There are many reasons for the current craze for renovating concert halls. It’s usually cheaper than building something new. The science, as well as the art of acoustics, has progressed. Renovation can be a good way to save a historic room. But one can also argue in favor of simply starting again.
In the case of the San Diego Symphony, starting over might have seemed the best option. No American orchestra of merit or promise from San Diego under the leadership of its rising star music director, Rafael Payaregot stuck in it then appalling a place like Symphony Towers.
Buried in a bland mixed-use high-rise in the dreary downtown financial district, an aging, if glamorous, 1929 movie palace with rotten acoustics has long served as the unpleasant home of the San Francisco Symphony. Diego. The orchestra’s first task in giving concerts was to cheer you up after walking through a seemingly bureaucratic building in a dead neighborhood at night and on weekends when concerts are held.
But miraculously, the San Diego Symphony transformed this dreary venue into a destination with its renovation by architectural firm HGA and acoustician Paul Scarbrough. The Symphony Towers have become surprisingly welcoming. The acoustics shine in what was now known as Copley Symphony Hall, now named Jacobs Music Center. Even the neighborhood has improved significantly as the new venue encourages more restaurants to stay open. Parking is easy.
The Jacobs entrance takes you directly into a true concert hall foyer. The first thing you encounter is a superb artisan bakery where the coffee, pastries, sandwiches and more are half the price and four times the quality of the food at the Music Center of Los Angeles. Perhaps a few who come to the bakery (which has regular hours) to pick up a loaf of sourdough will also be tempted to buy a concert ticket. The room is renovated with new seating and looks lovely.
The only visual drawback is the stage, which is no longer made of wood. It’s covered in what appears to be an acoustic material, giving it a cool industrial look that doesn’t reflect colorful stage lighting as nicely as orchestral sound, which combines warmth and clarity.
Giving the musicians a few weeks to settle in (they need, in any new acoustic, a good year or more), I heard the Sunday matinee conclude the second week of regular symphony concerts. Payare’s program further demonstrated both how the orchestra could manifest itself in a traditional Beethoven concerto as well as in an orchestral centerpiece.
The program was to be Brahms’s Violin Concerto and Schoenberg’s kaleidoscopic, exaggerated early tone poem “Pelleas und Melisande.” Payare recently recorded the latter in spectacular fashion with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, of which he is also musical director. But when young violinist Sergey Khachatryan was unable to obtain his visa, a last-minute change was made with seasoned Pinchas Zukerman in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.
At 76, the Israeli violinist is more commonly encountered as a conductor, but he made a strong impression at the amplified Hollywood Bowl last summer by performing a Mozart concerto with the LA Phil conducted by Zubin Mehta. His tone may not be as strong as it once was and it took time to warm up to Jacobs, but he brought a controlled elegance and depth to Beethoven.
From my balcony seat, there was a refined presence in his tone and a sharp immediacy in each section of the orchestra. When Zukerman returned to the stage for an encore, he began by speaking (clearly heard in the room without a microphone) about the meaning of Brahms’ beloved lullaby.
“I’m in pain,” he said. “The world is upside down. Enough is enough. Bibi! The only way he knew to calm an impossible situation, he explained, was to play this lullaby, which he did very softly, with the kind of shocking beauty that only a great artist in ideally sensitive acoustics could capture. with emotion.
Schönberg’s “Pelléas et Mélisande” was written in 1903 by a 29-year-old composer on the verge of revolutionizing music but still seeking to escape the romanticism of the 19th century. The composer, whose 150th birthday is celebrated last month this season, employs a huge orchestra for a flamboyant palette of colors and instrumental effects in a vast range of dramatic gestures. An essential storyteller, he illustrates Maurice Maeterlinck’s original play in a fascinating way, as shown by the judiciously used surtitles.
For his part, Payare did, who has a weakness for Schoenberg. He is a conductor of considerable grace and considerable swagger, making the two go together in unusual but inexorable ways. This meant that broad gestures illuminated tiny details and bursts of wild excitement remained controlled.
It was a test not only of the orchestra but also of the acoustics. Clarity has become the dominant trait here. There was neither the sparkle of high notes that lightly afflicts the New York Philharmonic’s restored David Geffen Hall, for which Scarbrough was also the acoustician, nor the richness of Geffen’s base. But Jacobs deftly handles the crushing climaxes as well as a lullaby. The room should, over time, sonically open up and, hopefully, soften.
But for now, it’s a place made for excitement. All San Diegans have to do is wake up and smell the coffee when they walk in and guess the music inside. By the second week, too many seats among the 1,831 were empty.