Memo to the New York Philharmonic: Louder Isn’t Better

Not to be pedantic, but "fortissimo" means very loud or louder. The Italian superlative is "fortississimo," indicating the loudest possible. Luckily for me, my ears are regularly treated to the refined sound of the Cleveland Orchestra with its subtle and wide-ranging palette. When I lived in New York, I sometimes felt assaulted by the Philharmonic. Even worse was the Chicago Symphony with its blaring, bleating brass.

That was the impression the New York Phil brass made in comparisons during the Big-Five era under Bernstein, too. While we're at it, there is always the concern to avoid eeka-eeka, oofa-oofa, quacka-quacka handoffs between the brass sections. Still, the players really are amazing.

Note to Metropolitan Opera guest conductor Gustavo Dudamel: Read this please. Your 1/3/19 presentation of Otello drowned out the singers (which is sorta the raison d'être of Opera).

Jasper needs to turn down the volume or we need to sit much further back.

Brass sections, inspired by the Chicago sound, have been getting louder and louder for the past 30 years. It’s the conductors job to rein them in. I wish they would. I would like to hear the rest of the orchestra.

Thanks for stating it, I find that less and less conductors know ho to work and what to work with an orchestra. Unless the musicians also do not want to change their “style”?

Ms. da Fonseca-Wollheim joins a long and distinguished list of critics, observers and audience members who have over many years noted the too-loud playing of the NY Philharmonic. I have been a subscriber for years and during the Masur years, they had a loud, full and burnished orchestra sound which was appropriately loud but never unpleasant. Even during the 'roaring moments' of Bruckner, Shostakovitch and others, the NY Phil was never annoying or crass. Alan Gilbert restrained the orchestra as well even though at times it did seem the orchestra got away from him. I choose to believe the fault lies with the conductor and not with the orchestra or the concert hall. I think some conductors hear the music differently where they are standing from what we in the audience hear. But how did Masur and Gilbert do it? That is a puzzlement. One way to fix this in that concert hall would be to provide an uneven rear wall reflecting surface. Mr. Masur's solution of installing a pipe organ, presumably with its pipes and wind chests exposed and cantilevered from the rear wall, would've gone a long way to remedying this. Let's hope if Geffen Hall is redone, a pipe organ and that kind of uneven rear reflecting surface is part of the renovation.

The great George Szell, when asked about how to improve the sound at what was called Philharmonic hall at the time, said "rip it down and start all over again." I wonder how the Phil would sound at Carnegie hall? As an amateur horn player and follower of the great orchestras of the world I rather like the sound of a great brass section myself. If the brass is muted too much the sound is boring to me (e.g. The Philadelphia orchestra under Ormandy). I realize not everyone likes a powerful brass section but now I might have to come to New York and see the orchestra do some Mahler or Bruckner!

Bravo to this review conductors please pay attention to the spirit of the music and let us here more than just the obvious!

When the great Solti took over the CSO in the 70s he bumped the brass sound by a factor of 10. He had great brass talents to work with of course--Dale Clevenger on the horn and Adolf Herseth on the trumpet, among others, legends for sure--but I found the sound harsh and out of balance, same as you did here. Must be hard for conductors to resist.

Not the first complaint about sound quality in Geffen Hall. On one occasion where a performance was being done as part of a film and music program, and the performance was being taped, sound was adjusted to satisfy the requirements of the tape at the expense of a live audience that had paid for a seat in a concert hall, not a recording studio. The management's callous disregard for its audience and faithful supporters was outrageous.

I attended the concert that Paavo Jarvi conducted. Ticket holders were informed on December 20 that Jarvi would be substituting for the originally-scheduled conductor (Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla) in the January 3-5 concert series, so I assume he was a last-minute substitute who graciously cleared his calendar during the holidays and rushed in to conduct. Not saying the overall critique of the orchestra was unfair, or that this excuses a poor performance (which, in my opinion, it wasn't). But since the review called out Jarvi by name it should have mentioned this fact as well.

My late father was General Manager of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during the Fritz Reiner era, and before that, music and drama editor of the Chicago Tribune. Claudia Cassidy was "Aunt Claudia" to us. During our youth, my brothers and I were frequently taken to CSO concerts, operas and the like, while conductors and soloists were regular visitors in our home. I recall the restraint with which Reiner coaxed the orchestra with minimal and understated movement. I recall that his words, during rehearsals, were spare, barely audible, and carefully chosen, but he got his point across and the orchestra responded in measured form. Subtlety, in and of itself, was and can be as bracing as the over-obvious. In the cacophonous world in which we live today, it is worth remembering the quieter times, even in music, when nuance and understatement achieve striking music of note, and where crescendos, for their own sake, aren't a convenient, if unwritten replacement for diminuendos, let alone a conductor's manufactured dim innuendos. Barely, you see, can be as moving and emotionally evocative as blaringly. Reiner knew that, and the CSO, long known for its rousing brass, wasn't a one trick pony. That's part of what made it noteworthy.

In an interview in June of 2017, Alan Gilbert said this: "recently people haven’t been complaining about the hall. I think that’s because the orchestra sounds good, and I’d like to think the way I’m asking them to play has something to do with that. There was a kind of garish, unpleasant quality to the sound before, and that wasn’t entirely due to the hall. The orchestra has such power that if they use anything near their full power, it’s too much. I started out by saying, “Can we make a rounder sound, a little bit warmer, more burnished gold?” Now I just say, “It’s too loud.” This was also my impression of the Philharmonic sound and Alan Gilbert's success in addressing the problem. The current problem isn't with the orchestra, it's with the music director and some guest conductors. Even Times critic Anthony Tomassini noted Jaap van Zweden's "harsh, blaring sound" in his review of the opening concert last September.

I'm reminded of Richard Strauss's 4th Rule of Conducting from Ten Golden Rules for the Album of a Young Conductor (1922): "Never look encouragingly a the brass, except for a brief glance to give an important cue." My amended version, "Never look encouragingly at the brass. They know their cues all too well."

I do not fault the brass section. It is the conductor's job to balance the orchestra --- all of the orchestra --- and the soloist. Unless the soloist is Glenn Gould. Anyway, a long, long time ago I studied trombone with the late John Clark of the Met Orchestra. As a young man, he played with the NBC Symphony under Toscanini. Clark told me that the Maestro said only one word to him. After he had blurted out a sour note, Toscanini looked at him and said, "Bruto."

Unfortunately the symphonic orchestra in this town plays too loud AND too fast, virtually all the time. People seem to think it's okay, it seems nothing is ever done about it. So frustrating. What a waste. I must say, I do feel a bit better about our situation knowing we are not alone!

One wonders if anyone who gets pleasure from the sounds of the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic and the Symphonies in Chicago and Los Angeles, can stand to listen to our local band. I can't. Shame.

One wonders whether this trend is related to so many people damaging their hearing by wearing earbuds while listening to audio at excessive sound levels. How many assistive devices are now going out into the audience? I am amazed at the gym by the number of people who have their audio devices ramped up so much I am forced to listen to their selections while on a device separated from theirs by some distance.