pianist from the sea

Chapter 325 AlteOper
The Frankfurt Grand Theater where Fu Diao came to is actually known as the Frankfurt Alte Opera House. It is a concert and event venue.

Enter the vestibule from the entrance.The room is decorated with cross ribs extending onto the five axes of the central column, with the cashier's desk on the two outer axes.

Five round arches lead to the vestibule, the walls are decorated with pilasters with bases and Corinthian stucco capitals, and the coffered ceiling is also made of stucco.

The ornately decorated foyer symbolizes the past glory of this concert hall, with a strong Roman style.

After Fu Diao looked around the concert hall, he had some thoughts about the concert hall in his mind.

He looked at the three or four men in suits standing in front of him, walked over, shook hands slightly with the leader who extended his hand, and said softly.

"Hello, I'm Fu Tiao."

"Mr. Fu, I am really glad that you can choose our Frankfurt Old Opera House as a venue for your global tour this year. Although this opera house has just been built, it is no longer used as an opera house, but as a music venue." It was built between 1873 and 1880 as an opera house for the Municipal Theater and was destroyed in an air raid in 1944.

Although our Frankfurt Opera received new premises on Theaterplatz in 1951, the opera house lay in ruins for a long time.Reconstruction was not started until 1976 and completed in 1981. She is only 36 years old, still very young, but to be precise, the buildings in Germany are actually very young, after all..."

The person in charge of the concert hall jokingly joked to Fu Diao: "After all, many old buildings were blown to pieces by artillery fire during the war. Most of the existing old buildings were designed based on the shapes of the old buildings. They are rebuilt, not really old buildings. If you really want to see those old buildings, you may need to go to some non-war areas that have not experienced artillery fire. For example, go west from here, dozens of kilometers away. Wiesbaden, where you can see some really old buildings.”

"I know about antique buildings." Fu Diao nodded: "It's like this in many places. Berlin also has many old buildings."

"Ah, Berlin." The person in charge was stunned for a moment, then said with a smile: "But the old buildings in Berlin are actually much younger than the ones here. The old buildings in Berlin actually have a stronger historical meaning, such as Talking about the Empire State Building, Checkpoint Charlie, etc., if you want to understand the details of the Cold War, you can really learn a lot by going to Berlin. As for Frankfurt, many of the ruins you can see have been destroyed, and not many remain.”

The person in charge seemed to be a history buff, happily telling Fu Diao about the history of Germany and this concert hall.

The two people standing behind him said nothing, standing behind that person like bodyguards or secretaries.

After the person in charge chatted with Fu Diao for a long time, he glanced at the watch in his hand, then extended his hand to Fu Diao.

"How about we take a look at the concert hall first? We've been chatting outside for so long, and I haven't shown you what the concert hall is like."

After that, he motioned to the people behind him to lead the way, then walked beside Fu Diao and spoke to Fu Diao.

"Because it is being rebuilt, our concert hall actually looks a lot older and smaller than other concert halls. After all, the acoustic system and architectural system are constantly improving, and so is the theoretical knowledge. , with such progress, the concert hall is actually in a process of continuous evolution... Do you know the Elb Concertgebouw in Hamburg?"

"I know, I just went there." Fu Diao didn't expect to hear the name of the Elbe Concert Hall here, so he couldn't help but grinned and said.

“I was invited to perform at the first performance at the Elb Concert Hall in Hamburg, and the performance at the Elb Concert Hall felt really good.”

"what……"

The person in charge who originally wanted to say something suddenly ran out of words.

He originally wanted to explain the evolution of the concert hall to Fu Diao, and by the way, he wanted to talk about his knowledge of the Elb Concert Hall.

He never imagined that Fu Diao beside him not only knew the Elb Concert Hall, but would actually be invited to participate in the first round of performances at the Elb Concert Hall?

He has been busy arranging activities at the Frankfurt Old Opera House recently, and has not paid much attention to recent events in the music circle. He has learned enough about the Elb Concert Hall.

After all, the Elb Concert Hall, like the Old Opera House in Frankfurt, is a building within the concert hall system, and it is their job to know which concert hall is good.

He had heard from a long time ago that the interior of the Elb Concert Hall was super powerful, and he invited well-known architects in the field of acoustic architecture to come and build the main body of the concert hall. He had always wanted to go there and see what it was like.

Then he hadn't been to the Elb Concert Hall yet, so Fu Tiao went there first.

This hit him hard.

He could only shrug helplessly and sigh.

