When you get this book in your hands, you don't immediately start reading. Or perhaps you do read the foreword by Joost Maegerman, intendant of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, first. There's a beautiful line in it and I can't help but quote it: "All musicians have their own instrument, but the concert hall is the instrument of the entire orchestra." Beautiful, isn't it? But the history of this concert hall is presented in such an attractive and luxurious way that you immediately want to start flipping through and looking at all those photographs of the orchestra, the hall and of course the conductors Elim Chan and Philippe Herreweghe, scattered throughout the entire work. And preceded by a separate photo essay by Michiel Hendryckx with impressions referring to "significant" places in this history. And also packed with reproductions of historical documents, posters, monuments, portraits, old programs, prints, all impressively designed, with a ribbon bookmark because you don't read this book in one sitting.
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© Vicent Callot[/caption]
That same word "impressive" can undoubtedly also be used for the nine chapters about 125 years of Elisabethzaal and about "the city around the hall" and "the hall in the city." History galore, then, from concert life in the 19th century, Belle Époque, Interwar period and wartime and now. Lovers of how it was and how it has become will more than amply get their money's worth. And that history begins long before what Antwerp residents now know as De Harmonie or the new city desk. It all starts with the founding of the Société Royale d'Harmonie d'Anvers in 1914 and with the construction of their new premises in 1846 on the Mechelse steenweg. A selection of Antwerp musical life in the Belle Époque is presented in vivid color by Jan De Wilde through the many concerts including creations by Benoit (De Schelde, De Oorlog, De Rubenscantate), a Liszt and Wagner festival, the inauguration of the Flemish Opera. Hedwige Baeck-Schilders describes how concert life continued during wartime and notes how many works by Flemish composers were performed in those times. Another remarkable phenomenon you read about in Hans Boers' contribution on sponsorship. After the First World War, the important German colony in Antwerp was greatly reduced and so was their patronage. Before the war there were about a thousand members of the Royal Harmony Society, a third of whom were of German origin… Another little-known fact is also mentioned. From 1915 to 1936 you could visit the Feestzaal of the Zoo for Cinema Zoölogie! In the pages about the Interwar period you naturally come across the names of, among others, Flor Alpaerts, Lodewijk Mortelmans and Lodewijk De Vocht, Jef Van Hoof, Jan Blockx. Mahler and Richard Strauss also came by to conduct.
The book also tells the story of the orchestras that played in that Feestzaal. And how it all evolved from the "house orchestra" of the Royal Society for Zoology to the Philharmonie and the current resident orchestra Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, and how the programming changed. At the end, the "case study" on how the new hall came about. "From wooden kiosk to Golden Hall" is indeed the subtitle of the book. But the entire book itself also deserves the name "case study", so thoroughly are all these many aspects of 125 years of classical music in Antwerp covered here.
In a final chapter, the current intendant advocates for the Elisabethzaal as the home of his resident orchestra. And he describes how he once had the impression as a young musician of ending up in a dusty city theater but can now enter "that shoebox shape like in the iconic Vienna Musikverein", the new golden Elisabethzaal. Joost Maegerman has even more praise for the hall, its sound color and quality. He gets goosebumps just thinking about it "that the main concert of Laus Polyphoniae would take place in a packed-to-the-rafters Queen Elisabeth hall". Curious what the people at AMUZ would think of that. The intendant rightly wants more cooperation between the orchestra and the hall to preserve the classical music offering in the city. A unique role. And he receives full support from the director of the Antwerp Zoo, the Royal Society for Zoology, who was allowed to introduce this final chapter.
WHAT: Queen Elisabethzaal. 125 years of classical music. From wooden kiosk to Golden Hall
WHO: Hedwige Baeck-Schilders, et al.
PUBLISHED BY: Hannibal, 223 p.