vienna musikverein: GOLDEN hall

The Musikverein is perhaps the world’s most famous concert hall, owing particularly to the Vienna Philharmonic’s “New Year’s Concert”, which Mariss Jansons has already conducted twice. This rectangular hall provides seating for 2004 listeners and sets the gold standard for spatial acoustics even today. The Bavarian RSO gives concerts here on a regular basis, so the musicians are at home with the hall and its acoustics.

“The great thing about this hall is that you can make magic happen. You can risk a pianissimo and be rewarded. It’s worth going to extremes.” Natalie Schwaabe, flute

Statements of the musicians

“Vienna’s concert hall is legendary. It sounds fully rounded, very soft with great warmth. It’s also accommodating: even if a detail doesn’t come off to complete perfection, you hardly notice because many things are made mellower by the acoustics.” – Anton Barachovsky, concertmaster

“The Golden Hall is one of my favourite concert halls. True, the platform is narrow, but because of that all the musicians sit close together and the contact is fabulous. The sound is absolutely beautiful, natural and warm. Making music here becomes addictive.” – Stefan Tischler, tuba

“The sound on the concert platform should be as close as possible to the sound in the rest of the hall. The hall needs warmth; the sound must be beautiful; it must be able to vibrate; it needs sufficient reverberation time and must provide enough leeway to shape the music.” – Mariss Jansons

“One of the most beautiful concert halls in the world, also with regard to its sound. Here one can cultivate the softest hues. This hall makes everything ring out, even if you play on only three hairs of the bow.” – Franz Scheuerer, first violin

“The great thing about this hall is that you can make magic happen. You can risk a pianissimo and be rewarded. It’s worth going to extremes.” – Natalie Schwaabe, flute

Exerpt of the rehearsal in 360°

Recording date: 30 January 2017.
Rachmaninow, “Symphonische Tänze”
Conductor: Mariss Jansons

The following technical prerequisites apply to this spatial audio:
– On the PC and Mac in the browsers Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Microsoft Edge (in Safari you only hear a “fixed” stereo)
– Android from 4.2 or higher in the Youtube Android app
– iOS, you can only hear a fixed stereo in the Youtube iOS app