Wigmore Hall
The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall in London at Wigmore Street 36. It is due to its excellent acoustics, especially for chamber music and recitals estimated as one of the best concert halls in the world.
history
The hall was built in 1901 by the Berlin piano factory C. Bechstein as the Bechstein Hall . The well-known London architect Thomas Edward Collcutt , who also designed the Savoy Hotel , was hired for the design and planning . It cost around £ 100,000 to build .
At that time, Bechstein was one of the most renowned manufacturers of first-class pianos and grand pianos. The strongest competitor was the New York company Steinway & Sons . This had great success with the establishment of exclusive sales rooms with an attached concert hall, the so-called Steinway Halls . As a result, Bechstein had the Bechstein Hall built with 400 seats in the vicinity of the existing business premises in Wigmore Street ; The hall was opened on May 31, 1901 with a concert by the pianist Ferruccio Busoni and the violinist Eugène Ysaÿe . Bechstein built other concert buildings of this type in Paris and Saint Petersburg .
With the outbreak of the First World War and the subsequent expropriation as enemy property and closure, the London Bechstein Hall was foreclosed in 1916. The following year the concert hall was renamed Wigmore Hall and reopened for concert operations. The current owner is The Wigmore Hall Trust .
Artistic arrangement
The stage, famous for its wall painting, shows in the background an allegory of the arts and handicrafts based on a design by Gerald Moira (1867–1959); The painting was done by Lynn Jenkins (1870–1927). The central figure symbolizes the soul of the music in front of a ball of eternal fire, which symbolizes the genius of harmony.
The opposite picture shows Psyche as she - as a symbol of the human soul - inspires a composer who draws music on a roll of paper. The background shows a deep blue sky, above which hover silver-gray clouds of divine mystery .
The dome was restored on the occasion of the renovation of the hall in 1991/92.
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 59.5 ″ N , 0 ° 8 ′ 54 ″ W.