Many years ago my friend the author Helen Hanff ("84 Charing Cross Road") complained to me during a post concert coffee in New York, "Why do these rich people insist on having concert halls named after themselves?" Helene, irascible on her best day, was referring to Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Designed as the chamber music hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York, the building was financed by Corning-Glass heiress Alice Tully, a sometime singer and aviatrix. She was also a cousin of Katharine Hepburn's. To my knowledge Kate the Great never endowed a concert hall.
A recent journey and a news story reminded me of great/not so great/infamous names being attached to public projects. A drive through New York State had me crossing the Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Memorial Bridge, near the fabulous red head's birthplace of Jamestown, N.Y. Then, there's Avery Fisher Hall. In 1960 Carnegie Hall as to be torn down and replaced by a new large concert hall at Lincoln Center. Isaac Stern led a save Carnegie campaign and he succeeded. The New York Philharmonic nevertheless abandoned Carnegie for Philharmonic Hall. They exchanged a venerable, acoustically perfect space for a new location where the orchestra could not be heard, never mind hearing one another. The acoustics of Philharmonic Hall led Erich Leinsdorf, not the warm cuddly type, to declare the day after the hall's opening in 1962, "There's nothing to do but tear it down and start all over again."
That's what happened. Internally. The inside of Philharmonic Hall has been gutted four times and a fifth is one the way. One of these renovations was paid for by the stereo-sound system magnate Avery Fisher (1906-1994). Philharmonic Hall was given Mr. Magnate's name in 1973. This week it was announced that Avery Fisher Hall's was to have a new name, and the moniker was up for grabs to the highest bidder. Mr./Ms. X would have to pay for yet another complete overhaul of the insides of Phil-er-Aver-er The Orchestra Hall at Lincoln Center. Erich Leinsdorf was right. Who knew? There was a lot of outrage expressed when, across Lincoln Center Plaza, the New York State Theater, home of Balanchine and Beverly Sills,was named for David Koch, who ponied up $60 million for a renovation the ballet didn't need and that failed to save the New York City Opera. The Brothers Koch are polarizing figures and people are known to avert their eyes when walking by Broadway and 62nd St. To me, the New York State Theater is the New York State Theater, period. Back to Carnegie Hall. You can practice all you want but if you play Carnegie you better decide which stage to play in that great building at 7th Avenue and 57th St. The big kahuna is the Issac Stern auditorium, and that is fitting. The actual stage is now named for Itzak Perelman, so you are playing the Perelman Stage in the Stern auditorium at Carnegie Hall. Or you could be downstairs in the Weill recital hall. Or you could stay home and keep practicing. The rich, God love them will always be with us. But I wonder if dear irascible Helene was right. Give the dough, and shut up.
