over a decade. Commercial stereo recordings were often
extremely hyped-up sonic products. It was common to push multiple microphones
into orchestra sections, and also to use separate microphones to spotlight
soloists. Artificial echo or ambience was commonly added. The end product was
literally ‘engineered’ to fit somebody’s conception of how to improve on
natural sound, which usually meant artificially closer, louder, and
brighter.
Once, around 1970, I
arrived belatedly in the ticket lobby in time to catch the second half of an
RPO concert. A young man was asking someone in the lobby about a possible
refund, because he was disappointed that what he had just heard lacked the
impact of his stereo at home.
Documented
dissatisfaction with the acoustics of the Eastman Theatre appears to have been
notably absent during the early years of its existence. The book “For the
Enrichment of Community Life,” written by Eastman School Historian Vince Lenti,
is a superb resource covering the first ten years of the
Mengelberg, in
particular, had high praise for the
Aesthetic values change
over time, but inevitably the pendulum swings back, and as a result of our
excursion we may finally know the
starting-place for the first time, by comparison. (T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,”
the Prodigal Son, etc.)
For now, however, many
are exploring some supposed need to hear louder sound with more impact than
sufficed a few decades ago. The sound must somehow call attention to itself to
impress us. Perhaps this constitutes an effort to grab and hold shards of ever more
scattered attention amidst the ubiquitous clamor of modern media. But this is not the way to receive the most benefit
from listening to a live acoustic classical orchestral concert.
Some conductors are
imprinted upon the sound levels and brightness they hear directly in front of
the orchestra. They may wish to convey that perspective, in large part,
throughout a hall. The larger the hall, the more unlikely becomes such
possibility, and efforts to do so can result in clangorous parody. Even the
2008 reduction in Orchestra Level seating still will leave the Eastman Theatre acoustically
a very large-volume hall, because the balcony and the huge volume of air above
it is to remain as deep as ever. (And by the way, the new box seating to be
tacked onto the existing side walls, while offering a great place to see and be
seen, will be just as harshly disastrous to the sound heard by their occupants
as presently is sitting in the existing house seats far right or far left.)
There are other
perfectly valid perspectives besides the conductor’s upon live orchestral
sound. Many a patron would find it sonically disconcerting to move forward from
his well-imprinted seat locus in order to turn pages for the Maestro onstage.
In ideal circumstance there is rounded warmth and burnished lushness available
at the back of a hall that the conductor is not privy to, although admittedly
it is the conductor’s exploded aural view that allows him to fine-tune what will be heard out in the hall.
The acoustic philosophy
of 'louder, brighter, more impact' should raise concern. Such attributes are
superficial compared to the music itself. Their implementation at the Eastman
Theatre has obscured the music. Emotional affect is being smudged and weakened
within a superficially impressive sonic muddle.
A good concert hall is
one that offers refuge from clamor, not competition with it. A good hall
encourages audience members to quiet themselves and listen.
From the acoustic
perspective of the musicians on stage, the original Eastman Theatre long had a
reputation of sounding somewhat ‘dry’ (non-reflective, non-echoic). Not a whole
lot of the sound the musicians produced on the stage before the 2004 renovation
was reflected back to them, for them to hear. Yet decades of superb music
making somehow occurred under those conditions.
Out in the house,
however, there was a good ambient mix of warmth and clarity. You can hear a bit
of the old hall ambience to this day on the famous Mercury Records Living
Presence series of recordings of Howard Hanson’s “Eastman-Rochester Orchestra”
and of Frederick Fennell’s Eastman Wind Ensemble, made in the Theatre in the
late fifties and early sixties, and later reissued on CD.
The Mercury recordings
are true historical documents of how an orchestra sounded in the Eastman
Theatre in those days, with no orchestra shell in use. Mercury’s respected
recording director, Wilma Cozart, sought to recreate the actual experience a
listener would have if sitting tenth row center.
