Letter: Acoustics over architecture

Sir: I read with interest Professor Peter Fellgett's observations on the acoustic properties of the three South Bank music venues (Letters, 2 March). His experience of the Royal Festival Hall as 'delightful' I find quite incomprehensible, and in this I usually seem to find myself at one with your music critic, Anthony Payne. I have striven for more than 20 years to produce beautiful sounds on a brass instrument in the acoustic desert which is the Royal Festival Hall, and never fail to finish every concert utterly depressed by its completely unresponsive acoustic.

If there is a case to be made for the demolition of any South Bank venue, may I enter a heartfelt plea that it be the RFH, with a codicil that the architects recruited to design its replacement concentrate on constructing a concert hall which is just that - a hall for concerts rather than an architectural 'statement'.

Yours sincerely,

CHRIS LARKIN

London, N20

2 March

The writer is a member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.