AMS Lecture: “Concert Hall Acoustics and the Sonic Ideal in Early 20th-Century America” 

Mark Pottinger, professor of music and chair of music and theater at Manhattan College, reconstructs the listening soundscape that informed the design and patronage of a mid-1920s concert hall before the golden age of radio: the Library’s acoustically superb Coolidge Auditorium. His lecture highlights the changing attitude toward acoustics, broadcast sound, and noise in 20th-century America and concludes by addressing how listening to electroacoustic music throughout the century has impacted concert hall construction today. This lecture was presented in cooperation with the American Musicological Society as part of the Founder’s Day celebration honoring Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who built the Coolidge Auditorium and endowed the library’s concert series.
For transcript and more information, visit www.loc.gov/it...