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fancy designs and high stages and some that are also theaters and lecture halls.
There are always exceptions and surprises. In general, I have a superstition
that the good halls are fundamentally simple in shape.
It is curious that the author of two of the best examples of architectural
acoustics that I have ever encountered should have been Palladio, who, in my
opinion, represents one of the worst infl uences that, since ancient Rome, was
ever brought to bear on Western architecture. Teatro Olimpico^2 is superb,
as I found out when playing there in 1956, but I had my doubts about the
Villa Rotonda.^3 Its central plan with four equal transepts makes almost inca-
pable the placing of the instrument in its exact center, and it is crowned by
that acoustically most treacherous of all architectural features, a circular dome.
One can imagine my surprise when, in 1972, I played the fi rst two concerts
that had ever been given there. As if to refute my uncomplimentary remarks
about Palladio, the room revealed a dazzling display of acoustical virtues. They
inspired me to play as much on the architectural surroundings as on the harp-
sichord itself.
Playing in other historical sites, such as the ceremonial room of Ansbach^4
or Ottobeuren,^5 is theoretically ideal, but the necessity of selling as many
tickets as possible overcrowds the room and transforms the agreeable over-
resonance of the acoustics into something quite dry and stuffy. Acoustically
the best historical room I know is the Double Cube Room of Inigo Jones at
Wilton House.^6 But when I played there in 1973, the audience was kept to a
reasonable size. Not all eighteenth-century opera houses are good for instru-
mental music played on the stage—the sound in the parterre is generally poor,
although that in the balcony is usually better. But the Bibiena opera house
at Bayreuth is a veritable treasure. With the exception of Palladio’s Teatro
Olimpico, it is the best theatre in which I have ever played.
I like to play in churches (by that I mean those designed for ritual, and not
the stuffy Protestant meeting houses dedicated to the delivery of interminable
sermons), but I know that in many cases the pleasure is greater for the per-
former than for the audience, which all too often perceives only a confused
blur of sound. Cruciform churches are nearly always dangerous, and one mar-
vels that so much superb Western church music has been written for them,
given the virtual impossibility of its sounding as the composer wrote it. Basilica
- Theater in Vicenza, Italy, designed by Palladio and constructed in 1580–85.
- Renaissance villa outside of Vicenza, Italy, designed by Palladio, opened in
1566.
- Ceremonial Hall in the Margrave Palace in Ansbach, Germany.
- Ottobeuren Abbey, a Benedictine abbey in Ottobeuren, Germany.
- Wilton House is an English country house in Wiltshire, England. The Double
Cube Room was designed by Inigo Jones and John Webb around 1649–53.
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