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Pedja on 30 June 2025, 8:37 PM
As a follow-up to the Elbphilharmonie report I posted earlier this year, here is the experience I had by visiting Sala Santa Cecilia, the biggest (2750 seats) of the three concert halls constituting the Parco della Musica complex in Rome.
Just like Elbphilharmonie, Sala Santa Cecilia's interior is built in vineyard style. As I missed noting that in my Elbphilharmonie report, this concept was originally set by the Berliner Philharmonie, designed by Hans Scharoun, and built in the 1960s, with the strong support of its then-conductor Herbert von Karajan.
Sala Santa Cecilia was opened in 2002, so it is 15 years older than Elbphilharmonie. For the record, the acoustics designer was Jürgen Reinhold / Müller-BBM, also responsible for several other famous concert halls acoustics and acoustics renovations.
Spending a few days in Rome this June, I normally used the chance to visit this place. Mendelssohn’s Antigone perfectly fit our wishes, and listening to the live performance of the resident Orchestra and Chorus of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, conducted by Francesco Lanzillotta, fulfilled all our expectations, and more than that. We simply enjoyed it.
Now, for the acoustics. First, the vineyard geometry apparently deals greatly with unwanted standing waves. Yet, and this is also obvious from the pictures, as opposed to Elbphilharmonie, where practically all lines are somewhat curved, and which is subjectively practically free from any resonant frequencies, Sala Santa Cecilia still has some straight lines. So I tried to focus on whether I could hear any resonances. The whole geometry, in 3D terms, is also somewhat different, and there is also less space behind the musicians. The ceiling is however uniquely nicely treated, by 26 cherry wood "shells". The reverberation time is 2.2 seconds.
We had the places in platea (parterre), row 11, and practically in center, so I think this was a good position with respect to the stage.
Click on the picture will bring it 20 MP.
The whole ensemble was almost 90 people: 4 narrators, 42 singers, and somewhat more than 40 musicians, which was hard to count precisely from our position, because our seats were at about their level, so they were not all clearly visible. Which might also be the acoustical shortcoming of our position. On the other hand, the seats that are above the podium level are much farther away, and in that way, there would be no ideal, or at least not really better listening position in the hall.
Also, I am not sure how it may count toward the overall result, but in this concert, the balconies were empty.
Anyhow, the acoustics is by all means exceptional, with its own distinctive signature. The overall picture is warmer and less analytical than the one I experienced in Elbphilharmonie, however still with great definition and unmistakable instrument positioning. What really impressed me was the strings tone – it is probably the best I have ever heard. On the other side, if I should note some shortcoming, that would be the one I notice as a weak point of many halls, and it is a sort of resonance in the mid- to the upper mid-range, which is being excited when the whole choir sings fortissimo (to me, this effect is similar to the loudspeaker cone break up), and it is more audible than what I previously mentioned about the Elbphilharmonie.
The audibility is great, at least from such a position, where solo singers are easily audible when singing from the back of the stage, almost as if they performed in the living room. So I did not fully understand why narrators, who also performed greatly, and who were up front on the stage, were amplified.
As for the bottom line, I think the fact that we highly enjoyed this concert summarizes this experience well: it was somewhat harder to listen to the acoustics than the music. But both were beautiful and very convincing.
As a follow-up to the Elbphilharmonie report I posted earlier this year, here is the experience I had by visiting Sala Santa Cecilia, the biggest (2750 seats) of the three concert halls constituting the Parco della Musica complex in Rome.
Just like Elbphilharmonie, Sala Santa Cecilia's interior is built in vineyard style. As I missed noting that in my Elbphilharmonie report, this concept was originally set by the Berliner Philharmonie, designed by Hans Scharoun, and built in the 1960s, with the strong support of its then-conductor Herbert von Karajan.
Sala Santa Cecilia was opened in 2002, so it is 15 years older than Elbphilharmonie. For the record, the acoustics designer was Jürgen Reinhold / Müller-BBM, also responsible for several other famous concert halls acoustics and acoustics renovations.
Spending a few days in Rome this June, I normally used the chance to visit this place. Mendelssohn’s Antigone perfectly fit our wishes, and listening to the live performance of the resident Orchestra and Chorus of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, conducted by Francesco Lanzillotta, fulfilled all our expectations, and more than that. We simply enjoyed it.
Now, for the acoustics. First, the vineyard geometry apparently deals greatly with unwanted standing waves. Yet, and this is also obvious from the pictures, as opposed to Elbphilharmonie, where practically all lines are somewhat curved, and which is subjectively practically free from any resonant frequencies, Sala Santa Cecilia still has some straight lines. So I tried to focus on whether I could hear any resonances. The whole geometry, in 3D terms, is also somewhat different, and there is also less space behind the musicians. The ceiling is however uniquely nicely treated, by 26 cherry wood "shells". The reverberation time is 2.2 seconds.
We had the places in platea (parterre), row 11, and practically in center, so I think this was a good position with respect to the stage.
Click on the picture will bring it 20 MP.
The whole ensemble was almost 90 people: 4 narrators, 42 singers, and somewhat more than 40 musicians, which was hard to count precisely from our position, because our seats were at about their level, so they were not all clearly visible. Which might also be the acoustical shortcoming of our position. On the other hand, the seats that are above the podium level are much farther away, and in that way, there would be no ideal, or at least not really better listening position in the hall.
Also, I am not sure how it may count toward the overall result, but in this concert, the balconies were empty.
Anyhow, the acoustics is by all means exceptional, with its own distinctive signature. The overall picture is warmer and less analytical than the one I experienced in Elbphilharmonie, however still with great definition and unmistakable instrument positioning. What really impressed me was the strings tone – it is probably the best I have ever heard. On the other side, if I should note some shortcoming, that would be the one I notice as a weak point of many halls, and it is a sort of resonance in the mid- to the upper mid-range, which is being excited when the whole choir sings fortissimo (to me, this effect is similar to the loudspeaker cone break up), and it is more audible than what I previously mentioned about the Elbphilharmonie.
The audibility is great, at least from such a position, where solo singers are easily audible when singing from the back of the stage, almost as if they performed in the living room. So I did not fully understand why narrators, who also performed greatly, and who were up front on the stage, were amplified.
As for the bottom line, I think the fact that we highly enjoyed this concert summarizes this experience well: it was somewhat harder to listen to the acoustics than the music. But both were beautiful and very convincing.
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