"John G. Deacon" writes:

>As far as I am aware the Sofiensaal no longer exists - at least Decca are
>no longer able to use it.  Was it not destroyed in a massive fire about 10
>years ago? Like the loss of the Kingsway Hall in London this, surely, is to
>be to be regretted.

I think it was the Redoutensaal in the Hofburg (Imperial Palace) that
burned.  In the immediate postwar period, when much of Vienna was still
in rubble, it was used by the Philharmonic and other top-grade musical
groups.I was stationed in Vienna in 1945 and remember attending some
concerts there, a couple in the winter, when the audience kept on overcoats
to contend with the lack of heating.  (I don't know how the musicians coped
with the fingering.) A generation later,after the fire, it was rebuilt and
now serves as, and you had better believe it, a convention center.

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]