The History of Symphony Hall

The first home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra was the Old
Boston Music Hall, which was threatened in 1893 by a city
road-building/rapid transit project. That summer, the orchestra's
founder, Major Henry Lee Higginson, organized a corporation to
finance a new and permanent home for the orchestra. Symphony Hall
opened on October 15, 1900 with an inaugural gala led by music
director Wilhelm Gericke. The architects, McKim, Mead & White
of New York, engaged Wallace Clement Sabine, a young assistant
professor of physics at Harvard, as their acoustical consultant,
and Symphony Hall became the first auditorium designed in
accordance with scientifically derived acoustical principles.
Symphony Hall is widely regarded as one of the top concert halls
in the world. The walls of the stage slope inward to help focus the
sound. The side balconies are shallow so as not to trap any of the
sound, and the recesses of the coffered ceiling, along with the
statue-filled niches along the three sides, help to distribute the
sound throughout the hall. The 16 replicas of Greek and Roman
statues are related in some way to music, art, or literature. They
were placed in the niches as part of an appreciation of the
frequently quoted words, "Boston, the Athens of America," written
by Bostonian William Tudor in the early 19th century. The Symphony
Hall organ, an Aeolian Skinner designed by G. Donald Harrison and
installed in 1949, is considered one of the finest concert hall
organs in the world.
A couple of interesting points for observant concert-goers:
Beethoven is the only composer whose name was inscribed on one of
the plaques that trim the stage and balconies; the other plaques
were left empty since it was felt that only Beethoven's popularity
would remain unchanged. The initials "BMH" for "Boston Music Hall",
as the building was originally to have been called, appear on the
stairwell banisters at the Huntington Avenue side, originally
planned as the main entrance. The old Boston Music Hall was gutted
only after the new building, Symphony Hall, was opened.