For my music minded friends, on this day in 1888, one of the finest concert halls in the world, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam opened its doors for the first time. The inaugural concert featured a 120 person orchestra and 500 person chorus performing works of Wagner, Handel, Bach and Beethoven.
Oddly, the Concertgebouw is not state or municipally owned. It is private, and was constructed in what was then a pasture outside the city limits. The design had been inspired by the original Gewandhaus in Leipzig, which was destroyed in World War II. There is a main hall which seats almost 2000, a smaller oval venue behind the main hall that seats a little over 400 for chamber music and lieder, and an even smaller 150 seat Choir Hall which seems mainly for Jazz, children's music, and private dinners for special people.
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 decorationso as not to mess with its sound.
In the main hall, names of 46 composers are inscribed on the walls and balcony ledges. Most of them are well known. Some of them I guess you had to be there. I'm particularly taken with the name Jacobus Clemens non-Papa.
The reverberation time in the main hall is over two seconds. That makes it great for Romantics like Mahler, but it stinks on ice for amplified music. Nevertheless, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Who have performed there.
In 1983, it started sinking into the mushy low country ground and several inch wide cracks appeared. The original construction had been on top of over 2000 wooden pilings specifically to prevent such sinkage, and all of them had to be painstakingly excavated and replaced with concrete.
On November 3 of its opening year, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra took up residence under conductor Willem Kes. In 1895, Willem Mengelberg took his place and remained for 50 years. He was responsible for bring the orchestra to world class status which it has retained ever since. Among his assistants were Pierre Monteux, Bruno Walter (one of my personal favorites) and Eugen Jochum, all of whom achieved renown later.
The first conductor I recall was Bernard Haitink, who started in 1956 and seemed to be there forever. Edo de Waart was one of his assistants. Haitink replaced Eduard van Beinum, whom I've never heard of, and is distinguished by the fact that he died of a heart attack at the podium. Riccardo Chailly succeeded Haitink as the orchestra's first non-Dutch leader. George Szell and Kirill Kondrashin also worked with the orchestra in guest conductor spots.
The orchestra had a close working relationship with Gustav Mahler, championing and premiering many of his symphonies
In contrast to other orchestras of its age, the Concertgebouw has had only six chief conductors. They have among them produced nearly 1000 recordings.
By the way "Gebouw" means "Hall" so its official name is Concert Hall.
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