Roger Hecht writes:

>Boston's Symphony hall is another paradox.  In my opinion it is one of
>the great halls of the world (3rd according to experts I've read).  Yet
>it is a very hard hall to record in.  RCA engineers who reveled in the
>acoustics of Orchestra Hall in Chicago, had to struggle with Symphony Hall.
>One reason was supposed to be the lack of an audience during recording.
>Symphony Hall is quite long and the problem was supposed to be one of
>controlling the reverberation.  Oddly, the best sounding recordings of
>the BSO, for the most part, were those of the Pops (made up mainly of BSO
>players minus the principals).  They tore out the front seats of the hall
>for the Pops recordings, if memory serves, perhaps shortening the hall.

The famous Munch recording of Saint-Saens Organ Symphony (late 50's I
think) had the BSO on the floor of Symphony Hall.  Then, in the early
60's, about the time Leinsdorf arrived in Boston, the hall was renovated.
There immediately began a series of experiments, extending the orchestra
platform, risers, etc.  to fix the problems created by the renovation.  It
seems Chicago had a similar problem when renovations creating acoustical
difficulties.

It seems many of the Reiner/Chicago and Munch/Boston recordings I enjoy
were made in Halls that needed renovation.

Regards,

Tom Connor