Symphony Hall (Boston) facts for kids
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Front view of Symphony Hall in 2023
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| Address | 301 Massachusetts Avenue |
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| Location | Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 42°20′34.2″N 71°5′8.5″W / 42.342833°N 71.085694°W |
| Public transit | Symphony, Hynes Convention Center, Massachusetts Avenue |
| Owner | Boston Symphony Orchestra |
| Type | concert hall |
| Capacity | 2,625 |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | June 12, 1899 |
| Built | 1900 |
| Opened | October 15, 1900 |
| Architect | McKim, Mead and White |
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Symphony Hall
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| Built | 1900 |
| Architect | McKim, Mead and White |
| Architectural style | Renaissance |
| NRHP reference No. | 99000633 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | January 20, 1999 |
| Designated NHL | January 20, 1999 |
Symphony Hall is a famous concert hall in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. You can find it at 301 Massachusetts Avenue.
The founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Henry Lee Higginson, wanted a new, permanent home for the orchestra. He asked the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White to design it. Symphony Hall can hold 2,625 people.
In 1999, Symphony Hall was named a U.S. National Historic Landmark. This means it is a very important historic place. People say it has one of the best sounds for music in the world. It is often compared to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Musikvereinsaal in Vienna. Many think it is the best in the United States.
Symphony Hall is also home to the Boston Pops. It hosts many concerts for the Handel and Haydn Society too. It is located near the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory.
Contents
Building Symphony Hall: A Look at its History and Design
Construction on Symphony Hall began on June 12, 1899. The orchestra's old home, the Boston Music Hall, was going to be torn down. It took 17 months to build the new hall. The cost was $771,000.
Symphony Hall officially opened on October 15, 1900. The architects, McKim, Mead and White, worked with Wallace Clement Sabine. He was a young physics professor at Harvard University. Sabine helped design the hall using scientific ideas about sound. This made Symphony Hall one of the first concert halls ever designed this way. From the start, people loved its lively sound. It is still known as one of the best places in the world for classical music.
How Symphony Hall's Shape Makes Great Sound
The hall's design was inspired by the second Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig. That hall was later destroyed in World War II. Symphony Hall has a rectangular "shoebox" shape. It is long, narrow, and tall. Other famous halls like the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Musikverein in Vienna also have this shape.
The hall is about 61 feet (18.6 meters) high. It is 75 feet (22.9 meters) wide and 125 feet (38.1 meters) long from the back wall to the stage. The stage walls angle inward to help focus the sound. The hall is mostly made of brick, steel, and plaster. It has simple decorations.
The side balconies are very shallow. This helps prevent sound from getting trapped or muffled. The ceiling has special panels, and there are statue-filled spaces along the walls. These features all help create excellent sound for almost every seat. Conductor Herbert von Karajan once said Symphony Hall was "even better" than the Musikverein for some music. He noted its slightly shorter "reverberation time," which means sound echoes for a shorter period.
Keeping the Stage Sound Perfect
In 2006, the original stage floor was replaced. It had become old from many years of use. The new floor cost $250,000. To keep the hall's famous sound, the new floor was built exactly like the old one.
Workers used special maple wood planks. They also used wool padding underneath. Strong steel nails were hammered in by hand. The fir wood floor underneath, from 1899, was in great shape. It was left in place. Even the special grooves on the original maple planks were copied for the new floor.
Seating and Special Details
The name of Beethoven is written above the stage. He is the only musician whose name appears in the hall. The original directors could not agree on any other names. The hall's leather seats are the same ones installed in 1900.
During the Symphony season, 2,625 people can sit in the hall. For the Pops season, 2,371 people can attend. This includes 800 seats at tables on the main floor.
Statues: Ancient Art in the Hall
Sixteen copies of famous Greek and Roman statues stand along the upper walls of the hall. Ten of these statues show mythical figures. Six show historical people. All of them were made by P. P. Caproni and Brother.
- On the right side, starting near the stage:
- A Faun carrying the boy Bacchus (a Roman copy).
- Apollo Citharoedus (a Roman artist's work).
- A Young Woman from Herculaneum.
- A Dancing Faun.
- Demosthenes.
- A Seated Anacreon.
- A tragic poet with the head of Euripides.
- Diana of Versailles.
- On the left side, starting near the stage:
- A Resting Satyr (by Praxiteles).
- A Wounded Amazon (by Polycleitus).
- Hermes Logios.
- Lemnian Athena.
- The Lateran Sophocles.
- A Standing Anacreon.
- Aeschines.
- Apollo Belvedere.
The Symphony Hall Organ
The Symphony Hall organ has 4,800 pipes. It is an Aeolian-Skinner organ (Opus 1134). G. Donald Harrison designed it, and it was installed in 1949. Even Albert Schweitzer signed it!
This organ replaced the hall's first organ, built in 1900. That old organ had nearly 4,000 pipes. By the 1940s, people wanted lighter, clearer sounds from organs. The old organ's deep bass sound was not as popular anymore. E. Power Biggs, a famous organist, pushed for a clearer sound.
The 1949 Aeolian-Skinner organ used and changed over half of the old pipes. It also added 600 new pipes. The very long original pipes, 32 feet (9.8 meters) long, were removed in 1948.
In 2003, the organ was completely fixed up by Foley-Baker Inc. They used its main frame and many pipes again. They also made a special section for some pipes and added new ones. The space around the organ was changed to make the sound travel better. The original control panel from 1949 was replaced with a smaller one. This helps the organ player and the conductor see each other better when they play together.
See also
In Spanish: Symphony Hall para niños
