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Cost explosion reportedly hits Hamburg’s new philharmonic

Building costs for Hamburg's new philharmonic have exploded by as much as €100 million, according to anonymous reports in German daily Bild on Wednesday.

Published: 3 September 2008 17:05 CEST

Cost explosion reportedly hits Hamburg's new philharmonic

Photo: DPA

The source told Bild that construction company Hochtief is in negotiations with the city senate over the project and has asked for additional money.

Intended to give Hamburg a world-famous landmark like Sydney’s Opera House – the concert hall already has a €340 million price tag, though initial plans called for only €187 million.

“We are still in negotiations,” Elbe Philharmonic spokesperson Dieter Peters told The Local. “We are not commenting on the matter until they are finished.”

A increase in expenditures has already hit the project. Costs went up by €20 million in March when the philharmonic apparently ran into trouble trying to cool the glass structure to be perched atop a massive brick shipping warehouse right on the Elbe River.

Bild also reported that Hochtief is 23 months behind schedule, but plans to increase machinery and personnel to meet it’s 2011 inauguration date.

Peters refused to comment on the reported delays, adding that the philharmonic didn’t need to comfort anyone regarding the project.

“The investors are just as informed as we are and there is no need for reassurances,” he said.

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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