Acoustics: Childe Harold in New York

Soon after the trumpeted opening of New York's $17.7 million Philharmonic Hall last year, New York Times Music Critic Harold Schonberg confided to his readers that his heart raced ahead of his feet on his way to a concert there. Once inside, though, Schonberg soon found himself switching from seat to seat in hopes of hearing a bass, a cello—but like the classic Childe Harold, Schonberg found no happiness for all his roaming. At last he settled down in his assigned place in Row N, Left Loge, convinced that the best sounds were elsewhere—specifically, in Seat A 101.

Last spring, hope returned. Lincoln Center's directors—tireless boasters before the hall was built—confessed that acoustical scientists had confirmed the findings of Schonberg's ear: the hall lacked bass, was haunted by echoes, needed a more equal diffusion of sound. Workmen arrived in June to raise and tilt the 136 acoustical "clouds" suspended from the ceiling, fill in most of the space between them, and build a reflecting musical shell behind the stage.

Schonberg was in his place for the series of August concerts that introduced the improvements, but he found the new sound more tormenting than ever. He reported that he had to take up his Byronic wanderings again, and with the same unhappy results. "Something was wrong," he wrote, reviewing a recital by Pianist Gary Graffman, "and I drifted to the back of the hall." Things were better there, but Schonberg resolved once again to change his seat. "My apologies to Graffman," he wrote, "and a promise that I will catch his next recital—from a more favorable location." Taking a cue from the maestro a week later, a colleague on the Times offered three different reviews of the same recital, reporting in from seats N1, D311 and PP106.

Last week the scaffolds were up in the hall once more. This time the back wall is to be velveted in absorbent fiber glass, the facing of the three terraces reshaped, the stage equipped with portable risers for the silent double basses.

"Let's keep our fingers crossed," Schonberg wrote bravely. But the general feeling around the hall remained darkly pessimistic. The echoes may die away, but the hall will no doubt remain full of dry and brittle chatter about acoustics.