Acoustics: science or mystery?
Ten years ago the Organ Clearing House was involved in the relocation of an E. & G. G. Hook organ from Woburn, Massachusetts to Berlin, Germany. The Woburn Unitarian Church had a wood frame with plaster walls—very ordinary 19th-century American acoustics, and the organ was installed in a chamber in the front of the church. It’s a wonderful organ, so in spite of the acoustics we always thought it sounded great. The Kirche zum Heiligen Kreuz in Berlin is a glorious ornate brick building with a lofty spacious interior. There is plenty of resonance and just the right amount of reverberation. The organ sounds fabulous. Hearing the same organ in two different rooms is an unusual experience, and it sure can tell you a lot about the importance of acoustics. I attended a symposium on 19th-century American organs at that church—several of my colleagues and I were presenting papers. We were thrilled to be hearing an historic American organ in such a setting. A colleague whispered to me, “now we need to import some churches to the U.S.”
Organists and organbuilders habitually clap their hands when they walk into a church building. They nod their heads knowingly and mouth the seconds, one chimpanzee, two chimpanzee, three chimpanzee . . . An organist brags about the acoustics at his church: “It has three-and-a-half seconds.” (I always wonder how you count that half-chimpanzee.) Imagine John Brook (a.k.a. Johann Sebastian Bach) improvising—a mordent in octaves on A (the dominant), high on the keyboard. (One chimpanzee, two chimpanzee . . . ) A little riff down to the tonic by way of C-sharp. (One chimpanzee, two chimpanzee . . . ) Another mordent, another chimpanzee . . . Or Mr. Widor, playing grand chords in arpeggio, four-to-a-measure. Here is music that relies on grand acoustics. It was written for grand acoustics. Without grand acoustics it sounds like marbles rolling down metal stairs.
I know some beautiful little organs in beautiful little rooms. You savor every note. You hear the attack and release of each note. As a player you’re on edge because there is no forgiveness—my riff on life in Oberlin reminds me of those practice rooms that are the next thing to being tied to a grating and flogged. But unless you’re practicing for a senior recital, you don’t play Widor on them.
I got to thinking about acoustics when I read an article by Richard Dyer, longtime music critic for the Boston Globe, published on August 6, 2006: After 105 Years, BSO to enter a new stage (Officials hope to replace floor, not acoustics)
In a column published in The American Organist in August 2003, I referred to an excellent book on acoustics by Emily Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity (MIT Press, 2002). The book discusses the history of the science of acoustics starting with the inauguration of Boston’s Symphony Hall on October 15, 1900.
The construction of a new hall was made necessary by the city of Boston making plans to run a new street through the middle of the old Music Hall (original home of the famous Methuen organ). The Boston Symphony Orchestra was the Music Hall’s most visible tenant, and Henry Lee Higginson, who owned and controlled the BSO, embraced the opportunity to create a new venue for the orchestra. Charles McKim of McKim, Mead & White was engaged to design the new hall, and Higginson charged them to consider its acoustics, excluding the sounds of the world outside and enhancing the music. He wrote to McKim, “Our present hall gives a piano better than a forte, gives an elegant rather than a forcible return of the instruments—noble but weak—I want both.”1
Higginson was a visionary. He traveled the world visiting famous concert halls, and gave his architects a list of the best of them. Considering the form of the Greek amphitheater, McKim sought the counsel of several eminent orchestra conductors. One replied, “I don’t know anything about acoustics, but my first violin tells me we always get the best results in a rectangular hall.” As there was no precedence for a concert hall built to that model, the idea was rejected as too risky. At one point in his search for information, Higginson said to McKim, “I always feel like hearing [musicians’] opinions most respectfully and then deciding.” Following up on this thought, Higginson consulted his close friend Charles Eliot, a scientist and president of Harvard University. Eliot in turn introduced Higginson to Wallace Sabine, a professor of physics at Harvard who had recently done work to improve the sound in one of Harvard’s lecture halls.2 This was the birth of the modern science of acoustics.
If Higginson was a visionary, he was also a diplomat. Embracing Sabine’s early advice, he wrote to McKim saying in effect “don’t do any more work until you get the letter I’m writing,” introduced Sabine to McKim, and helped them build a relationship that resulted in the design and construction of a hall that has been universally celebrated as one of the finest in the world.
So the stage needs new flooring. Richard Dyer writes, “The floor was uneven and pockmarked by a century’s worth of stabbing cello and string bass end-pins, rolling pianos, risers coming onstage and off. Boards squeak when you walk on them, and some are close to buckling.” BSO management was in touch with officials at other halls of similar importance and found that such venues as the Musikverein in Vienna and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam both have recently replaced their stage floors. In fact, the stage floor at the Musikverein (built in 1870) has been replaced every 40 years or so because the original flooring was soft wood and the management was reluctant to change anything.
I’ll rely on you to read Dyer’s article for all the details. Suffice it to say that the BSO management is making every effort to replace the flooring and underlying felt exactly. They are taking great care not to change the sub-floor, and are encasing the entire project in plastic so as to protect the newly renovated organ (and of course the rest of the place) from dust.
Many modern church buildings are built without any thought given to acoustics. We build the building and then call in the sound guy to install a P.A. system. Can’t hear the singer, turn up the volume. Install a digital instrument. Want to play Widor, turn on the artificial chimpanzees. Phillips Brooks (1835–1893) was one of America’s greatest preachers, serving Boston’s Trinity Church as rector from 1869–1891. Trinity Church is one of America’s great church buildings, designed by H. H. Richardson and built in 1872. I’ll guess it seats 1,800 people. There was no P.A. system. People must have been able to hear Rev. Brooks then in order for us to know today that he was a great preacher.
Many of today’s opera singers are fitted with wireless microphones. I suppose that means that the conductor must confer with sound engineers to establish the balance between singers and orchestra. Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) was one of the world’s greatest singers. Audiences must have been able to hear him in order for us to know today that he was a great singer.
In Emily Thompson’s book The Soundscape of Modernity you will read about the antithesis of natural acoustics (or acoustic sound, if you will), which is present in those halls built expressly for artificial sound enhancement. While Symphony Hall in Boston was the first concert hall to be built considering acoustics as a science, New York’s Radio City Music Hall was the first to be built expressly for artificially enhanced sound. Every effort was made to deaden the room’s natural sound so the sound engineers would have free reign.
Organists and organbuilders will be further interested to read chapters about St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in New York, about the development and introduction of Gustavino tiles, and many other topics that resonate with our work. And by the way, purchase or order your copy at your favorite independent bookstore—your local merchant will appreciate the support!
I admire the vision of Mr. Higginson of Boston who understood the unique opportunity open to him. Thanks to his creation and patronage of the collaboration between Charles McKim and Wallace Sabine, many wonderful church buildings and auditoriums have been built according to this relatively new science. I wonder if he foresaw how important and influential his observations and decisions would be. One further note. Emily Thompson, author of “Soundscape,” is leaving her position at the University of California at San Diego to accept one at Princeton University. Thompson was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, a “genius” award accompanied by $500,000. She’s a great scholar. Her writing is terrific. Read her book.
