When I was four years old my mother took me to one of those Ernest Read Children’s Concerts that were held at the Royal Festival Hall, in London. The orchestra played The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and I was riveted by the sight of the cellos. I can’t imagine that I was thinking too much about the acoustics that morning – all I remembered was the sound of those cellos and the power of the orchestra as the apprentice went about his mischievous ways.



Sixty years later, we are being told that the RFH is no longer good enough – even though £111m was recently spent on “improving” its notoriously dry acoustic. Neither, apparently, is the Barbican Hall, nor the Royal Albert Hall – which seems to work for the Proms – nor Cadogan Hall, nor any other concert hall where orchestral concerts are heard in our capital city. Can this really be true? Or are classical music’s luvvies being a mite too sensitive?

As someone who has both played and listened many times in all the London concert halls I would answer yes, to both questions. It is true that London doesn’t have a world-class hall for orchestral music to match our world-class orchestras, and the reason for this dates back 70 years when a plan to rebuild the bomb-damaged Queen’s Hall near Oxford Circus was shelved. By all accounts the shoe box-shaped Queen’s Hall was acoustically superb but, after the war, everything needed to be new, and the decision was taken to build a brand new concrete structure south of the river.

The Royal Festival Hall was unveiled in 1951. Opinions were divided from the start: critics bemoaned its “dry and sterile” acoustics while protagonists celebrated its cutting-edge design and “crystal clear” sound.

It is extraordinary and unforgivable how often new concert halls' acoustics are judged to be unsatisfactory

My own first encounter with the hall as a soloist was in 1974 with a performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto, a work I came to play there on many subsequent occasions. Initially I was shocked by its acoustic: it was like playing under a microscope. I had never felt so exposed on a concert platform. You seemed only to be able to hear yourself, and what you heard was the worst it had ever sounded. In Simon Rattle’s memorable words: “After rehearsing for half an hour in the Royal Festival Hall you lose the will to live.” In my case, it only took five minutes!

Losing the will to live? Simon Rattle rehearses with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Royal Festival Hall. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Given the vast sums of money involved in building new concert halls, it is extraordinary and unforgivable how often their acoustics are then judged to be unsatisfactory. The essential requirements of a good concert hall are surprisingly few. Any musicians will tell you what they are: a “shoebox” shape auditorium with a not-too-wide platform and a not-too-high ceiling so that the sound emanating from the stage is both focused and intense. It also helps to have plenty of reflective surfaces: plastered walls and natural wood instead of drapes, carpets and plushly upholstered seats. It’s hardly rocket science. Yet more often than not, musicians aren’t consulted. Instead, “rocket science” money is paid to “acoustic engineers” who do not have to live with their results, and are nowhere to be seen when they get it wrong.

In the case of the RFH, they didn’t just get it wrong once but twice. Has there ever been a clearer explanation of the saying you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? To begin with the platform is preposterously wide and the ceiling is monstrously high, meaning that absolutely nothing comes back to the performer on stage. Then there are the lavishly upholstered seats, the art deco carpets – which apparently are listed – and the strangely padded walls covered with sound-absorbent material which are no doubt listed too. So when, less than 10 years ago, the inevitable team of acoustic engineers were drafted in to carry out their £111m improvement they were on the back-foot from the beginning as they were not allowed to alter the very things that were causing the problems in the first place.

It's no coincidence that some of the greatest performances I have ever heard have been at the festival hall

Before the results of this costly overhaul were revealed, I took part in a private acoustic test in the hall. Trying hard to be generous, I thought that maybe there was a little more bloom to the sound, perhaps it was slightly better? But £111m better? Not in 111 million years.

But here comes the rub – and the reason why I think some people are being way too sensitive: all my criticisms of the RFH come from the perspective of the performer, not an audience member. Just because a concert hall doesn’t bathe its performers in a comforting wash of sound doesn’t mean it is not a good hall for the listener. It is no coincidence that some of the greatest performances I have ever heard have been at the festival hall. It has proved to be the exception to all known acoustical rules. In fact its acoustic distinguishes the men from the boys, and the finest musicians raise their games accordingly. The slightest mistake is immediately heard - but then so is the beautiful playing of a phrase that would have been lost in a sea of reverberation in the Royal Albert Hall.

So, although I know that it won’t resound around its leather-clad walls, I’m going to whisper something quietly: the RFH is a bloody good concert hall.

•Julian Lloyd Webber is Principal of Birmingham Conservatoire. Follow him on twitter @jlloydwebber

