Public Centre for Music and the Performing Arts

The Public Centre for Music and Performing Arts (公共音樂表演藝術中心, kong-kjongs-'rjem-ngrakw-prjagw'-lan'-trjung-sjem) is a concert hall and public performance facility complex located in Hnrjagwh-lang (頫陽), Themiclesia. It possesses five auditoria, amongst which is the largest public performance facility by seat capacity in Themiclesia. It also boasts one of the largest musical instruments, a pipe organ, in Septentrion. It is home to the National Theatrical Company of Themiclesia and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Themiclesia, and several other arts groups also use its facilities on a regular or irregular basis.

Concept

The facility was planned on the site of a munitions factory that burnt to the ground in 1962. The company, unable to withstand the loss of its plant, filed for bankruptcy in 1963, leaving the area to waste for the two following decades. Hnrjagwh-glang County, in which the site is located, purchased the property from the creditor for the peppercorn consideration of €1, since the site was contaminated by a variety of noxious chemicals, and rehabilitation was estimated to cost far more than the property, in the 70s considered very remote, was worth. The County Council voted to turn the site into a centre for the arts to provide a permanent source of revenue both to pay for its rehabilitation, for which the Council paid up-front, and to boost cultural awareness in the area.

The Radio Philharmonic Orchestral of Themiclesia was seeking a new home in the early 80s, having seen its audience outgrow its prevoius auditorium. Similar interests existed in the National Theatre, which hoped to produce not only Casaterran theatrical works but also rediscover Themiclesian theatre, which was on the decline since the early 60s. These interests eventually found an answer in the Hnrjagwh-glang County's plans to re-energize the area with a grand facility dedicated to the arts. The Themiclesian Motion Picture Association joined the scheme in 1986.

Design and layout

Rather than forcing each of the performance copmanies to share a single facility, which likely would result in many scheduling conflicts, architect M. M. Tome of the Organized States proposed the present design, in which several auditoria would be built around a central atrium. It was decided that a total of five auditoria would be built around that atrium, which was later filled with a pipe organ; since sound propagates in all directions, it was suggested that such an instrument could play into any of the five auditoria and provide music either as performance or accompaniment. While the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra did not have an organist or hold organ recitals regularly, their support was secured after some negotiations.

The five auditoria built are as follows:

#	Use	Theme	Capacity	Notes
1	Orchestra	Red	10,200	Largest auditorium in Themiclesia
2	Western Theatre	Orange	6,230
3	Motion Picture	Yellow	3,870
4	Oriental Theatre	Green	1,720	Special "undercroft organ" and surround-stage
5	Children's Stage	Blue	1,120	Mobile stage

Pipe organ

The literal "centrepiece" of the PCMPA is a pipe organ built by Tyrannian pipe organ building Sterling & Co. over the span of seven years. The total cost of the instrument was reported in 1985 as €1,920,000 (approx. OS$57,360,000, 1984 nominal). It is Septentrion's most expensive music instrument and amongst the largest, though whether it is the largest is subject to dispute. It possesses, across its ten chambers, 39,920 speaking pipes, in 591 ranks, forming 502 independent registers. A total of 578 unique stops can be drawn from the organ's consoles, though most stops may be drawn from more than one console. It has a console in each of the auditoria into which the instrument plays. The main console, located in Auditorium 1, has five manuals, pedalboard, and 578 stop knobs. The console in Auditorium 3 is made in the theatre style and has additional controls to provide more convenient access to the many "effects" in the organ; the console in Auditorium 5 is water-proof, as children are encouraged to interact with it when no performance is ongoing.

Principal Contrabass 64'

The PCMPA organ possesses, as most sources suggest, the only full-length, non-digital, flute stop that reaches bottom C in the sub-sub-contra octave—the Principal Contrabass 64'. When the organ was still in design, two other genuine 64' stops already existed; one, the Dulzian-Diaphone, located in the OS was a diaphone-reed hybrid, and the other, the Contra Trombone, was a pure reed. A flute stop at this pitch had not been attempted, and Sterling & Co. were reportedly very eager to pioneer this stop. Nevertheless, obtaining voicing that was prompt and consistent proved highly challenging, as pipes at CCCC (32') in the pedal were known to suffer from slow speech, and the defect only exaggerated as pitch descended. Sterling ameliorated this problem by gradually reducing the scale of the pipes, such that by CCCCC it had a proportion reminiscent of a string stop than of a diapason, hence the name Principal Contrabass. This being the technical limit, the stringy tone was corrected by double-languid construction and dedicated blowers. The pipe for CCCCC measures 70' in length and weighs 8 tons; it produces a fundamental frequency of 8.172 Hz. As it was too tall to stand upright within the chamber, and mitring would do disservice to the slow speech problem, it was built horizontally on the north side of the chamber.

32' stops

The organ's bass department is supported by eight genuine stops at 32'. A ninth can be drawn as an extention of the Principal Contrabass 64', and a tenth from the (resultant) Acoustic Bass 64'. They are listed as follows:

Stop name	Department	Pressure	Mfg. #	Notes
Double Open Diapason 32'	Pedal	20"	4	metal
Double Open Wood 32'	Pedal	20"	5	wood
Sub Principal 32'	Great	25"	100	wood
Contra Violone 32'	Echo Pedal	15"	351	wood
Contra Bombarde 32'	Pedal	20"	48	metal
Contra Trombone 32'	Pedal	20"	49	wood
Contra Spireflöte 32'	Ethereal Pedal	10"	512	metal
Contra Fagot 32'	Swell	15"	182	metal
Principal Contrabass 32'	Pedal	15"	—	from Principal Contrabass 64'
Acoustic Bass 32'	Pedal	20" + 15"	—	from Acoustic Bass 64'