Historical venues for Chamber Orchestra and Vox Ama Deus

Twenty years ago Temple University converted a Broad Street synagogue into a chamber music hall that that's now one of the gems of Philadelphia's performance spaces. Temple composer Richard Brodhead summed up the atmosphere of Rock Hall (named for philanthropist Milton Rock) when he said that it captured "the essential dignity of the art." Temple's recent conversion of its historic Baptist Temple into Lew Klein Hall, a venue for large-scale events, deserves the same kind of accolade.

The Baptist Temple has been empty for more than 30 years. Many of Philadelphia's newer citizens may not understand its historic significance. The Temple was the second home of a Baptist congregation that spawned a new educational institution when its pastor, Russell Conwell, began tutoring seven young men after working hours in 1887. Conwell became a Philadelphia legend for delivering more than 6,000 performances of "Acres of Diamonds," his speech that helped fund the growth of Temple University.

The renovators have created a satisfying mix of the old and the modern. They've retained the church's iron arches and the 140 stained glass windows and combined them with comfortable seats, good legroom and wide, inviting lobbies on both floors.

I was especially impressed by a small sign of architectural humanity. In the balcony, where I sat, you have to go down a few stairs to reach the lower rows. The designers have thoughtfully placed Plexiglas barriers at the bottom of each set of stairs. The barriers don't interfere with the sight lines, and you can descend the stairs knowing you won't tumble off the balcony if you slip-- a concern that has troubled generations of Academy of Music patrons.

Acoustics misjudged

The new hall provides Temple with an on-campus space suitable for its orchestra and chorus— two organizations that previously performed in scattered off-campus venues. The stage juts into the hall, so the audience can sit on three sides and nobody feels lost in the stratosphere. It seats 1,200— a comfortable size for smaller groups.

Its first resident company, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, will perform six pairs of programs at the Kimmel Center next season, and five of them will be repeated at Lew Klein Hall. The Chamber Orchestra's new conductor, Dirk Brossé, led two familiar pieces and one of his own works at the free concert that celebrated the hall's opening.

Brossé misjudged one aspect of the hall's acoustics. His forces resounded like a much larger assemblage in the climaxes of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony and Rossini's overture for The Italian Girl in Algiers, but the quietest passages could have used more volume. The sound didn't reach the balcony. The pianissimos sounded like unscheduled rests.

Brossé shouldn't have any trouble correcting that problem in the future. His own piece, I Loved You, is a setting of a poem by Pushkin, for soprano and orchestra, with appropriate Tchaikovskian lushness and plenty of good moments for the cellos.

Penn's tolerance tested

St. Joseph's church in Old City is another historically significant venue. As the plaque on one of its walls reminds us, it was once the only place in the entire British Empire in which the Catholic mass could be legally celebrated.

St. Joseph's was the ultimate test of William Penn's policy of religious toleration. Toleration of Jews and Presbyterians merely meant that you had to put up with their presence. Toleration of Catholics meant that you had to share your city with the representatives of a powerful enemy, after decades of passionate violence.

St. Joseph's is a clean, uncluttered space that's just the right size for concerts that feature Baroque ensembles. The giant Crucifixion painting behind the altar may be a bit graphic for some tastes, but Catholics have always put more emphasis on the Crucifixion than Protestants. The white walls and the gray stone statues of St. Joseph and St. Christopher communicate a serene dignity.

Irresistible lute concerto

Vox Amadeus and Tempesta di Mare both present concerts at St. Joseph's. For his all-Vivaldi season finale, Vox's Valentin Radu selected five unfamiliar pieces from Vivaldi's huge catalogue, along with one piece I will hear as often as any one wants to play it: the buoyant, irresistible Lute Concerto in D Major.

The opening and closing movements of the Lute Concerto raced along with all the required gaiety, and the slow movement received a perfect treatment, with Daniel Boring playing in front of a beautifully controlled, nicely modulated string background.

The other concertos on the agenda were all equally satisfying examples of Vivaldi's enthusiastic exploitation of instruments that reached a new level of development during the Baroque era.

The Baptist Temple is the nucleus of an institution that has played a major role in our national drama of upward mobility, as generations of students have taken advantage of Temple's relatively low-cost education. St. Joseph's is a living monument to an ideal of religious toleration that's still under attack in many parts of the world. Both are great places to hear Vivaldi and Rossini, but for me their history adds a quiet undertone to the sounds that bounce off their walls.