The Story: Beethoven & Napoleon

Het Concertgebouw on Amsterdam's Museumplein is one of the most celebrated concert halls in the world, ranking alongside Carnegie Hall in New York, Symphony Hall in Boston and the Musikverein in Vienna for the quality of its acoustics. The building dates back to a decision made in September 1881, when six Amsterdam citizens formed a provisional committee to solve a genuine problem: the city had no proper concert hall. The Park Hall in the Plantage district was about to be demolished, the Felix Meritis building was too small, and Amsterdam's Crystal Palace had notoriously poor sound. Architect Adolf Leonard van Gendt drew on the Gewandhaus in Leipzig as his model, and construction started in 1883 on what was then open farmland just outside the city limits in Nieuwer Amstel, requiring more than 2,100 wooden piles driven twelve to thirteen metres into the soft Amsterdam soil. The building was finished by the end of 1886, but disputes with the local municipality over a canal, access roads and street lighting delayed the opening until 11 April 1888, when an orchestra of 120 musicians and a chorus of 500 singers performed works by Wagner, Handel, Bach and Beethoven. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, as it is now known after receiving the royal title in 1988, gave its first concert in the hall that same year on 3 November 1888, and has rehearsed there daily ever since, an unbroken relationship between an orchestra and its home that is rare among major European ensembles. The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra have also maintained regular series in the building across many decades. The hall's pipe organ, installed in 1890 by Utrecht builder Michael Maarschalkerweerd and later renovated in the early 1990s by Flentrop, has 60 registers across three divisions and pedal. A major renovation in the mid 1980s modernised the facilities while keeping the historic character of the building intact. Queen Beatrix granted the building itself the royal title "Koninklijk" on 11 April 2013, exactly 125 years after its opening. Over the course of its existence the venue has seen an extraordinarily varied range of events beyond the classical programme, from performances by Aretha Franklin to the presentation of a civil rights award to Martin Luther King. The Main Hall remains the acoustic and architectural heart of the building, and the Concertgebouw continues to host multiple concerts and rehearsals on many days of the week.