"Well, I haven't been there yet. I have always heard that the design of the Elb Concert Hall is very good. I also got the completed design drawings of the Elb Concert Hall from others and took a brief look at it, but I think You should have been to many different concert halls, right? You should also feel the different differences between many concert halls. From the older batch to the current batch, the interior designs of different concert halls are different.

The further forward the concert hall is, the more unified the design of the concert hall is. Overall, it looks like a shoe box. The performers are at the front of the concert hall, and then the interior of the concert hall presents a rectangular parallelepiped, surrounded by Two or three floors of balconies and private rooms allow more audiences to hear the entire content of the concert hall without being affected.

But soon, a new design came into being. Doesn’t it mean that sound is transmitted by sound waves?In this case, we began to transform the concert hall into a fan-shaped structure. Every place is a fan-shaped area. The farther forward, the fewer the audience, and the farther back, the more the audience.

The current mainstream old-fashioned designs are mainly based on rectangular shoe box structures and scallop fan-shaped structures.

But soon, a new design plan came out, which was a new concert hall based on the Berlin Philharmonic Hall. "

Everyone walked up the stairs.

One of the two secretaries was holding Fu Diao's luggage, while the other was leading the way.

They walked to the second floor and came to a long corridor, which seemed to be a walking trail.

It is shown in the introduction on the side that this place used to be a place for ordinary audiences to change clothes. Now this place has been changed into a walking trail, which allows the audience to have a wider field of vision and makes the design of the concert hall more logical.

The person in charge did not introduce the history of this trail, probably because he felt that this history was not worth introducing. He just took Fu Diao and followed the secretary who opened the way, and walked forward along the trail.

As he walked, he continued to speak.

"Those new concert halls all have one feature, that is, they start to let people sit in the back of the concert hall. The concert hall is no longer a simple one-way transmission, but a multi-directional transmission."

"I've been to the Berlin Philharmonic, and it's really like that at the Berlin Philharmonic. I remember they once called the Berlin Philharmonic...the Grapevine Concert Hall?"

"Hahaha, yes, Grapevine, you have been to the Berlin Philharmonic and the Elb Concert Hall. You should have found that the two concert halls are actually very similar, right?"

"Yes, some details of the construction are different, but these are not particularly big problems."

Fu Tiao nodded: "In the performance pool of the Elb Concert Hall, they use more of a raised, weird-shaped paint surface, as if it was a deliberately dug hole, while the Berlin Philharmonic's In the orchestra pit on the side, it is very common to use a relatively ordinary paint surface that is not very flat."

"Well, yes, you feel right, you are worthy of being Fu!" the person in charge praised.

"As you said, their overall design ideas are the same. You should be able to feel it, right? The differences in some details are just to make the music better spread. After all, every detail change actually makes a difference. It is an improvement in architecture and acoustics... Oh, here we are, we have arrived at the entrance of the concert hall."

As everyone talked, they arrived at the door of the concert hall.

The person in charge asked his secretary to step aside. He took two steps forward and pushed open the door of the concert hall, revealing everything in the concert hall to Fu Tiao.

Looking at the concert hall in front of him, Fu Diao was in a daze for a moment.

It's not just how luxurious and magnificent this concert hall is.

Or how modern.

What shocked him was...

Why does this concert hall feel so small?

He clearly remembered what his manager told him that the concert halls he played in this year were basically concert halls with 2 people, but what he saw in front of him, how did he feel...

Is it amazing that this concert hall can hold 1 people?

He said that this concert hall was not much different from the Cadogan Concert Hall or the Gavo Concert Hall where he had played before.

It may even be that the place is smaller because of the design.

"This is...where I'm going to play next?"

"Of course (genau)!"

The person in charge nodded, seemed to notice Fu Diao's surprise, and immediately explained.

"As you can see now, no, to be precise, it should be slightly different from what you see. The concert hall you are going to play in is a large concert hall with 2 people!"

He took Fu Diao and walked inside.

They are on the second floor now.

No, to be precise, Fu Diao didn't know which floor they were on.

It's definitely not on the first floor anyway.He even doubted whether he was in the concert hall or outside the concert hall now.

The huge staircase acts like the main entrance.

The densely packed seats were piled together. Looking from here, Fu's head felt a little dizzy.

"Is there really room for 2000 people here?"

"Of course, there is indeed room for 2000 people here, but due to design reasons and some historical factors, we can only build the concert hall as it is today, making the concert hall overall crowded."

"I feel like this is not a bit crowded, but... very crowded, right?"

"..."

The person in charge was a little embarrassed when he heard Fu Diao's words. He couldn't help pinching the tip of his nose and said helplessly.

