Carnegie Hall is a concert hall in Manhattan, New York City, located at the corner of 57th Street and 7th Avenue. It is one of the most famous venues for classical as well as jazz and pop concerts in the United States.
The building bears the name of Andrew Carnegie, who funded its
construction. William Burnet Tuthill designed the concert hall as a
brick building in the Italian Renaissance style. Construction work began
in 1890. It was first used in April 1891; however, it was not completed
until 1897. The official opening took place on May 5, 1891. The Russian
composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky personally conducted his works for
five evenings. For two dollars you could see a world star at this
premiere, the cheapest ticket in the stands cost only 45 cents.
Carnegie Hall originally had three concert halls: the Main Hall ("Great
Hall"), the Recital Hall ("Small Hall"), and the Chamber Music Hall
("Chamber Music Hall").
The large hall has been called the "Isaac
Stern Auditorium" since it was renovated in 1986. It offers seating for
2,800 spectators on five levels. Its acoustics are famous; it is
considered one of the best concert halls in the world. The chamber music
hall on the third floor of Carnegie Hall (270 seats) has been called the
"Joan and Sanford L. Weill Recital Hall" since 1986. The small hall in
the basement was rented to the AADA (American Academy of Dramatic Arts)
in 1898 and converted into a cinema after 1960. Since 1997, a modern
multi-purpose hall with 600 seats, the "Judy and Arthur Zankel Hall"
opened in 2003, has been built here. Also in Carnegie Hall are the Rose
Museum and the Carnegie Hall Archive.
The building was owned by
the Carnegie family until Carnegie's widow sold it to real estate agent
Robert E. Simon in 1924. The operation of the house was in deficit; the
owner offered it for sale to the New York Philharmonic. They declined,
as they were already in the process of moving to Lincoln Center in 1960.
Plans arose to demolish the building and build a 44-story commercial
building in its place. Under pressure from an initiative led by
violinist Isaac Stern, a legal decision was made that allowed the City
of New York to purchase the hall in 1960 for $5 million and lease it to
a nonprofit organization. In December 1962, Carnegie Hall was designated
a National Historic Landmark. The concert hall was the venue of the
Dimitri Mitropoulos International Music Competition.
The building
was extensively renovated from 1983 to 1995.
Despite Carnegie
Hall's listed status, plans for a commercial building were not entirely
abandoned: in 1987-1989, a 60-story residential and office building
called the Carnegie Hall Tower was built in close proximity to Carnegie
Hall on the same block. With these, Carnegie Hall received its first
freight elevator, which, among other things, made it easier to transport
pianos.
For more than a century, Carnegie Hall has hosted famous world
premieres (selected ones are given):
Dvorak's Ninth Symphony
(December 16, 1893)
Home Symphony by Richard Strauss (March 21, 1904)
Variations on a Theme of Corelli by Sergei Rachmaninoff (November 7,
1931)
Béla Bartók's Contrasts (January 9, 1939)
Chamber Symphony
No. 2 by Arnold Schoenberg (December 15, 1940)
Symphony in 3
movements by Igor Stravinsky (January 24, 1946)
Symphony No. 3 by
Charles Ives (April 5, 1946)
Hymn to the Holy Communion by Olivier
Messiaen (March 13, 1947)
Symphony No. 4 by Charles Ives (April 26,
1965)
Symphony No. 6 for soprano and orchestra by Philip Glass on
lyrics by Allen Ginsberg (February 3, 2002)
American Berserker by
John Adams (February 25, 2002)
Catenaires by Eliot Carter (December
11, 2006)
Bobby McFerrin's bobble (May 2, 2008)
Carnegie Hall was designed by William Burnet Tuthill. Although
Tuthill is not a household name, the success of this building is due in
large part to its design.
Carnegie Hall is one of the largest
buildings in New York. Built entirely of stone, without a steel frame.
The exterior is made with ocher bricks and terracotta details. The
entrance hall avoids the exaggerations of the Baroque and is inspired by
the elegance of the Florentine style, in the manner of Filippo
Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel: white plaster and gray stone form a
harmonious system of open arches and Corinthian pilasters supporting a
cornice with circular lunettes above it, under a vaulted ceiling. The
famous gold and white interior is in the same style.
Carnegie Hall is made up of three different structures and presents a somewhat confusing internal layout. It has three auditoriums: the "Main Hall", the "Recital Hall" and the "Chamber Music Hall".
It has capacity for an audience of 2,804 spectators on five levels.
For reasons that are explained later, the official name of the Main Hall
is now "Isaac Stern Auditorium."
The Main Hall is admired for its
warmth and for having good acoustics. Isaac Stern once said: "It has
been said that the room by itself is an instrument." "It takes what you
do and turns it into something immortal."
The Main Hall is
incredibly tall, and to reach the upper balcony, visitors must climb 105
steps. Anywhere can be reached by elevator, except the upper level.
Since Carnegie Hall's creation, most of the greats of classical
music have performed in the Main Hall, and its lobbies are adorned with
autographed portraits and memorabilia.
The prestige of the venue
supposes the consecration of every artist who steps on its stage and can
be summed up in a smiling anecdote incorporated into the cultural
heritage: A tourist asks a New Yorker: "How do you get to Carnegie
Hall?", and he answers: " Practicing, practicing."
The other, smaller rooms, now called the "Judy and Arthur Zankel Room" and the "Joan and Sanford L. Weill Recital Room", hold 650 and 268 people, respectively. The two large auditoriums were renamed in 1986, after a total renovation. The Zankel Room had been leased to the AADA in 1898, and was converted into a movie theater around 1959. It was requested for use as an auditorium in 1997, and opened in September 2003. The site is home to the Rose Museum and the Carnegie Hall Archives, both recently added.