The microphones were
hung above and just forward of the front of the Orchestra. They were
omni-directional, receiving ambient information from the hall as well as direct
sound from the stage. Although the recordings were made in an empty hall, the
relative level of recorded hall ambience is actually less loud than it sounded
in person farther back in the hall when the hall was occupied by an audience. But
a sense of the original ambience is preserved. The honest instrumental timbres
heard during that era are also evident, along with the original pinpoint
clarity of sound. Post 1972, that original powerfully understated and distinctly
focused sound was no longer heard in the Eastman Theatre.
Mercury also regularly
recorded the Detroit Symphony, the Minneapolis Symphony, and the London
Symphony, each in their own recording halls, using the same microphone setup,
and even using the same mobile recording truck, which was actually shipped to
England at times. The recorded Mercury sound of the Rochester orchestra in the
Eastman Theatre is distinctive, and in some ways preferable to the other halls.
There is a greater range of color to the palette of timbres, set spaciously
across the stage and deep into it. It is a refreshingly simple sound, one which
has not been heard from the Theatre since 1972.
Here are quoted excerpts
[emphases mine] from the album cover of a Mercury recording (SR90002) of
Gershwin’s “Concerto in F” and “Rhapsody in Blue,” with pianist Eugene List,
and Howard Hanson conducting the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra, in the
Eastman Theatre:
“The recording was
made in the Eastman Theatre in
. . . the entire
panorama of the orchestral sound is vividly present, with all the spatial
dimension of a live performance. The
brasses speak from the rear of the stage; the low strings and harp from the
right; the solo woodwinds from the center; and the higher strings and
percussion from the left. The sound of the piano is always clear and
individual, yet a perfect balance between it and the rest of the orchestra is
always maintained.”
This was not mere
advertising hype. Wilma Cozart’s purist recording philosophy and its results
have stood the test of time, highly regarded by generations of reviewers,
including even the re-issues on CD.
The Mercury recordings
sound very much like the old, pre-1972 Eastman Theatre, complete with a warm
hall ambience decaying for just over a second and a half, an ideal figure. The
recorded sound is significantly clearer and warmer than concertgoers presently
hear in person in the Eastman Theatre.
What has gone wrong?
There is no real warmth remaining now, and sound from the stage is being
projected in an overstated and blurred manner that mocks any sincere attempt to
listen deeply into the score.
In the era of the
Mercury recordings, there were two trade-offs for the sake of acoustical warmth
and clarity at the audience’s ears. First, the musicians had to allow, very
successfully, for hearing themselves less well (or at least differently than
now). Second, the sound in the hall, while far clearer and better balanced, was
slightly less loud than at present.
Quality of sound is more
important than quantity of sound. Honest authority is better than strained or
blurred projection. Less was most definitely more, and it was a sound into
which one could listen deeply, without ever cringing from harshness.
Hearing occurs passively
when the ears intercept sound. Listening is a conscious choice. Listening is
more focused, more intense, and a richer experience than is mere hearing. Alone
in a forest clearing at dusk, one hears rustling grass and the snap of a twig.
Then begins the listening.
As things stand,
concertgoers in the Eastman Theatre are in significant measure being denied the
option to listen, as may a skier be denied crisp visual cues amidst the
brightly reflected glare of sunlit snow.
Newer audience members
tentatively exploring the RPO concerts may have no idea what has been lost. If
they are denied the opportunity to listen past the loud haze that now envelops
the music, some may just assume that this is
what live classical music sounds like—a big, loud stereo. They may wonder what
all the fuss is about, and just go to the movies on their next night out. There
is little reason to continue buying tickets to performances that you cannot
listen to.
After sustaining for a
decade the advertising myth that the first audio compact discs provided “Perfect
Sound Forever,” CBS/Sony in 1992, at the summer Chicago Consumer Electronics
Show, finally admitted that CD's had never sounded as good as original analog
master tapes and associated vinyl record pressings, and introduced a second
generation CD with a higher sampling rate. Since then, further sonic
improvements and newer digital formats continue to come about.
