The Residentie Orkest has a special place in the cultural life of The Hague as it took shape between 1890-1920. After all, unlike the theater or the museum, the orchestra dates from those years. The same applies to the slightly older Geschiedkundige Vereeniging Die Haghe. Both institutions have a few things in common.

The seed for the Residentie Orkest was sown just before the turn of the 1900s, and its name dates from early 1903. This, as well as its development into a municipal symphony orchestra, was due in part to the support of friends. But not much has been handed down about the first decades of that orchestra, at least not in mainstream historiography. And those first years are special: despite the fact that the quality of the Residentie Orkest was recognized, it received and endured fierce opposition. With that, some ambitions of both the founders and those first friends perished. These very people thought big and bold: not only did the city lack its own municipal orchestra, it also lacked a good music center and facilities for an opera. Things that would not be out of place there, also in view of The Hague's new international position. This lecture recounts the early years of the Residentie Orkest, and places it in the context of The Hague's urban development in those turbulent years around 1900.