"Because the identity of the concert hall is like this, we need to keep the original appearance of the concert hall as much as possible when creating this concert hall, rather than completely rebuilding it. Therefore, we can only do this. After all, we are donating to build the concert hall. Among the people, there are many, many elderly people who miss everything in this concert hall, and there is nothing we can do.”

"..."

Fu Tiao didn't know what to say.

He bypassed the person in charge, walked into the concert hall, and looked at the seats.

These seats are very ordinary seats, made of wood, and the space is not large.

Fu Tiao feels that if the weight is a little higher, the buttocks will probably be stuck in this position, unlike other places where the seat size will be slightly opened to give the audience more space.

Seemingly noticing Fu Tiao's gaze, the person in charge explained.

"Although these seats are a bit small, we have provided special seats for many obese users. They need to provide us with proof of obesity to purchase these seats, which are slightly larger."

"so……"

Fu Tiao nodded.

Perhaps it was because 50 marks could not buy a piece of bread, and it was difficult for everyone to have enough to eat during post-war reconstruction. There must not have been many fat people at that time.

That's why so many seats were set up for this concert hall.

But now that living conditions have improved and there are more fat people, such seats seem much smaller.

Maybe this is the price you have to pay if you want to retain the sense of antiquity when history and modernity coexist.

Fu Tiao did not speak, but continued to look at other contents in the concert hall.

The position they were in now happened to completely cover their heads on the first floor.

It kind of covers the head on the first floor like a tent roof.

At the same time, they also have an additional two-side suspension design.

Almost all space is utilized to the extreme.

Even if they didn't feel that complete coverage was too depressing, they might even make the concert hall into two or three floors like a flat anatomy, with the same seats on each floor, superimposed one on top of the other. together.

Fortunately, it was not four years ago, otherwise Fu Tiao felt that this place could be a concentration camp.

Such a small space with more than 2000 seats.

Gee...

What should I do if I suddenly miss the Elb Concert Hall?
Fu Diao couldn't help but shook his head when he thought of this place.

It seems that the Elb Concert Hall has been unable to perform recently. Since it is newly opened, they have almost arranged all the performances for this year.

There isn't any space to insert.

This concert hall is still small, and I feel that the overall performance style may need to be slightly adjusted. It cannot be performed casually, but needs to be changed according to the content of the concert hall.

After all, there are so many concert halls for such a small person, and the feeling of playing in concert halls elsewhere is completely different.

Normally, the sound effects produced by playing in an empty concert hall are completely different from those produced by playing in a concert hall full of audiences.

When the sound hits the audience, part of it will be absorbed by the audience's clothes.

For most concert halls, you can basically decide what kind of performance method should be used in the concert hall by looking at the size of the concert hall.

Not at all in this concert hall.

The size of this concert hall is that of a medium concert hall.

But the number of people held in this concert hall is the number of people in a large concert hall.

Then the intensity and timbre you need to play need to be changed, and you cannot play directly based on previous experience.

and……

Fu Diao scanned the concert hall and found that the walls of the concert hall were not soundproof holes in the traditional sense, but had a texture similar to cloth.

And the feeling of the wall hitting the music back into your ears is completely different.

In addition, there seemed to be many, many details that he needed to pay attention to and think about.

These details...

Fu Diao pondered for a moment, then looked at the person in charge beside him and asked him.

"Can I go directly to test the piano now?"

"Of course, our concert hall has four pianos: Bechstein, Steinway, Fazioli, and Yamaha. Which one do you need?"

"Can you try them all?"

"No problem, I'll arrange for someone to help you move all the pianos out for your use."

The person in charge nodded, waved to the secretary next to him, and asked them to do it. Then he took Fu Tiao from the second floor where they were now to the first floor from a corner.

After a long circuit on the first floor, we finally arrived at the backstage area.

Here, the person in charge opened the backstage door and brought Fu Tiao to the stage. The secretary beside him had already brought out several pianos and was starting to tune them.

It was also from here that Fu Diao felt shocked again.

When I was on the second floor, I didn't feel anything. I just felt that this concert hall was a bit small.

But when he stood on the stage, Fu Diao felt a strong sense of depression.

The densely packed seats lie on the ground like beasts, stacked one layer after another, trying to swallow up the stage.

All around are people.

Compared with the shoebox type, the flat surface is the same as the Chopin Philharmonic Concert Hall. Compared with the scallop-shaped one, it is wider. Compared with the grapevine-shaped one, it is friendly to the audience.

The Frankfurt Opera Concert Hall is too depressing.

In the atmosphere of such a concert hall, Fu Diao suddenly thought of several pieces that were particularly suitable for this concert hall.

(End of this chapter)