This Viewpoint is written in response to the major article in the Daily on Mar 6 ("New music hall may be too small for TSO and Chorale"). As the construction of the new music building proceeds toward completion and toward the inauguration of a new era in the history of music at Tufts, it is important for the Tufts community - who have waited for so many years for this essential facility - to be aware of what the building will contain.
It is being built to include classrooms, rehearsal rooms, instructional studios, faculty offices and much auxiliary space, but especially, it is designed to house the music library and small concert hall of 300-seat capacity.
In the planning for the new music building, it was assumed from the start that large-scale musical performances would be held in Cohen Auditorium, for only this space has the requisite stage size for large orchestral or choral-orchestral concerts on campus, notwithstanding the hall's significant acoustical defects.
Both the Tufts Symphony Orchestra and the Tufts Chorale have regularly performed in Cohen ever since the hall was built. Director Malka Yaacobi's preference for performing in Faneuil Hall in Boston is directly the result of her dissatisfaction, which is widely shared, with Cohen's present acoustics.
As conductor of the orchestra for five years, I was fully aware of the inadequacies of Cohen even as all of us endured them, performers and audiences alike. Of course, Faneuil Hall is hardly an ideal solution. Completely apart from the problems of transporting a large amount of instruments and other equipment, how many members of the Tufts community enjoy going to downtown Boston to hear a concert that might otherwise, and properly, be heard on the Medford campus?
Some history of the auditorium is necessary. The Cohen Arts Center was built in 1954 with extreme parsimony during the University's days of anemic endowment and poor capital funding. The architect, who also designed Carmichael and Hodgdon Halls, was never known as a major master, but he had the advantage of being a Tufts alumnus. Anyone who has been in the basement of Cohen, where the Music Department was housed for decades, knows how inadequate even the most basic construction was for musical use. In the original architectural drawings for Cohen Auditorium, which are still available, there is a sightline that directly reveals how it is impossible for anyone seated in the front row of the balcony to see any part of the stage.
Nevertheless, musical sound in the auditorium, with its plaster walls and reflective ceiling, was pretty good. When I came to Tufts in 1981, the hall was physically shabby, much in need of a new floor, new seating and paint, but one could get a good impression of bright and rich orchestral and vocal sound, and the Music Department and others regularly put on good performances there.
The sound was enhanced by a portable reflective shell on stage that directed the sound outward into the hall. There were many problems, certainly, especially with tight scheduling of the Cohen space for large lecture courses and any number of home-grown and imported productions, and storage space was always severely stressed - a problem that continues today.
A rebuild of the auditorium was announced in 1986, to take place in 1987 and 1988. I was chairman of the Music Department at the time. There was poor communication between the Music Department and the University administration, whose musical attention was primarily directed toward ensuring the success of the Tufts-New England Conservatory double-degree program, then only a few years old.
The Music Department was not consulted when a well-known firm of acousticians with a controversial track record was engaged to advise on acoustical matters, nor were we consulted about any matters of design.
During the entire spring semester of 1987, Cohen Auditorium was closed to any lecture, classroom or performance use, though bids for the construction were not invited until after commencement in May. The Tufts Orchestra had to hold its rehearsals and concerts in Lane Hall.
The rebuild was completed by the fall of 1988, and everyone was delighted by the handsome appearance of the new Cohen Auditorium, including the excellent lighting. But it was immediately apparent that the formerly decent acoustics had been severely injured by the sound-trapping hardwood strips installed vertically along the side walls. What had formerly been a functional concert hall, suitable also for lectures, had become a lecture hall in which concerts with only mediocre sound could be held.
So it remains, 18 years later, and as we greet the new music building and its new recital hall, we should also remember that the acoustical insufficiencies of Cohen Auditorium need to be remedied in order for the large-scale performance activities of a complex Music Department to be optimally functional.
A revision of the auditorium walls would be a wise first step, and possibly the only one needed; the portable reflective shell, which disappeared in 1987, should be restored.
The 300-seat concert hall in the new music building was never intended to support a full symphony orchestra with chorus. It is designed to be primarily suitable for solo recitals, chamber music and small ensemble performances such as those that are now given with difficulty in the acoustically porous Alumnae Lounge.
Such performances are by far the most numerous events that the Music Department presents each year; small performing groups unquestionably sound best in the close and intimate acoustic environment of a small hall, and normally they attract small to midsized audiences.
Nevertheless, it is likely that a classical orchestral of 20-25 players, suitable for a Haydn or Mozart or even a Beethoven symphony, or a Bach choral cantata or a Schubert mass with orchestral accompaniment, can be effectively accommodated in the new hall.
A larger orchestral ensemble, as for a symphony by Brahms or Mahler, probably would sound too massive in the new hall even if its players might fit on the stage. Some testing will always be necessary, with adjustment of ensemble size.
For Brahms's "German Requiem" or Stravinsky's "Firebird," Cohen Auditorium, will always be available close by. We all look forward to its eventual modification and acoustic improvement.
Music Professor Emeritus Mark DeVoto is the former chair of Tufts' Music Department.
