I watched the same concert at two well-known Toronto venues. The music sounded bolder and more dynamic at one. Here’s why

After attending concerts at Roy Thomson Hall for more than a decade, sitting everywhere from the upper nosebleeds to the very first row of the main floor, neck craned up to the stage, I’ve learned a thing or two about that space, the home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO). 
Lesson one: not all seats are created equal. And most importantly: the hall offers a far from ideal acoustic experience. 
You don’t have to take my word for it. For the first half of its life, Roy Thomson Hall was derided for its notoriously poor acoustics. Audiences lamented the hall’s cold sound, along with “dead spots” in the auditorium where certain frequencies could not be properly heard. TSO musicians were also among the loudest critics, complaining that they sometimes couldn’t even hear themselves when performing. 
Though a $20-million renovation in 2002 significantly improved conditions, even the TSO’s former music director, Sir Andrew Davis, acknowledged in 2013 that the unwieldy space may never become a “great hall.” 
Now, full disclosure, I never attended a concert at Roy Thomson Hall before its renovation. But even after that interior surgery, I’ve long wondered if the celebrated TSO is ill-served by the space. 
So, I decided to put it to the test this past weekend, attending a pair of identical TSO concerts at two contrasting venues — the second of which was the George Weston Recital Hall in North York, considered one of the finest performance spaces in the city. 
This, it should be noted, was a thoroughly unscientific experiment. There were too many uncontrollable variables to count. (Musicians are only human and performances vary.) But, where possible, I tried to replicate conditions for the two concerts on Saturday and Sunday, sitting in the mezzanine of both halls, just right of centre. 
The program, titled “Spirited Overtures,” was ideal for this test. It included Mozart’s lean “Violin Concerto No. 3,” featuring French violinist Renaud Capuçon, along with Stravinsky’s boisterous yet playful “Jeu de Cartes.” Bookending the event were two opera overtures, from Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” and Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus.” 
Visually, the two venues are could not be more different. The 1,036-seat George Weston Recital Hall is the more intimate of the pair, its bi-level, shoebox auditorium inspired by the great European listening rooms of the aristocracy. 
Roy Thomson Hall, by contrast, is more than double in size, with 2,630 seats across three levels. It’s a round, expansive space with a wooden canopy suspended over the stage. (That canopy was installed during the 2002 renovation to improve the hall’s resonance.) As a kid, I’d joke that the auditorium resembled the intergalactic Senate building from “Star Wars,” with its pod-like structures in the mezzanine and balcony. 
But the hall’s unique design, optimized for sight lines and comfort (its plush seats, with leg room for days, cannot be beat in this city), has come at the expense of the sonic experience. 
It offers a symphonic sound that’s more tempered compared to other venues, a quality most apparent during Stravinsky’s “Jeu de Cartes.” The 1936 composition, originally written as a ballet, is robust and muscular. The strings, in particular, weave a dense, sinewy bed of sound, overlaid by the brass and woodwinds. 
At Roy Thomson Hall last Saturday, the TSO delivered a competent interpretation of the rarely performed work. But the orchestra’s rendition of the same piece the following afternoon at George Weston Recital Hall sounded absolutely brilliant, packing a visceral punch that the previous performance lacked.
The sound on Sunday was richer and darker, underscored by a more apparent dynamic contrast — as if the ensemble, under the direction of Gustavo Gimeno, was allowed to fully expand and fill the space. Such was also the case with the Rossini and Strauss overtures, buoyed by the hall’s glorious warmth and resonance. 
There was a less apparent difference, however, between the two renditions of the Mozart violin concerto. Capuçon was an always-watchable presence on stage, offering a stylish interpretation of the piece, filled with quick turns, trills and ostentatious chords. But the Frenchman looked and sounded more carefree Sunday afternoon, playfully turning toward the first violins and cellos at times as he picked up and passed off the various playful melodies.
The George Weston Recital Hall stage is certainly smaller, and tighter, than its downtown counterpart. But I imagine the hall’s intimacy and more responsive acoustics offer greater comfort to its soloists, allowing them to let go and just play. 
But can a casual listener notice these differences? I think so. The disparities between the two halls would be even greater if I sat right at the back of Roy Thomson Hall’s main floor. (I frequented those seats during my days as a student, purchasing last-minute discounted tickets. Located underneath the concrete-clad mezzanine, I’d jokingly liken that area to a sensory depravation chamber because of its more muted sound.) But for the purpose of this story, such a comparison, between the worst seat in one house and the best seat in another, would be unfair. 
Still, analyzing the acoustics of various venues is a worthwhile exercise. (There are more opportunities to do so throughout the TSO’s current season, with several concerts programmed at both Roy Thomson Hall and George Weston Recital Hall.) It primes our ears to more carefully consider the music we’re listening to. And it also gives us a better appreciation of the careful craftsmanship required to build these majestic concert halls.