Since 1947, the Residentie Orkest has made dozens of major and minor tours. The musicians traveled to all corners of the globe: Europe, North and South America, Asia. The United States was traveled no less than six times between 1963 and 1984 for weeks at a time - in one case even five weeks. And Eastern Europe was also visited often, even when it was still hidden behind the Iron Curtain.

This interview was conducted in 2020. Karel Ligtenberg died in November 2023.

Karel Ligtenberg made his first tour with the Residentie Orkest as a remplaçant. After studying violin in The Hague, studying in Paris for a year, and working for a few months as Associate concertmaster in the Noordhollands Philharmonic Orchestra, he was asked by the Residentie Orkest in 1948 to come and remplaace during a short tour to England. Karel likes to tell about it.
"We traveled via Schiphol Airport. There we just walked across the grass to the ready planes: three of them for the orchestra members, plus one for the instruments and such. We had to wait while the engines were started one by one. Someone gave a swish to one of those big propellers, and as the engine turned, big flames came out the back, which was kind of exciting! We flew to Manchester. There, at the airport, the Hallé Orchestra was waiting for us; they would fly to Holland with the same planes! We had lunch together, then we drove by bus to Manchester. I noticed that it was so filthy there, there was a thick layer of soot on everything. We had concerts in Manchester and Sheffield, with a day off in between. Many musicians went to watch a Manchester United soccer game. I joined a group on an excursion to the Lake District. It was spring, fruit trees were blooming everywhere, it was so beautiful! On the way back we paused at an inn, one of those typical English 'Inn', where people looked at us suspiciously. Jaap Stotijn then sat down behind the piano, played waltzes and polkas, and that made people happy. People even started dancing!"

Willem van Otterloo
Shortly after this tour, Karel was permanently inducted into the ranks of the Residentie Orkest. In 1949, the then 42-year-old Willem van Otterloo became chief conductor of the orchestra, and would remain so until 1973. How did Karel experience him?
"Van Otterloo has been of great importance to the orchestra. He brought discipline and quality to a very high level. We started playing much more as a unit, the many albums we recorded with him show this very well. I found his vision of the music almost always convincing. But it wasn't always easy to play under him. If things didn't go his way, he could get so furious! Some musicians got nervous about that. So did I. If he was ranting and swearing right in front of me, I didn't like it. I thought: if this scares me, then I'm lost. I decided to look back and think: we are making great music! Still, I felt more and more appreciated by him. When I was with him in the conductor's room to talk about a prank, it sometimes happened that he called me 'Karel'. But never en publique! There it was always 'Mr. Ligtenberg'."

Bruno Maderna
Willem van Otterloo had little feel for the latest music; the avant garde. For that, the orchestra chartered Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna. That Last was also a beloved composer. Karel remembers him well.
"Numerous new works he conducted with us, with great authority and expertise. In classical work, however, he did not excel. I remember him conducting Beethoven's Third Symphony , and I wanted to flee from the stage all the time. But Debussy and Ravel he did wonderfully, so evocatively, with a very beautiful sound quality. And so did his own works."

Concert for the Shah of Persia
In 1971, the orchestra made a short tour to Persia (now: Iran), to perform at the "5th Festival of Arts" under the direction of Bruno Maderna. The program included two works by Maderna composed especially for the occasion.
"The concert, celebrating the two thousandth anniversary of the empire, was to take place at the ruins of Persepolis, in the middle of the desert. The shah would come, along with his wife Farah Diba. Numerous imperial, royal and other highly honored guests had been invited, and they were housed in a huge, very luxurious tented camp. In the middle of that camp a fountain had been made, spouting as high as the one in Lake Geneva. In the middle of that arid desert! We musicians were accommodated on the campus of Shiraz University, some 65 kilometers away. On the evening of the first day, a bus took us to the ruins to rehearse; during the day, of course, it was far too hot there. The entrance to the luxurious tent camp turned out to be guarded by armed soldiers, who behaved intimidatingly. You were absolutely not allowed to take a picture there; if you even looked in their direction, a gun would be pointed at you. Anyway, the day of the grand celebration came, and we drove from Shiraz to Persepolis, but we were brutally stopped by soldiers who asked us why we were driving there. Because the shah's procession was approaching, everything had to give way for it! So our bus drove into the desert sand, and we had to wait until the whole procession had passed before we could continue. The evening of the celebration, however, was imposing, and I remember that the orchestra gave a beautiful concert."

United States
As many as six times the Residentie Orkest made long tours of the United States. The orchestra had become popular there because of the many albums recorded by Philips with Van Otterloo as conductor. Among other things, Karel remembers the 1975 tour very well.
"On the way there, at one of the airports, a whole crate of instruments was stolen. These were mainly wind instruments, and it was a disaster! All those wind players had to borrow instruments, and everything about it was strange. However, we had to perform concerts right away, including the long Adagio from Mahler's Tenth Symphony, with tricky, delicate solos by our solo wind players. Jean Martinon, chief conductor since Van Otterloo's departure in 1973, was then asked to adjust the concert programs for the first few days, but he refused. Well, the wind players were very unhappy about it. In the end it worked out well. Also because Martinon could conduct really great!"

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"The tour of the United States in 1965 lasted no less than five weeks, and that was actually way too long. We traveled crisscross that great country at the time, from bitterly cold New York to bloody hot Los Angeles and San Francisco. In the Midwest, we played in bare, unfamiliar towns in unsociable concert halls. And cold it was there! Dozens of degrees below zero. The bus trips were very long; I remember playing chess for hours every day. My wife, Gina, she was one of the first violins, also traveled that tour. She sat for hours knitting and then made a beautiful sweater for me. I still wear it to this day!"
Ronald Touw