Festhalle Viersen

During World War II the festival hall, unlike many other venues in Germany, was luckily only slightly damaged and could soon be used again.

[1] In 1997, thanks to the efforts of the Festhallen-Förderverein (Friends of the Festival Hall) it was provided with, among other things, new seats and state-of-the-art stagecraft.

In 1955 the trade journal Baukunst und Werkform initiated an opinion poll among 20 well known conductors asking for the concert hall with the best acoustics worldwide.

[2] Between 1947 and 1949, due to the war damage to other concert halls and the splendid acoustics, the large radio station NWDR, later WDR, recorded and broadcast many symphony concerts in the hall with its own NWDR-Rundfunkorchester as well as radio shows such as Das ideale Brautpaar, legendary in the mid-fifties.

The outstanding acoustics drew many internationally well known conductors such as Wilhelm Furtwängler, Thomas Beecham and Ferenc Fricsay, orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sergiu Celibidache or Herbert von Karajan and international star soloists such as Gidon Kremer, Lang Lang, Nigel Kennedy and David Garrett to the Festival Hall.