Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest 1956

The Netherlands held a national final to select the two entrants that Nederlandse Televisie Stichting (NTS), the Dutch broadcaster, would send to the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest in Lugano, Switzerland. The final was held on 24 April 1956.

Before Eurovision
For its national selection, NTS invited a number of songwriters to send in entries. From the submitted entries, a jury consisting of Hugo de Groot (composer), Harm Smedes and Max Dendermonde, chose eight songs for the national final. Corry Brokken, Jetty Paerl and Bert Visser were chosen separately by NTS to sing the entries.

Het Eurovisie Song Festival
The final was held at the AVRO TV Studios in Hilversum on 24 April 1956 at 21:45 CET and lasted about 45 minutes. It was broadcast on NTS with the title Het Eurovisie Song Festival, and also in Belgium on NIR. It was produced by Piet de Nuyl jr. and directed by Ger Lugtenburg. Two songs were sung by Bert Visser; Corry Brokken and Jetty Paerl sang three songs each. The artists were accompanied by the Metropole Orkest under the direction of Dolf van der Linden.

The songs were ranked by postcard voting. Television viewers should send in their postcards before 1 May 1956, containing one vote for their favourite song. The postcards with votes for the song which should place first, participated also in a lottery: The prize was a journey to the final in Lugano. The results were announced on 5 May 1956 in a TV show held at the Minerva Theater in Heemstede. In total, 6,694 postcards were received.

The top two songs were "Voorgoed voorbij", written and composed by Jelle de Vries, and "De vogels van Holland", written by Annie M. G. Schmidt and composed by Cor Lemaire. "'t is lente", written by Alexander Pola and composed by Else van Epen-de Groot, came third.

At Eurovision
There were seven participating countries, and each was drawn to perform two songs in the same order via two rounds, with Netherlands performing first in each round, making "De vogels van Holland" the first song performed in the Eurovision Song Contest history.

Both of the Dutch entries were conducted at the contest by the musical director Fernando Paggi.

Each country nominated two jury members who voted for their respective country by giving between one and ten points to each song, including those representing their own country. All jury members were colocated in a separate room in the venue in Lugano and followed the contest via a television set. The Dutch jury members were Lia Dorana and Ger Lugtenburg.

The placements of the Dutch entries are not known since the full results of the contest were not revealed and have not been retained by the EBU.

Eurovision Song Contest 1956 was televised in the Netherlands on NTS with commentary by Piet te Nuyl Jr.