Everything sounds better at Het Concertgebouw

About the author

Mark Visbeek is a designer, musician, superstar, and loves illeism. Always looking to create beautiful things, I'm often distracted by the amazing stuff happening around me. My most important weapons are limitless amounts of love and a faux-French accent.

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When I think of Het Concertgebouw, I think of the times my grandparents took me there when I was a kid. We used to go to special kids’ matinées, where the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra would play Peter and the Wolf, or Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. I was probably six or seven years old, but I remember it all quite vividly. The mighty, overwhelming sound of the big orchestra made a deep impression on my young mind. Today I learned that the building itself plays as big a part in this as the orchestra.

Everything sounds better

In 2013, Het Concertgebouw celebrates its 125th birthday. For the occasion they decided to turn the building into a musical laboratory, to research if the legend is true; does really everything sound better in Het Concertgebouw? Mike Boddé is your lab professor for the day, and he invited some of the most interesting guests the building has ever seen. Burping kids, road workers, a scooter gang, they’re all welcome to go on stage.

I must say, I’m impressed. Do I hear subtle harmonics in the scooter engines? Complex rhythm patterns in the brick hammer? A pentatonic scale in those burps? See, and hear, all the experiments at allesklinktmooier.nl and decide for yourself. I for one think I might have to pay Het Concertgebouw another visit soon.

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