Concertgebouw

Royal Concertgebouw
Koninklijk Concertgebouw
Concertgebouw in 2011
Location in Amsterdam
General information
Status	Complete
Type	Concert hall
Architectural style	Neoclassical
Location	Museumplein
Address	Concertgebouwplein 10 1071 LN Amsterdam
Town or city	Amsterdam
Country	Netherlands
Coordinates
Current tenants	Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Construction started	1883
Completed	late 1886
Opened	11 April 1888
Renovated	July 1985–April 1988
Cost	300,000 Dutch guilders
Owner	Het Concertgebouw N.V. (privately owned)
Design and construction
Architect	Adolf Leonard van Gendt
Designations	Protected monument
Renovating team
Architect	Pi de Bruijn
Other information
Seating type	Theatre
Seating capacity	1,974 (Main Hall), 437 (Recital Hall), 150 (Choir Hall)
Website
www.concertgebouw.nl

The Royal Concertgebouw (Dutch: Koninklijk Concertgebouw, pronounced [ˌkoːnɪnklək kɔnˈsɛrt.xəˌbʌu̯]) is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building". On 11 April 2013, on occasion of the building's 125th anniversary, Queen Beatrix bestowed the Royal Title "Koninklijk" upon the building, as she did previously on to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Because of its highly regarded acoustics, the Concertgebouw is considered one of the finest concert halls in the world, along with places such as Boston's Symphony Hall and the Musikverein in Vienna.

History

The architect of the building was Adolf Leonard van Gendt, who was inspired by the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, built two years earlier (and destroyed in 1943).

Construction began in 1883 in a pasture that was then outside the city, in Nieuwer-Amstel, a municipality that in 1964 became Amstelveen. A total of 2,186 piles of length twelve to thirteen metres (40 to 43 ft) were sunk into the soil.

The hall opened on 11 April 1888 with an inaugural concert, in which an orchestra of 120 musicians and a chorus of 500 singers participated, performing works of Wagner, Handel, Bach, and Beethoven. The resident orchestra of the Concertgebouw is the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest), which gave its first concert in the hall on 3 November 1888, as the Concertgebouw Orchestra (Concertgebouworkest). For many decades the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest have also been regular performers in the Concertgebouw.

The Main Hall (Grote Zaal) seats 1,974, and is 44 metres (144 ft) long, 28 metres (92 ft) wide, and 17 metres (56 ft) high. Its reverberation time is 2.8 seconds without audience, 2.2 seconds with, making it ideal for the late Romantic repertoire such as Mahler. Though this characteristic makes it largely unsuited for amplified music, groups such as Led Zeppelin, The Who and Pink Floyd performed there in the 1960s. It hosts not only orchestral and operatic performances, but also jazz and world music.

A smaller, oval-shaped venue, the Recital Hall (Kleine Zaal), is located behind the Main Hall. The Recital Hall is 20 metres (66 ft) long and 15 metres (50 ft) wide. Its more intimate space is well-suited for chamber music and Lieder. The Recital Hall has 437 seats.

When the Concertgebouw was built, acoustics were something of a black art. As in shipbuilding, designers drew upon what had worked in the past without entirely understanding the underlying science. When the building was completed, the acoustics were not perfect, and a lot of effort went into fine-tuning the aural ambience. During later restorations, particular care has been taken not to alter the materials used for interior decoration with this in mind. In the 1980s, the hall embarked on extensive fund-raising for renovations after the hall was found to be slowly sinking into the ground. Pi de Bruijn was the architect for the contemporary annex to the original hall.

Today, some nine hundred concerts and other events per year take place in the Concertgebouw, for a public of over 700,000, making it one of the most-visited concert halls in the world.

As of February 2014, the managing director of the Concertgebouw is Simon Reinink and the artistic director is Anneke Hogenstijn.

