Elphi

As I had announced in November last year, Baron was in Hamburg on January 19, listening to Hob XXI, i.e., Joseph Haydn's Creation, at the Elphilharmonie.

Elphi was officially inaugurated on January 11 in the presence of our Federal President Joachim Gauck, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the governor of the federal state of Hamburg, Mayor Olaf Scholz. All are in a festive mood, with no lamentation over costs anymore.

Gauck, Scholz and Merkel's Raute ©dpa

The night of Elphi's inauguration (©dpa)

When our group approached Elphi eight days later, we saw the following:

Well, not quite. This is a photo of a model of Elphi taken the following day
 at the Miniatur Wunderland (A blog to follow)

The long ascent to the plaza on the 11th floor via the escalator is impressive, but the moving stairs form a bottleneck when more than 2000 people want to leave the place simultaneously at the end of a concert.

Night view from the plaza on the 11th floor looking downtown
showing the steeples of four of Hamburg's old churches

Looking downstream of the Elbe river

Alter Kaiserschuppen in the 1920ies, on top of which Elphi was built.
The Greenwich ball on top of the tower is coming down daily, announcing noon exactly.
The dial below shows the tidal height in the Hamburg harbor.

Since the concert hall's opening - built on top of an old Schuppen (a storage building) for coffee and cocoa - there were lots of discussions about Elphi's acoustic. Initially, Master Yasuhisa Toyota thought that the sound quality would be the same at any seat. Apparently, this is not the case for those sitting in the back of the orchestra and singers.

Before the start of the concert, an introduction to Haydn's Schöpfung

Red Baron sitting on the 13th floor on the side, had no sound problem and a good view.

Only a live concert will give transparency of sound you will never achieve at home with the most perfect HiFi installation. Still, it is known that the sound of an orchestra in a too-big concert hall may "fall apart," particularly when the room is empty. Therefore the too-small seats in Elphi were formed and stuffed so that it makes little difference to the acoustics whether a place is occupied or not.

Before the pause following the first and second parts of Haydn's Creation,
conductor Hengelbrock and the three solo singers Raphael, Uriel, and Gabriel,
bow to the public that is sitting in the back of the orchestra.

At the end: final applause for Uriel and Adam
with Hengelbrock blowing kisses to Eve.

The NDR choir. Note the people sitting in the back of the orchestra, chorus, and solo singers.

The concert was awe-inspiring. The NDR choir, solo singers, and the NDR Elbphilharmonieorchester were excellent. However, compared to Berlin's, London's, and Vienna's symphony orchestras, my feeling was that of a soccer match: a club of the second Bundesliga was playing in a stadium of the first. What a chance they have! Musical Director Thomas Hengelbrock and his musicians may only gain.

The following day, Red Baron went to the Elphi plaza around lunchtime to view Hamburg and the Elbe river by day.

Approaching Elphi from the side. It was a foggy day.

Looking downstream, the Elbe river. Compare this with the night photo above.

View in the direction of the Neustadt.
The steeple of St. Michaelis, Hamburg's older and another landmark, is barely visible.

*