San Francisco Goes Big Time

By Martha Duffy

A lot of little misses at Davies Hall may yet make a hit

Building a large concert hall is one of the grand gambles a city can make. The latest to try its luck is San Francisco, which opened Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall last week. Mostly the bet looks sound. Until now any big performing arts group--the local symphony, opera and ballet--had to use the War Memorial Opera House. They all played foreshortened seasons and, except for the San Francisco Opera, suffered artistically. Also, with few remaining open dates, major touring attractions often just stayed away. Now the city will surely become a main stop on the culture circuit.

No gamble in any of this. The $27.5 million bet is whether the new hall, the home of the San Francisco Symphony, will have good acoustics. The curved concrete and glass exterior gives an impression of lightness. Inside it is the model of a modern hall. Bulky chunks protrude from the walls in surprising places; neat rows of little mounds trim the loges and balconies. From the ceiling hang adjustable panels, and above the stage are 24 clear acrylic sound-reflector disks. From many locations the audience can see the orchestra mirrored in them. As an image it is not bad, for halls like the Davies are really a kind of musical instrument constructed and tuned by acousticians. Although they can improve or "tune" their work to a degree, acousticians are among the high rollers of science. Will the hall that rises from the blueprint and equations have satisfying sound?

On opening night the answer was no. Dozens of critics and musicians disputed the long reverberation time, the strident brass, the puddles of aural mud. Too much depended on one's location in the auditorium. The bass was usually too strong. (That is good; after 18 years and expensive tinkering, New York's Avery Fisher Hall--the Titanic of postwar acoustics --still has a mumbling bass.) In general the sound seems too bright and unfocused. That, however, is better than starting out with a dead hall.

Early in the evening came the world premiere of David Del Tredici's Happy Voices. The composer may have intended a bravura show for the orchestra, but his garish, repetitive work was more like a Richard Strauss waltz heard in a nightmare. When Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No.1, with Rudolf Serkin as soloist, followed, the listener was prepared for old-fashioned piano busting. Instead, the instrument could scarcely be heard except in solo passages and in a lyrical dialogue between the cellos and the piano.

The finale, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, was most successful aurally. For Conductor Edo de Waart, 39, and his players, it was also the best interpretation of an understandably ragged evening. De Waart took time off to study cassettes of 35 of the programs he has conducted with the San Francisco. He was not happy. Says he: "The music sounded like a rehearsal. In preparation you listen and correct, but you must shut all that off in performance. Furtwaengler and Walter made a lot of mistakes, but what does it matter? Precision is an illness of our time."

That is a good, hardy outlook to take onstage at the Davies. De Waart thinks that its flaws are mainly correctible excesses. Acoustician Theodore Schultz, 58, of Bolt Beranek & Newman, Inc., plans to concentrate his tuning on the acoustical banners, which can be adjusted during rehearsals to compensate for an empty house. De Waart is indifferent to that notion. "I think we should learn to play in the house first. Singers don't practice in the bathroom--it sounds too good."

San Franciscans are behind their maestro. Davies Hall is the outcome of 15 years of effort, which got rolling when Samuel Stewart, a retired Bank of America executive, took over a fund-raising drive in 1973. After 100 public hearings, he got $10 million out of public coffers. More came from corporations and foundations, but the largest hunk, $14 million was donated by the city's rich families. The doyenne of those was Louise Davies 80, a subscriber since 1934, who gave $5 million, "because I had it."

The premiere turned out to be an amiable shambles. Though the auditorium is completed, the building that sheathes it is far from ready. Outside, the $400,000 Henry Moore sculpture of a reclining figure seems to be observing the structure's progress. The white-tie crowd many of them major donors, overlooked the loose plaster and dangling wires. They did not ruffle anyone. These people had seen through an ambitious project to the point where musicians and acousticians must make the last refinements. The San Franciscans had something to be proud of, and they knew it.

--By Martha Duffy. Reported by Dick Thompson/San Francisco

With reporting by Dick Thompson

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