19th century

Volume in classical music is determined to some degree by the score, rather than the ensemble. However, many of the loudest performances have been determined by the size, instrumentation, inclination, and location of the orchestra, assuming a piece which is written to be loud.

100 musicians played at the 1813 premiere of Beethoven's work Wellington's Victory, which Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim described as a "sonic assault on the listener" and the "beginning of a musical arms race for ever louder... symphonic performance", quoting an unnamed attendee as remarking that the performance was "seemingly designed to make the listener as deaf as its composer". Frédéric Döhl described performances of this work as "not like an evening at the Berlin Philharmonie, but rather like a modern-day rock concert". According to da Fonseca-Wollheim, music continued to grow louder after this as the world grew louder, partly due to developments in instrumentation (steel strings, metal flutes, valves on trumpets).^[2]

The opening day of the 1869 National Peace Jubilee in Boston featured a performance of the Anvil Chorus that featured thousands of musicians, including 50 firemen pounding anvils as well as cannon and church bells.^[3]

Performance of the 1812 Overture by the United States Army Band, 2008

Tchaikovsky's 1880 work 1812 Overture, which is scored for artillery and has passages marked as ffff (in a score, "fortississimo" (fff) instructs the musicians to play the marked passage extremely loudly and is normally the loudest volume specified; "fortissississimo" (ffff), which means to play louder than fortississimo, is sometimes used) has been described as the loudest classical piece.^[4][5] The piece has been played with FH70 155 mm (6.1 in) howitzers and Type 74 Main Battle Tanks included in the orchestra instrumentation^[6] (a typical 155mm howitzer generates about 180 dB at the source,^[7][8] sufficient to sometimes cause immediate and permanent hearing damage (artillery crews are issued hearing protection)).^[9] The piece is usually performed outdoors or with simulated or recorded cannons, but an indoor performance with live cannon at the Royal Albert Hall has been cited as having been particularly loud.^[10]

Early 20th century

Pluck the string so hard that it hits the wood.

— Gustav Mahler, instruction in the score of Symphony No. 7 (1904–05), which includes an fffff passage, albeit for strings rather than brass^[11]

The "Mars" movement of Gustav Holst's 1918 work The Planets includes ffff passages.^[12] The close of the finale of the 1919 suite of Stravinsky's 1910 work The Firebird is scored at ffff,^[13] as are passages of other works.

(According to James R. Oestreich (writing in 2004), modern symphony orchestras can easily reach 96 to 98 decibels, and certain brass and percussion instruments have registered 130 to 140 at close range).^[14]

1948

Kids are going haywire over the sheer noise of this band... There is a danger of an entire generation growing up with the idea that jazz and the atom bomb are essentially the same natural phenomenon.

— Barry Ulanov, Metronome, 1948^[15]

Stan Kenton's bands have been described as "the loudest of the big bands"^[16] with "the shattering effect of the Kenton band's loud, dissonant brass"^[17] created by "screaming 'walls of brass'".^[18]

Bill Gottlieb wrote "Warm or cold, it was loud. Stan's screaming horns presaged the high decibels of the rock age, but his stalwarts did it without electronic amplification. Just old-fashioned lung power. When Stan raised his long arms to call for 'more,' the men in the brass section blew until their faces reddened, their eyes bulged, and incipient hernias popped."^[17]

1968

Tiny articles in early rock magazines said Blue Cheer were so loud they had to record outdoors — part of their second album, Outsideinside, was recorded on a San Francisco pier

— Neil Peart, Rolling Stone^[19]

Blue Cheer, the first American band to use Marshall amps,^[20] has been seen as a pioneer of extreme loudness, being the first band ever listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as loudest band in the world, preceding Deep Purple.

They have been described as "undoubtedly the heaviest and loudest band of the time",^[20] "Weird, obnoxious, loud as in L-O-U-D!!!"^[21] and "loud enough to get [god of music] Apollo's attention".^[22]

Billy Altman described them as the loudest band ever; "So loud, in fact, that within just a few songs, much of the crowd [at a 1968 concert] in the front orchestra section was fleeing".^[23]

Blue Cheer's 1968 debut album, Vincebus Eruptum, was widely described as the loudest record ever made at that time.^[24] Their 1986 "Best of" compilation album was titled Louder Than God.^[25]

1969

Daniel Kreps of Rolling Stone has maintained that "Whole Lotta Love" established Led Zeppelin's reputation as one of the loudest bands of their time.^[26]

1972

Deep Purple was recognised by The Guinness Book of World Records as the "globe's loudest band" for a concert at the London Rainbow Theatre, during which the sound reached 117 dB and three members of the audience fell unconscious.^[27][28]

1976

The Who were next to be listed as the "record holder" at 126 dB, having been measured 32 metres (105 feet) from the speakers during a concert in London at The Valley on 31 May 1976.^[29]

1984 and 1994

The Guinness Book of World Records listed Manowar as the loudest band for a performance in 1984. The band claimed a louder measurement of 129.5 dB in 1994 at Hanover,^[30] but Guinness did not recognise it, having discontinued the category by that time for fear of encouraging hearing damage.^{[31][32][33][34][35]}

1986

An article by Scott Cohen appeared in February 1986 issue of Spin entitled "Motörhead is the Loudest Band on Earth".^[36] In it, Cohen alluded to an undated concert during which Cleveland's Variety Theater actually sustained damage from Motörhead reaching a decibel level of 130.^[36] This he reported was 10 decibels louder than the record set by The Who.^[36]

1990

The 1990 edition of the Guinness World Records contained the following entry: Largest PA system: On August 20, 1988, at the Castle Donington "Monsters of Rock" Festival a total of 360 Turbosound cabinets offering a potential 523 kW of programme power, formed the largest front-of-house PA. The average Sound Pressure Level at the mixing tower was 118 dB, peaking at a maximum of 124 dB during Iron Maiden's set. It took five days to set up the system."

1996

The English House/Electronica band Leftfield, while on tour to support their debut album Leftism, gained notoriety for the sheer volume of their live shows. In June 1996, while the group was playing at Brixton Academy, the sound system caused dust and plaster to fall from the roof, with the sound volume reaching 135 dB.^[37]

2007

British punk band Gallows allegedly broke Manowar's penultimate record, claiming to have reached 132.5 dB; however, this record claim was made in an isolated studio as opposed to a live environment.^[38]

2008

Manowar registered an SPL of 139 dB during the sound check (not the actual performance) at the Magic Circle Fest in 2008.^[39]

2009

On July 15, at a Canadian concert in Ottawa, the band Kiss recorded an SPL of 136 dB measured during their live performance. Noise complaints from residents in the area eventually forced the band to turn the volume down.^{[40][lower-alpha 1]}