Concertgebouw

It was Bernard Haitink who once described the Concertgebouw as the best instrument in the orchestra it houses. This must have been what the great and the good of Amsterdam had in mind in 1881, when they decided that the Dutch capital should have a proper concert hall worthy of the name. Seven years later, in the marshy fields just outside the city limits, there stood a wonder of neoclassical architecture, the Concertgebouw, a building that now, like its most important player, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, enjoys a worldwide reputation.