Europe's smartest concert hall

Can a concert hall think? More likely to sound. Does a concert hall have a brain? More likely a "heart". So why the smartest concert hall? The most important thing in a concert hall is the acoustics. Sure, comfortable seating and atmospheric architecture help, but for a great musical experience you need an ideal sound. There has been and still is a lot of philosophizing about acoustics. Does a hall have top acoustics? Or just good? In the end even a bad one? But there is one thing that is often forgotten amidst all the technical talk. Dr. Eckard Mommertz, acoustic planner at Müller-BBM Building Solutions, answers the question of what perfect acoustics are like this: "When you go home and were simply carried away by the music, when it was a unique experience."

You could also say that there is no such thing as THE perfect acoustics. We play the 3rd Symphony ("Eroica") and also the 4th Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven in huge concert halls today. They were premiered in the comparatively intimate hall of the "Palais Lobkowicz" in Vienna and were probably also intended to be played acoustically. If you have ever been to the magnificent Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth or the Cuvilliés Theater in Munich, you will be surprised at how small these rooms are. Of course, it wasn't just about seeing the operas, but above all the outfits of the others. This is far less fun at a great distance. Both theaters have excellent acoustics - for works with small casts. Richard Wagner's Götterdämmerung or Richard Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten would probably blow the rich stucco off the walls. And finally, the Elbphilharmonie, this grandiose, iconic building, sounds extraordinarily transparent, high-pitched and crystal clear. However, when the Jazzrausch Big Band keeps it pure with techno beats and richly amplified brass sections, it's even for great sound engineers like Josy Friebel to square the circle of not sounding far too loud, not sounding too sharp and booming.

To summarize: A venue with natural room acoustics cannot have perfect acoustics, as they cannot be equally perfect for all styles of music. What can be done instead? Today, there are technical possibilities to do just that: To create the perfect acoustics for each piece. The VIVACE electronic room acoustics system from Müller-BBM takes care of this. Put simply, it can electronically influence the sound that spreads naturally in the room. While many microphones installed in the room continuously record this sound, a high-performance processor calculates in real time what numerous loudspeakers installed on the walls and ceiling of the room need to reproduce in order to change the acoustics in the hall. For the audience, it then sounds as if they are sitting in a chamber music hall. Or a church. Or a recording studio. Or a large concert hall.

The VIVACE system already exists. For our hall, however, the specialists at Müller-BBM are taking the next development step. Marcus Blome, responsible for the VIVACE system at Müller-BBM, puts it this way: "Our system is often used to compensate for acoustic deficits in rooms. A room like the Elektra Tonquartier, which was planned as a "music studio" and in which the VIVACE system, with all its possibilities for creating immersive 3D audio experiences, is to play a central role in the artistic direction, is the absolute exception."