Bales Organ Recital Hall Acoustics

Transparent Inspiration

by Robert F. Mahoney

Among the many stories told about the legendary Jascha Heifetz is one about his receiving audience members backstage after a recital at Carnegie Hall. "Oh Mr. Heifetz!" one fan is said to have gushed, "your violin makes such a beautiful sound!" Heifetz lifted his fiddle from its case and held it up to his ear. "That's funny! I don't hear a thing." Like Heifetz' fiddle, the acoustic of the Bales Recital Hall is nothing without a performance. Our intention from the very start of design was not to create a space for "good acoustics," but rather a space for outstanding music making and music teaching.

Building craft and building codes have changed greatly since that church was erected, but none the less, CDs of Jim's recordings and detailed photos he took there allowed a leap over the abstractions of physics into the reality of architecture, with enough rich aural and musical information to guide the way to where we are today.

No other instrument is as dependent upon its architectural setting as a mechanical action pipe organ. If a chorus or orchestra is unhappy with a space designed for them they can move about, modify the room or leave it altogether. (When the Sydney Opera House opened, the orchestra liked the opera house and the opera company liked the orchestra hall - so they swapped!) With a pipe organ though, you can't move it an inch once it's in place. So Hellmuth Wolff, James Louder and their associates took an exceptionally keen interest in the design and provided lots of fruitful ideas and essential critiques as the building took shape.

Our expectations of how a recital hall will sound are set from the moment we set eyes on the space. A voluminous space with richly modulated yet massive surfaces and spatial detailing, over a scale that ranges from inches to yards holds out the promise of an equally rich and developed sound. The chromatic variation and geometric subtleties of Peter Thompson's windows and his designs for the organ details give the eye plenty of places to wander and many levels to explore - you hope for the same depth and intrigue in the sound. And comfort! You have to feel at ease, yet inspired; supported, yet ready to explore and create.

It has been said that architecture resides not in walls or floors or roofs or plazas but in "the spaces in between." So too with acoustics. It is an evanescent quality that arises from all of the factors, skills and ideas we have been talking about. It is wholly dependent upon the volume, mass, solidity and interconnected volumes of every scale as well as the excitement and willingness to be engaged that is aroused in listeners and performers from the visual and spatial elements all around them.

So that, ultimately, is the sort of space we have tried to create: one that doesn't hinder the artists, teachers and listeners, but supports them, inspires them and carries them along.

The famous British lighting designer Richard Pilbrow has said "Great performances make great theaters." That is certainly true of music halls as well. If this hall inspires great performances within it, and perhaps even more important, if the teaching that takes place here leads to great performances in other spaces, then we will know we succeeded in what we set out to do.