Organ

File:Orgel Concertgebouw Amsterdam.JPG

The organ in the Main Hall of the Concertgebouw

The organ was built in 1890 by the organ builder Michael Maarschalkerweerd from Utrecht, and was renovated in the years 1990-1993 by the organ builder Flentrop. It has 60 registers on three divisions and pedal.

I Hauptwerk C-g3 Prestant 16’ Bourdon 16’ Prestant 8’ Bourdon 8’ Flûte harmonique 8’ Violoncello 8’ Prestant 4’ Flûte octaviante 4’ Quint harm. 22/3’ Quint 22/3’ Octav harm. 2’ Octav 2’ Terz harm. 13/5’ Mixtur IV-VI Mixtur III-IV Cornet V 8’ Bariton 16’ Trompet harm. 8’ Trompet 8’ Trompet 4’

II Schwellwerk C-g3 Quintadeen 16’ Flûte harm. 8’ Hohlflöte 8’ Viola di Gamba 8’ Voix Céleste 8’ Flûte octaviante 4’ Quint 22/3’ Flageolet harm. 2’ Terz 13/5’ Piccolo 1’ Plein Jeu harm. IV-VI Bombarde 16’ Trompet 8’ Basson-Hobo 8’ Vox Humana 8’ Trompet harm. 4’ Tremulant

III Schwell-Positiv C-g3 Zachtgedekt 16’ Prestant 8’ Rohrflöte 8’ Salicional 8’ Unda Maris 8’ Octav 4’ Fluit-dolce 4’ Violine 4’ Waldflöte 2’ Maarschalkje 11/3’ Mixtur II-V Trompet harm. 8’ Klarinet 8’ Tremulant

Pedalwerk C-g1 Gedeckt Subbas 32’ Prinzipalbass 16’ Subbass 16’ Violon 16’ Quintbass 102/3’ Flöte 8’ Violoncello 8’ Corni-dolce 4’ Basson 16’ Trombone 8’ Trompet 4’

• Couplers: II/I (also as Suboktavkoppel), III/I, III/II, I/P, II/P, III/P

Names of composers in the Main Hall

In the Main Hall, the surnames of the following 46 composers are displayed on the balcony ledges and on the walls:

Bernard Zweers Anton Bruckner Gustav Mahler César Franck Alphons Diepenbrock Claude Debussy Cornelis Dopper Richard Strauss Julius Röntgen Béla Bartók Antonín Dvořák George Frideric Handel

Jean-Baptiste Lully Domenico Scarlatti Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Luigi Cherubini Carl Maria von Weber Hector Berlioz Frédéric Chopin Franz Liszt Richard Wagner Charles Gounod Carl Reinecke Cornelis Schuyt

Jacob Obrecht Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck Orlando di Lasso Johannes Wanning Jacobus Clemens non Papa Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Igor Stravinsky Johan Wagenaar Max Reger Maurice Ravel Willem Pijper Franz Schubert

Felix Mendelssohn Robert Schumann Johannes Verhulst Niels Gade Anton Rubinstein Louis Spohr Ludwig van Beethoven Johannes Brahms Joseph Haydn Johann Sebastian Bach

In popular culture

The Concertgebouw is mentioned, along with Madison Square Garden, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Rainbow Theatre, in the song "Rock Show" from the 1975 Wings album Venus and Mars.

Gallery

• A.L. van Gendt Concertgebouw 0.jpg

  Architectural drawings of the design, dated 1888.

• Jacob Olie - Concertgebouw Amsterdam 10 november 1902.jpeg

  The Concertgebouw in 1902.

• 

  The Main Hall (Grote Zaal) of the Concertgebouw.

• 

  The Concertgebouw at night, 2008.

• Concertgebouw-july2010.jpg

  A piano quintet concert in the Main Hall, July 2010.

See also

• Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
• History of Amsterdam
• List of concert halls
• List of tourist attractions in Amsterdam

External links

• Royal Concertgebouw website
• Archive of the Concertgebouw at the Amsterdam City Archives