Music Hall and the May Festival

It started with a leaky roof. Cincinnati had inaugurated its May Festival in eighteen seventy-three, a choral competition and concert series that drew performers and audiences from across the region. The festival was held in Saengerfest Hall, a large wooden structure that was perfectly adequate for everything except Cincinnati's spring weather. When storms moved through, the hail striking the tin roof made such noise that music became impossible. One evening, a wealthy businessman named Reuben Springer sat through one too many of these interruptions. He offered one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars to begin a fund for a proper concert hall, contingent on the community matching it.

The community matched it. Cincinnati Music Hall opened in eighteen seventy-eight, designed by architect Samuel Hannaford in a High Victorian Gothic style. The red brick exterior, the pointed arches, the central gabled tower: it was built to look permanent, because the city meant for it to be permanent. The interior held four thousand seats. The acoustics were considered among the finest in the country.

The May Festival continued. Over one hundred fifty years, it has hosted American and world premieres of works by Handel, Mahler, Britten, and others. The festival made Cincinnati a serious destination for European classical music when serious destinations for European classical music in America could be counted on one hand.

The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in nineteen seventy-five. By the early two thousands it was deteriorating, and a major restoration project that cost more than a hundred and forty million dollars was completed in twenty seventeen. The organ, the plasterwork, the acoustics: all of it rebuilt and reinforced.

Music Hall is still in regular use. The May Festival still runs. Reuben Springer's irritation with the weather built something that outlasted everyone who had anything to do with it.