Space.

This was one of the more surprising answers given when audiences were asked by an orchestra's marketing department for the reasons they come to a concert - a word that I think sums up perfectly both the defined and the unlimited experience of a performance.

We have Wagner to thank for understanding the power of space. Bayreuth was the first venue to close its auditorium doors when the performance began, and the first to dim its lights while it lasted. Like most things Wagnerian, it's only the superficial view that interprets this as the egocentric composer wanting an audience to grant him their total concentration and commitment. He knew that great art and great performances needed not only this focus but also an abandonment of the everyday reality that people want to leave behind when they come to hear music. The closed environment of a concert hall offers a controlled sense of peace and stability within what can be a hectic and chaotic world. Most of us lead lives bombarded by constant streams of random activity and insignificant information. We rarely sit and do nothing simply to listen, feel, and think. To give oneself the opportunity of forcing the outside world to come to a standstill for a couple of hours is an empowering and significant sensation.

I don't think the actual look of the space is that important. If a concert hall's acoustics are good, its aesthetics are secondary and despite the undoubted beauty of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw or Vienna Musikverein, it is the audience's ears that matter, not their eyes. As long as a building can shut out external sounds and provide respite from life's practical realities, a sense of containment can liberate the mind to engage in more profound and thought provoking experiences. For concert halls also offer a feeling of space of the infinite kind. Music is an emotional odyssey that is only limited by one's imagination. Great performances can stretch the boundaries of our inner world and lift us out of that confined space and onto a plane of much greater proportions. In this sense it is rather like going to church. Though today's marketing departments might shudder at the thought of having their sexy and glamorous profession compared with that of the clergy, the reality is that classical music's greatest strength lies in how it connects with the spiritual rather than the visceral. Music is not a religion of course, but what links all artistic genius is its inexplicability and undefinability. If you do believe in God, then music is certainly one of the ways of getting closer to Him. It may be politically incorrect to say so but both religious buildings and concert halls provide an opportunity to enter a closed space in order to discover an infinite one.

The architect Frank Lloyd Wright described space as 'the breath of art'. Music lovers know that the power of art to provide a space to breathe is one of its most valuable qualities.

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