Hamburg was big on the music scene long before the Beatles

George Harrison, John Lennon and Tony Sheridan performing during the Beatles’ first Hamburg trip. ‘Hamburg has had an opera house continuously in the Dammtor since 1678 … By comparison, the Beatles’ legendary youthful experiences … are very recent,’ writes Tom Brown. Photograph: Ellen Piel/K&K/Redferns

Your report on the embarrassingly delayed and over-budget Elbphilharmonie (2 November) says Hamburg and its port have traditionally enjoyed a reputation for “music of a more raucous kind”. Hamburg has had an opera house continuously in the Dammtor since 1678; only Venice can lay claim to an older opera tradition. Its directors have included Gustav Mahler and more recently Rolf Liebermann and Christoph von Dohnányi. Many opera-lovers consider it to consistently maintain the highest standards of any German house: a 1944 recording of Strauss’s Elektra is astonishing witness to how these were maintained even during the wartime destruction of Hamburg.

By comparison, the Beatles’ legendary youthful experiences at Star-Club at the Große Freiheit and the Hamburg school of rock are very recent. It is typical of the discreet charm of the wealthy Hanseatic city-state, with its top ranking in many quality of life surveys, that it prefers its opera house to remain one of the best-kept secrets in Europe.
Tom Brown
London

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