Old and New

Today we went on a tour of Birmingham Town Hall  - a building with an interesting history.  The building was planned as a performance venue (The first of its kind) in the 1820's for the Birmingham Triennial Festival and the architect, Hansom, went bankrupt before he could finish the project.  The organ is magnificent and Mendelssohn managed to persuade the City Fathers to extend the end of the Town Hall in order that the organ could be repositioned a little further back from the main auditorium and the keyboards could be closer to the 6000 pipes.  Lloyd George had to be escorted from the building once when he had caused so much anger amongst the populace.

The building was closed for restoration in 1996 /7 and was shut for ten years while the auditorium and the roof were sorted out.  This is the result.  It is a fine building although I am not convinced by the see through acoustic enhancers which obstruct the view of the audience from the circle.

The extra shows the pipes which I think are truly beautiful.  The organ scholar, Osaka, played for us and talked about the organ.  Interestingly, she prefers the traditional sound of this concert organ to the more technical instrument in Symphony Hall.