Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam: The Concert Hall That Opened in a Field

The Royal Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It opened in April 1888 in an open field far outside the city area, and its acoustics place it among the world's finest concert halls, alongside Carnegie Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall and the Musikverein in Vienna.

The Dutch word concertgebouw translates into English as “concert building”. That straightforward name belongs to a very specific Amsterdam landmark: a hall whose story begins with an unusually remote setting and an ambitious opening programme.

What is the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam?

The Royal Concertgebouw is Amsterdam's concert hall, known for the exceptional acoustics attributed to the building. It stands in the same group of acoustically distinguished concert halls as New York's Carnegie Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall and Vienna's Musikverein.

For a visitor trying to understand the landmark beyond its name, the key point is the building itself: “concertgebouw” describes the concert building, not a general term for Amsterdam's musical life.

How did the Concertgebouw begin?

The Concertgebouw opened in April 1888 with an inaugural concert involving 120 musicians and a choir of 500 people. The programme presented works by Wagner, Handel, Bach and Beethoven.

Its original setting was strikingly different from the urban landmark you encounter today. At the time of its opening, the building stood in an open field far outside Amsterdam's city area.

Adolf Leonard van Gendt was the architect, and he drew inspiration from the Neue Gewandhaus in Leipzig. The combination of the Leipzig inspiration, the large inaugural forces and the open-field setting gives the building a concrete beginning: a concert hall placed beyond the city's built-up area and opened with a substantial programme of named composers.

What should you notice about the Concertgebouw?

Start with the Concertgebouw's acoustics: the tour material describes them as among the best in the world, while the broader description places the hall among the world's finest. That claim is one of the building's defining stated features.

Then look beyond the inaugural programme. During the seventies, the Concertgebouw hosted pop concerts by Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, The Who and Roxy Music, among many other artists. The hall's documented performance history consequently includes both its Wagner, Handel, Bach and Beethoven opening programme and later seventies pop concerts.

The building also has a specific free-concert detail worth knowing: Wednesday afternoon lunch concerts are free of charge, exactly as the tour material states.

The Concertgebouw appears at stop 16 of 26 on the Amsterdam Bicycle Tour, making that route a direct way to include the landmark while exploring Amsterdam independently. Share this page with the friend planning your Amsterdam day: the open-field origin and the shift from nineteenth-century classical composers to seventies pop concerts give you two useful reasons to decide whether the Concertgebouw belongs on your route.

When you are ready to explore it as one stop in Amsterdam, go directly to the Amsterdam Bicycle Tour.