A quarter of a century
after the promise we continue more humbly and more successfully to doggedly approach
it. Obviating the ticks and pops of vinyl records did not address emulating
analog’s superior low-level resolution—the attribute that more accurately
reproduces the tympani’s decay envelope after a stroke upon the drumhead, as
well as myriad other subtleties enfolded in the texture of any piece of music.
It is human nature to
hope and believe that ‘new’ means ‘better’, especially if experts say so, and a
lot of money is involved. This is true both of recording technology and of an
Eastman Theatre renovation. It took thirty years for the highly-touted three
million dollar 1972 acoustic ‘improvement’ to be officially rejected. How long
will it take to come to our senses about this one?
How many listen for
themselves and trust their own assessment of what they hear? We humans are
often more sensitive and intuitive than we admit to ourselves, but commonly we
just don’t pay attention. It doesn’t take a degree in physics or in music to
permit consciously facing our own joy or malaise about the sound at a concert. Who
will risk telling the Empress that her new vestments are too gaudy to serve the
simple ceremony of live acoustic classical music?
Historically very little
of the holistic power of the RPO’s sound was reflected back to the musicians
onstage in the Eastman Theatre. Some RPO members bemoaned this, but for decades
they dealt with it extremely well in terms of what they were able to produce
for audiences out in the hall. Ironically, the 2004 acoustical changes have
caused serious new problems both for those on stage and for those who pay to
listen.
A further problem is
that RPO string sections have always been relatively small, and sometimes sound
a bit thin and strained in louder passages. This is particularly so with the
violins, through no fault of the players, bearing down as they must at times to
produce something approaching a large, lush sound. Historically the full weight
and glory of the brass has been denied the Eastman Theatre RPO audience, so as
not to overpower the strings.
The new shell and the
house wall treatment have not helped this situation at all. During my single
concert experience with them so far, the strings were further stripped of any
rich glow, and the brass was too loud. This was most noticeable in the Mahler,
from seats in the upper balcony. The playing was fine in the Mahler, but there
was no sense of gut-level emotion conveyed, by either brass or strings.
Did the players somehow
commit more deeply to richly resonant tone production in the past when their aggregate
sound did not bounce back at them so strongly, and after a disconcerting tiny
delay? Are they fooled now by how loud, if sometimes rhythmically jumbled, they
sound to themselves on stage? Psychologically and acoustically it may be a
question of the orchestra’s gingerly coupling only with the loud ‘slapback,’
rather than coupling in with the massive load represented by the old, untreated
house. Singing in the brand new shower, as it were.
In the split second it
takes a lovingly sculpted musical phrase to arrive at a listener’s ears, the
medium of the Eastman Theatre is adding a degree of extraneous information and
subtracting a degree of truth from it. The message is being compromised by the
medium.
In a brief telephone
conversation with Chris Blair (on October 18, 2005), whose firm Akustiks
consulted on the Eastman Theatre renovations, he acknowledged the slapback, but
emphasized that Phase Two of the project, which proposes to shorten the
orchestra seating and to add box seats along the walls, will improve the
sound.
Box seats and a shorter
orchestra level will certainly change the sound, by altering some of the
reflections. But concert halls are not effectively fine-tuned acoustically by a one-shot irreversible addition or divestment
of anything, be it wall sealant, seats, or an architect’s visually
pleasing placement of box seats (which the egalitarian George Eastman purposely
eschewed).
Phase Two, to proceed in
2008, offers only vague promise of some sort of sonic improvement—including,
according to Chris, amelioration of the ‘slapback’ as a function of further
physical changes to the dimensions and topography of the hall. We shall see. One
hopes that those who brought us the 1972-style sound and 2004-style sound were
of a different ilk than shall be the rescuing superheroes marching beneath
Akustiks’ banner in 2008. But don’t count on it.
