Historic Viennese venue razed

The celebrated Viennese concert and recording venue, The Sofiensaal, has been destroyed by fire.

Fire-fighters fought through the night to salvage the building's structure, but by morning little remained of the hall but the charred outer walls.

The fire was discovered by a band of musicians who were rehearsing in the main hall and who tried to extinguish the flames while alerting the fire-fighters. An investigation by the Viennese authorities has already been initiated.

While the recent concert history of the hall is marked by a broad span of music from the Vienna Art Orchestra to Nick Cave, it holds a special place in the heart of those in the record industry. Set in Vienna's historic and beautiful third district, the Sofiensaal is particularly well-remembered by classical collectors for the many famous LPs that emanated from sessions in the Sophiensaal in its heyday in the 1950s and 60s.

Sir Georg Solti's famed first complete studio recording of Wagner's Ring cycle took place there and Herbert von Karajan's entertaining recording of the younger Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus included the most illustrious singers of the day in the famous Act 2 Gala scene. Birgit Nilsson, Renata Tebaldi, Joan Sutherland, Jussi Bj�rling and Ljuba Welitsch were among the Gala 'guests' who took delivered their 'turns' in the Sofiensaal.