Musical Destinations
Clive Paget travels to the Utah state capital, a city with one of the oldest and most respected classical music traditions in America
Clive Paget discovers the music of Salt Lake City
Glance up or down any thoroughfare in Salt Lake City and you can’t ignore the looming snow-capped mountains emphasising the remoteness of this isolated valley. By way of contrast, this bustling modern metropolis boasts a spotless hop-on hopoff light rail ready to whisk you around the easily navigated Central Business District. It must be a far cry from the sight that greeted Brigham Young in 1847 when, fleeing persecution, he led 143 men, three women, two children, 93 horses, 52 mules, 66 oxen, 19 cows, 17 dogs and a handful
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir was founded 29 days a er the settlers arrived
of chickens over the Rockies to stake his claim to a patch of arid wasteland in Utah’s Great Salt Lake basin.
Young had succeeded the murdered Mormon prophet Joseph Smith to become the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A born administrator, he came up with the gridpattern street plan with its roads ‘wide enough for an ox cart to turn without anyone resorting to profanity’. The central Temple Square, ten acres of prime real estate, was marked out by Young himself. Begun in 1853, the Salt Lake Temple took a gruelling 40 years to build and is the largest Latter-day Saints temple in the world. Its 210-foot-high walls are made of dazzling quartz monzonite, transported 20 miles from a local quarry by oxen.
Topped with a 12-and-a-half-foot gilded statue of the Angel Moroni – read your Book of Mormon – it’s a breathtaking sight. Only Latter-day Saints are allowed inside, but a cut-away model in the adjacent visitor centre reveals a multichambered interior that’s not at all what you might imagine.
On the opposite side of the square stands the vast Salt Lake Tabernacle, its lozengeshaped auditorium, according to Young, shaped like ‘the best sounding board in the world… the roof of my mouth’. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir was founded just 29 days after the settlers arrived and was accompanied on a piano that had been dragged all the way from Illinois – Heaven knows what state it was in. With free admission on Sunday mornings, visitors today can hear the world-famous choir take part in Music and the Spoken Word, at 92 years and counting the US’S longestrunning radio programme.
On the corner of the road outside, a bronze statue of Brigham Young gazes across the highway towards Zions Bank, or as one local wryly put it, ‘with his face to the money and his backside to the church’. Right next door is another gem. Once the Utah Hotel, the Joseph Smith Memorial Building is home to a fraction of the church’s overflowing bureaucracy. The alabaster walls decorated with enamelled brick and terracotta date from 1911 and it boasts a gorgeously preserved interior. Friendly guides point the way to the top floor where you can enjoy a bird’seye view over Temple Square and beyond.
Music lovers will find that the Utah Symphony and Utah Opera are both first class, the former playing in the pit for the latter. The Symphony’s home is the 2,800-seat Abravanel Hall. An angular building of concrete and brick, its interior is hung with Bohemian crystal chandeliers and the auditorium is modelled on the Vienna Musikverein. ‘It’s huge, but the acoustic is very natural and generous,’ says Swiss maestro Thierry Fischer, principal conductor here since 2009. ‘It’s the same architect as Avery Fisher Hall in New York, but it’s much better!’
If it’s drama you want, the Eccles Theater is firmly on the US regional touring circuit. Even The Book of Mormon has made it to town, welcomed by the Latter-day Saints, who good-naturedly took out a programme advertisement trumpeting their Book of Mormon as being even better. Food here is decent, but for a special treat pop into one of Utah’s eight bean-to-bar chocolate companies with Matt Caputo’s
Market and Deli boasting the largest range of craft chocolate in America.
Situated on a natural crossroads, the city is the perfect gateway to the great outdoors. A four-hour drive will take you to the mind-blowing vistas of Bryce Canyon and Zion Park, the inspiration for Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles. Closer to base is Park City, home to Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival and scene of the 2002 Winter Olympics. ‘Utah has fantastic snow and fantastic resorts,’ says Fischer, a fanatical skier. ‘In half an hour after a morning rehearsal I can be skiing. In the summer I hike a lot around Salt Lake City and in the red rocks of the Moab Desert.’
Salt Lake City may have been founded as a way of avoiding the rest of the world, but the rest of the world will find a great deal here to write home about.
Further info: Utah Opera: utahopera.org Utah Symphony: utahsymphony.org