Will those involved call
their shots accurately and then follow through with mellifluous results, or
will they simply announce “
It is true that the
experts have spoken, the money has been spent, and the matter seems a fait
accompli. But I wonder if there is not a significant minority or even a silent
majority of concertgoers who are less than happy with the recent sound of the
Eastman Theatre, though unsure of why this is so, or what has caused it, or
even how to describe it, and to whom.
There may be also a
large group of ‘undecideds.’ Bear in mind that the ear is often intrigued with
a fresh sonic change. Only gradually arise second thoughts, and a more
objective weighing of what was left behind against what was at first thought
gained.
I am told officially
that virtually no one has expressed qualms. But since my experience at the
October 8, 2005 concert, I have encountered others who are less than ecstatic
about the present sound of the hall.
The perception of more
than one veteran RPO violinist is that sound from the brass at stage left is
now “delayed” to the point that it becomes all the more imperative to watch the
conductor rather than rely in part upon what is heard. It would appear that the
presently-dominant slapback is impinging not just upon audiences, but also upon
the musicians onstage, at least in larger ensembles. The new shell has not
allowed the musicians to hear each other better, at least at some stand
positions. It appears to have actually made ensemble more difficult.
By the way, given the
current overly live and blurry Eastman Theatre, using loud amplification at
Pops Concerts just adds insult to injury. A dry hall is best for amplified
concerts. A bright, live hall calls for most judicious use of microphones and
amplification.
None of my expressed
concern is meant to impugn the dedication of the talented principals and
administrative decision-makers involved in the Eastman Theatre renovation. It
is far easier to criticize after the fact than it is for those in the vanguard
to take risks and try something.
I recognize with
gratitude all those who have stepped forward in teamwork to improve the Eastman
Theatre. As part of the renovation, many wondrously useful physical and
mechanical improvements have been successfully implemented, behind the
scenes.
I am saying merely that regarding
the acoustical aspect of this one specific project, as of completion of Phase
One things have turned out poorly for
the listener.
One knowledgeable music
lover, a now-departed Eastman School Professor, wrote to me, “. . . my
[listening] experiences in the new hall . . . have not provided me with an
impetus to go and hear more.” Perhaps one day larger audiences will look
forward to hearing music at the Eastman Theatre in part because the music just
sounds so darn good—naturally rich, warm, and engaging. If the price is two or
three decibels less of muddled, brightly projected sound levels, so be it.
Loudness must not be allowed to trump simplicity.
How ironic that on my
modest stereo I can play obsolete Mercury vinyl records, recorded by the “Eastman-Rochester
Orchestra” in the Eastman Theatre nearly fifty years ago, which in certain
important respects better convey the music to my ears than does the listening
experience a fifty-dollar ticket can purchase today in the same hall.
Music expresses primal
aspects of the complex metaphor within which we humans seem to have our being.
Why else do we resonate so with music, and with its noise or delicacy according
to our bent?
Music breathes
dissonance and harmony, yearning and resolution, strife and repose. The
listener is pressed, pulled, and lulled. We respond emotionally to music, but
at the same time there is great value in simply observing each passing emotion,
each perturbation, each soaring line, each fulfilling cadence, without becoming
identified with it as is our common human tendency elsewhere.
Such fully involved yet dispassionately
detached observation is portable into one’s entire life experience. That approach
may at first seem paradoxical, yet it is more conscious a state than is any
state related to the buffeting of transitory identified emotion.
The greatest music invites us beyond vague inattention
punctuated by superficial reaction. It invites us beyond mere hearing, into the
deeper realm of attentive listening. The conscious act of deep listening so
engages us that we may forget to cling to our supposed autonomy or indeed to
any self-image at all. When music is heard so deeply, who is it that is
listening?
The greatest music offers not escape, but a return to attention,
to freedom.
… music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you
are the music
While the music lasts.
--T.S. Eliot,
from “The Dry Salvages,” No. 3 of “Four Quartets.”
If you have heard the new Eastman Theatre and wish to
comment, kindly email:
Bob Laird
January 9, 2006
Edited May 18, 2008