COS CERT-ROOM ACOUSTICS. 231 



COXCERT-ROOM ACOUSTICS. 



THE acoustics of public buildings are now occupying 

 considerable attention in London. The vast audiences 

 which any kind of sensational performance in the huge 

 metropolis is capable of attracting, is forcing the subject 

 upon all who cater for public amusement or instruction. 

 There was probably no building in London, or anywhere 

 else, more utterly unfit for musical performances than the 

 Crystal Palace in its original condition; but, nevertheless, 

 the Handel Festival of last week was a great success. I 

 attended the first of these immense gatherings, and this 

 last; but nothing of the kind intermediate, and, therefore, 

 am the better able to make comparisons. 



My recollections of the first were so very unsatisfactory 

 that I gladly evaded the grand rehearsal of Friday week, 

 and went to the " Messiah" on Monday with an astronomi- 

 cal treatise in my pocket, in order that my time should not 

 be altogether wasted. Being seated at the further end of 

 the transept, in a gallery above the level of the general 

 ridge-and-furrow roof of the nave, the plump little Birm- 

 ingham tenor, who rose to sing the first solo, appeared, 

 under the combined optical conditions of distance and 

 vertical foreshortening, like a chubby cheese-mite viewed 

 through a binocular microscope. Taking it for granted 

 that his message of comfort could not possibly reach my 

 ear, I determined to anticipate the exhortation by settling 

 down for a comfortable reading of a chapter or two, but was 

 surprised to find I could hear every note, both of recitative 

 and air. 



It thus became obvious that the alterations that have 

 gradually grown since the time when Clara Novello's voice 

 was the only one that could be heard across the trancept 

 are worthy of study; that the advertised success of the 

 "velarium" is something more than mere puffery. I ac- 

 cordingly used my eyes as well as my ears, and made a few 

 notes which may be interesting to musical and architect- 

 ural, as well as to scientific readers. 



Sound, like light, heat, and all other radiations, loses its 



