You can almost bite into it.
That sounds funny, but that's how it is.
How do you want to describe sounds other than through metaphors?
There are only two adjectives in our language that deal exclusively with the audible: "loud" and "quiet".
Already "high" and "low" or "bright" and "dark" are borrowed from the visible.
In any case, you can feel the sound in the newly created concert hall of the Casals Forum of the Kronberg Academy directly on your tongue.
The trills of the violins of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe sparkle and tingle in the Andante of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart's C major Symphony K. 200, which François Leleux is rehearsing here.
Rachel Frost, the orchestra's oboist, speaks of a "frizzante moment" and is absolutely right.
Jan Brachmann
Editor in the Feuilleton.
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"The sound is alive, just wonderful," she says.
“Real pianissimo is possible here.
As a musician you can either surrender to the listeners or you can pull them onto the podium.
This room allows for both.
He is warm, round, he sings.
It is beautiful to look at with its light wood and height;
you can hear yourself well.
I feel safe in it.”
It has been less than five years since the groundbreaking ceremony for Kronberg Academy's new Casals Forum took place in Kronberg, Hesse, twenty minutes by S-Bahn from Frankfurt am Main.
The forum is to combine a concert hall, teaching and administration rooms for the private music college for the training of excellent string players, a violin workshop and a hotel.
Architects Volker Staab and the acousticians from Büro Peutz, who had done an amazing job of renovating the sound of the Berlin State Opera and the new concert hall in Dresden's Kulturpalast, worked hand in hand to design the concert hall.
Now the trickiest day has come: for the first time, music can be heard in the largely finished hall.
Was it worth the trouble?
Augustin Hadelich, one of the best violinists in the world and closely associated with Kronberg Academy, plays excerpts from the solo part of Jean Sibelius' Violin Concerto all by himself.
The low register is penetrating and incandescent, with an intensity that makes you think you can feel it on your skin.
The height remains luminous and carries through the entire hall.
In the Andante of the Solo Sonata in A minor BWV 1003 by Johann Sebastian Bach, one hears every detail of the part-writing and the articulation contrast in pianissimo.
"Everything is so clear here," says Hadelich in astonishment after the first acoustic rehearsal.
"I have the feeling that I'm looking at my own sound as if under a microscope." But the irritation of the over-clarity can be remedied, assures Raimund Trenkler, founder of the Kronberg Academy and, together with the violinist Friedemann Eichhorn, also its director.
Under the roof is a gallery of wall panels that can be opened or overturned.
If you open them, the volume of the room increases and the reverberation time increases.
The tilting panels have different materials on the front and back: sound reflectors or absorbers.
This is how the volume can be influenced.
François Leleux, oboist and conductor, is just happy with the hall: "It's like sitting inside a violin and listening to your own sound magnified with Dolby Surround Effect.
It is amplification without harshness but with great warmth.”
In fact, the "warmth" of the hall, the good but not overpowering radiation of low frequencies, is immediately pleasantly noticeable, no matter where you sit: whether on one of the three hundred seats in the stalls or the three hundred seats on the balcony.
"It's an excellent hall," enthuses Simon Fletcher, manager of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, which wants to work more closely with Kronberg Academy in the future.
“The warm resonance of the bass gives the sound a good foundation.
The musicians are happy.
No one will say in this hall: 'This is my seat' because the acoustics are excellent everywhere.”
The hall is scheduled to open at the end of September.
The forum is a prime example of the interaction between civic engagement and government funding.
If there were again private sponsors for the last keystones, Trenkler would be even more relaxed in view of the dramatically increased material prices - there is currently hardly any wood to buy.
“We listen to our clients, translate their linguistic metaphors from sounds into acoustic data and then convert them into geometry with the architect,” say Martijn Vercammen and Margrit Lautenbach from the Peutz acoustics office, summarizing their work.
“What the conductor hears should also be heard in the hall.
If you close your eyes, you'd think you could touch the music.” That's really well done here.
This hall will whet a huge appetite among musicians and listeners and bring it some fame around the world.