The concert hall of the Philharmonic Society was designed by the architect Paul Jacquot (the facade was designed by Carlo Rossi) and constructed in 1839 to house the Noblemen's Club of St. Petersburg. The concert hall with excellent acoustic properties and with more than 1,500 seats has been the center of St. Petersburg's musical events since the late 1840s. The performances of such outstanding musicians of the 19-th century as Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Anton Rubinstein, Robert Schumann, Paulona Viardo and Pablo Sarasate took place here. Many famous works of Russian composers, such as Borodin, Musorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov, were performed here for the first time.

On June 12, 1921, the official opening ceremony of the Petrograd Philharmonic Society took place. Very soon, the Philharmonic Society became famous for its concerts, lectures and publishing activities (with the help of its library). Music was performed here mainly by the Symphonic Orchestra of the Philharmonic Society. For fifty years (1938-1988), the orchestra was headed by the outstanding Russian conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky. Since 1988, the head of the orchestra and its principal conductor has been Yuri Temirkanov. The repertoire of the Philharmonic concerts includes a wide range of works of Russian and international classics, as well as the works of the outstanding composers of the 20-th century, such as Schonberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Hindemith (performances of all these composers, as musicians or conductors, took place in this concert hall). The performances of the most famous musicians of our epoch, such as Klemperer, Walter, Anserme, Kleiber, Stokowsky, Corto, Schnabel, Ar. Rubinstein, Gorowitz, Benjamin Britten, Fischer-Diskau, Svyatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, Michaelangeli, Guld, Yehuda Menuchin, Mstislav Rostromovich, took place here. Among the guest orchestras performing in this concert hall were the orchestras of Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago, the Philharmonic orchestras of Berlin, Vienna and New York, as well as the Amsterdam Koncertgebau orchestra.

On May 12, 1926, the first performance of the First Symphony by Dmitry Shostakovich took place here. For many years, audience used to applaud to this famous composer in this concert hall. In the 1930s, he came here from Moscow to listen to the first performances of his works, and later the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society was named after him.

Now, the Greater Concert Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society is one of the best concert halls of Europe. It is a great honor for a musician to perform here.

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