The Sound Of Music

by Ellen Lampert-Greaux / Dallas Symphony Orchestra (May 1995)

Soaring planes of glass and great expanses of white marble welcome concertgoers to the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, the celebrated home of the Dallas Symphony. Since its debut in September 1989, the building has earned a place among the great concert halls of the world, standing alongside the Vienna Musikvereinssaal and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in its acoustic excellence.

Designed by master architect I. M. Pei (of Pei, Cobb, Freed and Partners), the Meyerson is the very model of a modern symphony center, with roots stretching back through the centuries and across the continents. Working in close concert with acoustics expert Russell Johnson of Artec Consultants, Pei took his cue from the acoustician and wrapped the building around the prescribed 2,062-seat horseshoe-shaped auditorium. This approach allows the strong architectural statement made by Pei with the Meyerson's crisp contemporary exteriors to stand in marked contrast to the warmth and classical form of the McDermott Concert Hall found within.

The center of much controversy over his startling glass pyramids at the Louvre in Paris, Pei successfully translated his personal artistic vision into a singular addition to the architectural heritage of Dallas. Asymmetrical in design, the Meyerson presents the viewer with a juxtaposition of overlapping geometrical shapes and curving planes. Confined to a block-size lot, Pei turned the building on an angle to the street, a design solution which allowed for extra length in the auditorium. there is a spacious passage into the concert hall itself, where three horseshoe-shaped balconies and three rows of seating on a terrace level above the main floor help define the intimate scale of the room.

While the rectangular shape of Pei's exterior sculpture hints at the long, narrow "shoebox" shape of the auditorium, nothing in his choice of materials for the exterior alludes to the warm reds and wood tones found inside. And if the Meyerson's architectural success is a tribute to the genius of Pei, then the success of the McDermott must be attributable to that of Russell Johnson. A longtime practitioner of acoustical science, Johnson admires the sound of the great pre-World War I European concert halls. In studying those halls, he found "a simple formula not too difficult to reproduce today." The pre-1910 halls, he says, "are very narrow, with long parallel walls, and quite high horizontal ceilings." They were also built of very solid materials with no hollow spaces within the walls. "They had plaster applied directly to brick," Johnson explains, "and no air space whatsoever between the plaster and the bearing wall."

Johnson also found in studying the older halls that their surfaces were not flat or bare, but rather covered with plaster decorations in the form of vines, flowers, of cherubs in varying degrees of complexity. His challenge was achieving such sound-diffusing surfaces within today's stark architectural idiom. In the McDermott, the solution begins with walls of thick plaster, concrete, and wood, built to avoid air pockets that might absorb sound; none of the floors are carpeted to avoid further sound absorption. In addition, Johnson devised a complex system of acoustic panels, velour curtains, and canopies to adjust the acoustics of the hall for an orchestra of any size, a soloist, the spoken word, or concerts that feature the Meyerson's renowned Fisk organ.

As today's halls are larger than their European ancestors, and have wider seats to accommodate today's audiences, Johnson works to overcome these larger dimensions with his adjustable acoustical innovations. At the Meyerson, a large U-shaped reverberation chamber located around the perimeter of the McDermott Concert Hall provides approximately 300,000 cubic feet of empty space which allows sound to reverberate. Concealed behind large panels of theatrical gauze (or scrim), the chamber is fronted by 72 hinged, four-inch-thick concrete doors. These can be opened or closed to any degree to control the action of the reverberation, increasing it as the doors open, reducing it as the doors are closed. And the Meyerson acoustical recipe includes an extremely low level of noise leaking into its auditorium.

In addition to these doors, a combination of motor-operated, multi-layer cloth curtains can be extended from storage pockets to cover the sound-reflective walls as desired. In their extended state, these drapes act as a sound absorber, and when retracted, they allow the walls to reflect sound back into the hall. the curtains are usually retracted for most symphony concerts, chamber orchestras, string quartets, or solo recitals, while they are extended for film screening, popular music, or the spoken word.

The most visible of the acoustic features in the McDermott incorporates a system of four vertically adjustable sound-reflecting canopies hung almost horizontally above the stage. Moving up and down on counterweights, the elevation of this canopy system helps balance the clarity and reverberance of the room, helps control the loudness of the sound, and affects how well the orchestra members can hear each other.

The Meyerson's intricate system allows for an innumerable number of variations in acoustical arrangements. Mark Melson, director of orchestra operations for the Dallas Symphony, reports that they have devised six basic settings (for choral groups, large orchestral groups, normal orchestra size, amplified concerts and the spoken word, recitals or small ensembles, and organ recitals) which cover the needs of the more than 150 performances in the hall each year. "Even these six settings vary," Melson adds, "by opening an extra door or extending an extra curtain."

Over the past five years, no changes have been made in the Meyerson's state-of-the-art acoustical systems. Only this year, the height of the rear orchestra riser was lowered to compensate for a feeling that the bass and percussion tended to dominate due to their extra height. The risers were lowered in order to bring these instruments more into balance with the rest of the orchestra. "We are continuing to learn to make it better," says Melson about the Meyerson's acoustical system. "The more we hear it, the more we know about using it all."

When the hall was new, Johnson would "visit, listen, and think about the acoustics," remembers Melson. The sound that Johnson heard and perfected has been acclaimed by visiting orchestras, conductors, and soloists from around the world. "What's miraculous about the Meyerson," says Melson, "is the rare combination of clarity and reverberation. There is a halo or glow or reverberation around the sound, like in a big cathedral, yet with real clarity."

For the Dallas Symphony, the Meyerson has provided a world-class orchestra with a world-class home, while adding architectural sparkle to the developing arts district of Dallas. But perhaps most importantly, the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center has helped redefine the standards for contemporary concert halls, and will stand as a benchmark against which the success of concert halls of future centuries will be measured.