advertisement


Rattle's new London concert hall will not now be built

When comments are made about London having too many whatevers are made are you allowing for the fact that the population of London is more than Greater Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Edinburgh combined ?
 
Good to see that London is still capable of looking at the bigger picture.
 
Reckon the costs will spiral towards the new home of the ElbPhilharmonie? I'm looking on enviously.

There's a pic of the inside of that hall in the Guardian this morning- looks incredible.
Has anyone been in the new Paris Philharmonie btw?
 
Look forward to the new venue. I was a member of the Barbican for years. Seen some great concerts there, but acoustically ...

Jack
 
Saw Gruppen at the Tempelhof airport. Was fun, but somewhat overrated (like all of Stockhausen's stuff).
 
...I don’t buy the Covid argument, this is a strategic investment good for perhaps half a century and more. I suspect the permanent departure of Rattle for Germany took away the motive force.
I'm sure that you are right. It's all part of the "arts must pay their way" attitude which British politicians (Philistine bunch that they are) have assumed to be normal since Thatcher's day, and which puts Britain in a small minority among European countries.

When I lived in Greenwich and attended a fair few Proms it used to take about an hour and a half to get home on public transport. The 22:10 from Birmingham New Street takes 1 hour 51 minutes to get to Euston. New Street is within walking distance of Symphony Hall, which in my experience is a wonderful venue for large-scale classical music. For special concerts (which a fair few of those at Symphony Hall are), the trip has to be worth considering... I know somebody who does it.
 
The whole London Concert Hall thing is a model of how Britain is broken.

We can't have major capital cultural prestige spend in London because the plebs outside London might get uppity about it (gotta preserve that blue wall right?) But we're not going to do anything about fixing that unequal status either, we'll just carry on preserving the illusion of the United Kingdom.

The irony is, several cities across the UK have excellent modern concert halls, and they are underused. They might have a good regional orchestra playing 10-20 times a year but other than that not much. Which is fine..... but now that the LSO etc will struggle to tour in the EU (Brexit- the gift that never stops) maybe they could tour the UK regions? ....reminds me , I once saw MTT & the LSO do Mahler 9 - in the Basingstoke Anvil.
 
You will need to get a clip on to catch a 22:10 from New Street to London after a concert at Symphony Hall. Skip the encores I should think.

More recently (pre=Covid) the incessant road works in Brum have made every walk from Snow Hill (where my Worcestershire trains come into) to the Hall, or the Theatre nearby a new adventure!
 
Well, chain hotels (is that the right term?) are very cheap in January and February... if there are two of you, using the cheaper trains, it makes the trip fairly affordable...

It's what my wife and I used to do at least twice each year to hear the Scottish orchestras. One trip to Glasgow, one to Edinburgh - easy enough by train from the rail hub that is Shrewsbury; one change at Crewe or Manchester Piccadilly. We are retired, so could travel in the middle of the day, and we spent the money saved on fares on a nice pre-concert Italian meal. One night away from home felt like a much bigger holiday when there was food and a good concert to remember :)

Cue Mary Hopkin... :(
 
...several cities across the UK have excellent modern concert halls, and they are underused. They might have a good regional orchestra playing 10-20 times a year but other than that not much. Which is fine..... but now that the LSO etc will struggle to tour in the EU (Brexit- the gift that never stops) maybe they could tour the UK regions? ....reminds me , I once saw MTT & the LSO do Mahler 9 - in the Basingstoke Anvil.
I am told that the Anvil is a really good hall, perhaps up there with Symphony Hall? It's one that I have yet to tick off.

Then there's the Lighthouse in Poole... and Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. We were looking forward hugely to going there with friends for the first time to hear Petrenko's Mahler 3 last March - and that was the first Liverpool concert to fall victim to the pandemic.
 
I am told that the Anvil is a really good hall, perhaps up there with Symphony Hall? It's one that I have yet to tick off.

Its nearly 24 years since I left Basingstoke so not been there for a long time - but yes it was good, it was brand new when I was there. I saw Rattle & CBSO there a couple of times doing Brahms & Elgar, but also amazingly Rostropovich doing the Dvorak Cello Concerto with Andrew Litton and Bournemouth.

Out of nostalgia, I had a look at their website a couple of years ago to see what was being played there now..... hardly anything except "Britain's Got Talent on Tour!" dross. :rolleyes:
 
Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall pre covid was rammed almost every night of the week with a great variety of musical styles.
We used to regularly use our senior rail card discount to go from Macclesfield to London, take in a matinee, grab an early bite and back on the 21.00 to Macclesfield.
 


advertisement


Back
Top