Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Johan Dalene
- Samuel Barber, Overture to The School for Scandal
- Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Violin Concerto
- Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra
Harpa Concert and Conference Hall opened in 2011. Thirteen years later I was interested to listen to how the resident Iceland Symphony Orchestra has settled into its 1800-seat Eldborg hall. The repertoire was three works from the first half of the twentieth century. The energy of Bartok’s Concerto in particular offered a darkly dramatic experience in the volcano-inspired setting.
It was the most theatrical concert hall experience I’ve had in a while. There were phrases when the low rumbling crescendos of the basses and the rolling thunder of the timpani erupted into deep cascading roars of tectonic energy from above. A decade has not softened any of the rock-hard edges of the hall. As a room it’s still razor-straight edged in appearance, a Minecraft formation of excavated elements. The sound has a rocksteady sturdiness.
It was more than just the sound that was theatrical. Lava-red light pours out of fissures in the architecture. The audience light dimmed to darkness dramatically at the start of the performance – unusual for a concert, more like a theatre show. The result was a quite solo audience experience. This was exaggerated by the audience arrangement: for this concert there was no audience around the sides and rear of the platform, so the platform end of the room looked quite lonely. I could see only the backs of audience heads from where I sat – I had no sense of whether anyone else was enjoying the music (although I’m sure they were). The sound was also quite frontal with notably little sound reflected from behind. I could hear my own clapping at a surprising volume.
My seat in row 10 was almost dead-centre in the stalls. The orchestra sound had good presence, sounding a little nearer than they looked and with a good spatial image per instrument. The horns were sat platform right with the bells facing the large ‘cheek’ wall at the front of the platform – some strong reflections from this surface at times stretched the spatial image of the orchestra off the right side of the platform.
The swells of energy favoured the lower registers. On top of this the higher registers skipped and skimmed along nimbly with good clarity, perhaps at times little too detached and without the same stridency of sound from the lower instruments.
It’s a hall that fills with sound easily, and it might have been nice to hear the orchestra explore a bit more of the lower end of the dynamic range – although Dalene’s solo encore demonstrated some of the hall’s more delicate capabilities.
It was nice to see a healthy mix of audience demographic at the concert – this appears to be a hall that is well-loved by Icelanders. The wide open foyers are busy at all times and filled with daylight pouring through Olafur Eliasson’s colour-twinkling glass facade (I visited in May so I imagine the light is very different in winter). I was lucky enough to have a tour of the backstage areas where the theme continues, with dressing rooms looking out over the ocean – possibly the most dramatic dressing room experience I’ve ever seen.
The venue caters for more than just classical music. It hosts a range of performances and community events. The day before this concert was a military graduation. The foyers are busy throughout the day – it’s already become an old friend for the city. The building and its concert hall are an iconic part of the Reykjavik landscape.
Theatre Elements 