Concertgebouw

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

The Royal Concertgebouw (Dutch pronunciation: [kɔnˈsɛrt.xəˌbʌu]) is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building." On April 11, 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.^[2] 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^[3][4] and the Musikverein in Vienna.^[5]

[edit] History

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2011)

The architect of the building was Adolf Leonard van Gendt,^[6] who was inspired by the Neue 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. 2,186 piles twelve to thirteen meters (forty to forty-three feet) in length were sunk into the soil.^[7]

The hall opened on April 11, 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).

The Grote Zaal ("Great Hall," which is the main hall) seats 1,974, and is 44 meters (144 ft) long, 28 meters (92 ft) wide, and 17 meters (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 & 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 Kleine Zaal ("Small Hall"), is located behind the main hall. The Kleine Zaal is 20 meters (66 ft) long and 15 meters (50 ft) wide. Its more intimate space is well-suited for chamber music and lieder. The Kleine Zaal 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.^[8]

Today, some nine hundred concerts per year take place in the Concertgebouw, for a public of over 800,000, making it the second most-visited concert hall in the world (Rome's Parco della musica ranking N. 1 with over one million).^{[citation needed]}

The current managing director of the Concertgebouw is Simon Reinink. The hall's current artistic director is Anneke Hogenstijn.

[edit] Names of composers in the Grote Zaal

In the Grote Zaal, the family names of a number of classical music composers are displayed on the balcony ledges and on the walls. These composers include:

[edit] Gallery

• 

  Architectural drawings of the design, dated 1888.

• 

  The Concertgebouw in 1902.

• 

  The Grote Zaal of the Concertgebouw.

• 

  The Concertgebouw at night, 2008.

• 

  A Quintet concert, July 2010.

[edit] See also

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

[edit] References

1. ^ Het Concertgebouw - Capaciteit Zalen
2. ^ "KONINKLIJKE STATUS VOOR HET CONCERTGEBOUW". Concertgebouw NV. Retrieved 11 April 2013. 
3. ^ April 11, 1888: Concertgebouw, Home of Nearly Perfect Acoustics, Opens
4. ^ R.W. Apple, Jr., Apple's America (North Point Press, 2005), ISBN 0-86547-685-3.
5. ^ Tapio Lahti and Henrik Möller. "Concert Hall Acoustics and the Computer". ARK -The Finnish Architectural Review. 
6. ^ "Concertgebouw (rijksmonument #288)". Monumentenregister (in Dutch). Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed. Retrieved 9 February 2012. 
7. ^ Drawing of the Concertgebouw in the fields, at the Amsterdam City Archives
8. ^ Paul L. Montgomery (1988-04-13). "Dutch Hail Concertgebouw's 100th". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-12. 

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Concertgebouw

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

Coordinates: 52°21′22″N 4°52′46″E / 52.356223°N 4.879517°E / 52.356223; 4.879517