Goldberg Stiftung

We are glad to announce that many very important sources of the 15th century are now available online. You may download them in modern or original notation. You can also listen to the pieces!

On March 27 and 28, 2010 the foundation produced with great success its slow listening event

Et Ecce Terrae Motus - The Earth Quaked

Utopian music in the face of the Apocalypse

During the festival MaerzMusik (Berliner Festspiele) more than 700 people took part in this sonic space experiment around the mass of Antoine Brumel (ca. 1500), created by Clemens Goldberg and performed by the newly assembled Musica Universalis. Nothing can replace the real and fascinating experience of this music during a concert but the film by Jan Saßmannshausen can confer a very sensual impression of this event. This 90 minute film will be placed here shortly. During the day of the first concert a documentation was filmed which you can see below. The tone quality is not comparable with the long film using the sound track of the RBB radio production. further down you can see and here the complete performance in high sound quality.

Goldberg Foundation

In December 2003 Dr Clemens Goldberg established the Goldberg Foundation. Dr Goldberg – cellist, musicologist, author and radio presenter – believes that capital may not only be used for gain but can enable us to create doors into new areas of common interest and experience. Traditionally foundations use the model of creative networking in opposition to unproductive competition and meaningless profit.

Aims of the Goldberg Foundation

1. The establishment of an Internet Academy

Inspired by the 15th century Academia Fiorentina, the Goldberg Foundation offers the vision of a forum overcoming the institutionalised ways of working and thinking of academic institutions.
The Foundation, in line with its predecessor, welcomes contributions from the fields of Aesthetics, Music, Sociology, History, Literature and Linguistics which can be discussed directly in forums.
Chronologically, with the Age of Renaissance at its centre, contributions are also welcomed from other eras, ideally establishing a link to the present.
Particularly welcome are contributions which espouse Humanism, incorporating elements from both the Natural Sciences and the Arts, as inspired by Renaissance Florence. The objective of the Foundation is to provide a forum free of the limitations of historical, ideological and institutional boundaries permitting a modern productive Humanist exchange.
Contributions can be addressed via e-mail on this homepage. Subsequently an archive of 15th century music, offering a range of sources and editions, will be established.
In the Library of the Academy a vast range of literature lists, the founder's essays and past essays and discussions will be found.
Facsimile sources can be viewed via links, the first online edition (the chansonnier Nivelle) is now available online in the Library.
Moreover, the Academy offers reviews of books and essays and announces news and events in the field of Musicology and Interdisciplinary Studies.

2. Support from the Foundation to new and existing Ensembles

It is a key objective of the Goldberg Foundation to support any existing and new ensembles contributing to the performance of 15th century music.

The 15th century saw a revolutionary change in the experience of seeing and listening through new ways of spatial representation in painting and in composition, respectively. Composers such as Dufay, Ockeghem and Busnois created a music in which the relationship between concordant sound and absolute freedom of the singular voice was developed to an extreme, creating an entirely new way of experiencing time and space.

With support from the Goldberg Foundation existing and new Ensembles will work from original-score single voice editions in place of modern scores, delivering vibrant new concert experiences from poetic texts, single voices which then are combined gradually and repetition of piece, within the context of guidance as to different ways of listening. It is a fundamental aim of these concerts to communicate the intellectual and cultural dimensions of this music.

In our section Renaissance Music you will find announcements of News and Events in the field of Renaissance Music, and reviews of new Cds.

3. Slow Listening

Similarly to the movement of Slow Food (as opposed to Fast Food) the foundation supports new forms of concerts under the label Slow Listening. These concerts aim at a conscious, intense and informed way of listening, not only for the music of the 15th century.