Music: Sounds in The Night

When Carnegie Hall reopened in December after a 30-week, $50 million renovation that saw the historic auditorium restored from floorboards to rafters, everyone agreed it looked beautiful. There was a new maple stage, a new floor and new plush red seats. The masonry walls, 4 ft. thick, were replastered and their gold detailings redone. Gone was the dowdy curtain that hung above the stage, obscuring a hole punched in the ceiling 40 years earlier and never repaired. Even the ushers sported handsome black-and-red uniforms designed by Ralph Lauren.

The real question, though, was, How would it sound? Opened in 1891, the Manhattan concert hall has long been renowned for its rich sound. Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler once remarked that the hall with the best acoustics was the one with the best performances, but at Carnegie, second-rate symphonies sometimes sounded first rate. There, the resonance bathed performers in a mellow amber glow, and at orchestral climaxes the floor vibrated sympathetically beneath the listeners' feet. What did it matter if the subway occasionally added its profundo rumble to the bass, or if passing fire sirens sounded a wailing obbligato to the treble? Musicians and audiences loved it just as it was.

That Carnegie Hall has passed into legend. In its place is a brighter, more brilliant performance space whose sound has a sharper, harder edge. Woodwinds and brass now glitter where once they gleamed. At the same time, cellos and double basses purr where once they roared. Carnegie Hall now sounds crisper, although it still retains much of its fabled warmth. In its new incarnation, it is closer to Boston's lush but clear Symphony Hall than to its former voluptuous self.

Yet contrary to myth, the old auditorium's sound was not perfect. During the 1946 filming of the movie Carnegie Hall, the ceiling above the stage was ripped open to accommodate ventilation and lights. The hole was masked by canvas panels and curtains, which may actually have enhanced the hall's warmth by soaking up excessive high frequencies. But the first dozen or so rows lay in a dead spot, and an unsettling echo off the back walls was noticeable in loud, brassy passages. Despite its reputation, Carnegie was not quite as good as Boston's jewel and the Grosser Musikvereinsaal in Vienna, or newer spaces such as the Philharmonie in Berlin and Symphony Hall in Salt Lake City.

Time had not treated Carnegie kindly. The ceiling was leaking, and the floorboards were rotting. Says Chairman of the Board James D. Wolfensohn: "It's not that we wanted to change it because we had the money and thought it would be fun. There simply was no alternative." Under the supervision of Acoustician Abe Melzer, the old materials were replaced as much as possible with new ones possessing the same sonic properties. Notes Lawrence Goldman, the hall's director of real estate planning and development: "Each element was tested on the way out and on the way in."