Sat front row at the symphony...

terraplane8bob,

See if you can find the Absolute Sound article on top 10 concert halls, about 1985.  Earlier I wrote about how the 25th row of the Musikverein (#1) was pure reverberant muddy garbage, but the 5th row was quite good.  I never got the opportunity to sit front row center.  I envy your pro experience of having played on that stage.  For listening, I would choose a close seat in any high school lecture hall over the 25th row in the Musikverein or any other esteemed hall.  There is a lot of ignorant hype from audio writers with limited musical experience.

While in Vienna, the host of my group let us organize several string quartets.  We each played for 5 min in an Esterhazy palace.  I have no idea of how much furniture was in the palace 300 years before I played there.  Listening fairly close to other groups, the sound was reverberant garbage.  The high society people 300 years ago were not sound critics, but were there to hobnob with each other and chatter without paying much attention to the music, just like today.

I find attending a live orchestral performance a unique sound experience because of how much more involving it is for the listener. I can think of some composers, like Mahler or Shostakovich, whose compositions can be so complex that listening at home, even with a great system, the music can be difficult to follow. Somehow at a live performance you’re forced to listen more intently. I personally prefer the first few rows of the mezzanine at my hometown hall,partly because the sound is so round and full but also because I can see each musician. “Oh, so that’s what produces that special  sound.”

Thanks for sharing your experience.  I've sat in all parts of Chicago's Symphony Center for various concerts and to me, every section has its particular virtues. 

Listening to and attending live classical music concerts may not be as immediately accessible as other forms of music, but go to a few, develop your own style of listening to and experiencing the music (and this is critical -- there's no one "right" way to experience and listen to classical music), and you will be rewarded for a lifetime. 

It's also not just Bach and Beethoven and Mozart -- "classical" music encompasses centuries of traditions (baroque, classical, romantic, modern, might be the broadest categories), and it's very okay to enjoy a particular era or composer and not others.  But, it's a whole universe to explore and find out what speaks to you.

Lastly, the level of musicianship and the level of complexity in the music at a top tier classical concert is almost unimaginable, whether it's an orchestral concert, small ensemble, or a solo or duo.   

So, thank you for sharing this and hopefully this will help spread the word that there is amazing and vital stuff music being created and performed in "classical" circles.

This is why I find the difference between a sound system costing $5000 and one costing $700,000 almost trivial. Both are too far from the live concert hall sound to make much difference. I have heard $50,000 speakers that did not sound as good to me as a pair of $1400 Magnepans demonstrated in the same room. 

@viber6 and @terraplane8bob  I am an amateur choral singer and recording engineer who has done both at venues such as Disney Hall, Soroya (CSUN) and Royce Hall (UCLA).  I was also a classical music reviewer at UCLA (1970s).  I have over 48.500 LPs/CD/78s. 

Performing with live orchestras, I never get the front sound/full picture but do get tremendous pure direct sound from the percussion, rear strings, horns and some woodwinds depending on my position at the rear. 

My audio system rarely reproduces that sound but does reproduce the excitement of the performances.  Most of my recordings are studio rather than orchestral halls (which I am thankful for as too many modern recordings are drenched in reverb/distant sounding).  

For home listening, I prefer a less reverberant and more direct sound.  That also provides greater body to instruments and voices.  For me, performance comes before sonic delights.  I have several friends with high end sounding audio systems who don't listen to mono recordings, stick to either analog or digital only.  They are missing out on great performances.  Funny how they enjoy my alternative older mono & analog and newer digital recordings on my audio system but don't choose it for their listening. 

For orchestral hall listening, while several friends prefer front row, especially for chamber works, I prefer row 10 generally.  As a music reviewer, I regularly traded away my front row tickets at Royce to for 10th row seats   So, every listener has their preference.  At the opera, (400+ Dorothy Chandler performances), the closer I get the better, both visually and sonically, up to the 10th row. Too far forward degrades both.