Opened in 1891 with Tchaikovsky conducting, nearly demolished in 1960, and saved by a violinist. The acoustics are the reason it still matters.
Built by a steel man for a conductor’s wife
Andrew Carnegie funded the hall after a shipboard conversation with Walter Damrosch, who was engaged to Carnegie’s wife’s friend and wanted a proper concert hall for New York. It opened in May 1891 with a five-day festival, with Tchaikovsky brought over to conduct his own work.
It was built without steel framing — load-bearing masonry, very thick walls — which is part of why it sounds the way it does. The acoustics of the main hall are among the best anywhere and have never been fully explained; a 1980s renovation was accused of ruining them, a concrete slab was eventually found under the stage and removed, and the argument about whether that was the cause has not entirely stopped.
In 1960 the New York Philharmonic was moving to Lincoln Center and the hall was scheduled for demolition. The violinist Isaac Stern led the campaign that saved it and got the city to buy the building. The main auditorium is named after him.
Three halls
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, 2,804 seats over five levels, is the one people mean. Orchestras, recitals, and everything from Mahler to Benny Goodman’s 1938 swing concert to the Beatles’ first American concerts in 1964.
Zankel Hall, 599 seats, underground, opened in 2003 and programmes contemporary, jazz and world music.
Weill Recital Hall, 268 seats, is the intimate room, and where a great many debut recitals happen. Renting it is how the old joke about practice works in real life — anyone can hire the hall, which is why some listings are less distinguished than others.
Getting in cheaply
Rush tickets go on sale at the box office on the day for many concerts, at a low flat rate. Student and under-30 discount programmes exist and are worth the sign-up if you qualify. The top balcony is always the cheapest and, for orchestral repertoire, sounds excellent.
The tour
Guided tours run on most weekday afternoons in season, take about an hour, and get you into the auditorium and backstage. There is also the free Rose Museum on the second floor, with Toscanini’s baton, Benny Goodman’s clarinet and material from the archive.
If there is a rehearsal you cannot go in, and the schedule changes, so check on the day.
More Theatre & Music
Broadway Theatre District
Forty-one theatres between 41st and 54th, only four of which are actually on Broadway. Here is how the tickets work and where the cheap ones are.
Lincoln Center
Sixteen acres of performing arts built on the cleared remains of the neighbourhood that West Side Story was filmed in. The plaza and the fountain are free.
Radio City Music Hall
The largest indoor theatre in the world when it opened in 1932, with a proscenium designed to look like a sunset and a stage that still works on 1930s hydraulics.