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| Gesellschaft für Alte Musik | |
|---|---|
| Name | Gesellschaft für Alte Musik |
| Native name | Gesellschaft für Alte Musik |
| Formation | 20th century |
| Type | Learned society |
| Headquarters | Berlin |
| Leader title | President |
Gesellschaft für Alte Musik is a learned society devoted to the study, performance, preservation, and dissemination of early music. The society operates at the intersection of historical performance practice, musicology, cultural heritage, and international collaboration, maintaining ties with conservatoires, archives, and museums across Europe and beyond. It organizes conferences, festivals, publications, and grants that engage performers, scholars, librarians, and instrument makers.
The society was founded amid a European revival of interest in early music that connected institutions such as the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, Royal College of Music, Conservatoire de Paris, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Mozarteum University Salzburg, Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, Conservatorio di Milano, Juilliard School, and University of Oxford research groups. Historical parallels include initiatives by the Wiener Akademie für alte Musik and the Early Music Network in the United Kingdom, and it followed influences from figures associated with the Early Music Movement, such as Arnold Dolmetsch, Gustav Leonhardt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Paul Hindemith, Alfred Deller, William Christie, John Eliot Gardiner, Ton Koopman, Masaaki Suzuki, Christopher Hogwood, Andreas Staier, and Rachel Podger. The society's development intersected with archival projects at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, cataloguing initiatives at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and performance research at the British Library. Partnerships developed with museums like the Musée de la Musique, Kunsthistorisches Museum, and Musikinstrumenten-Museum.
Membership categories reflect models used by the Royal Musical Association, American Musicological Society, International Musicological Society, Association for Recorded Sound Collections, Society for Music Theory, and the International Council of Museums sections. Officers have included scholars affiliated with Universität der Künste Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Universität Leipzig, Universität Göttingen, Universität Hamburg, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, McGill University, University of Toronto, and University of Melbourne. The governance structure mirrors statutes from organizations such as the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and involves advisory boards drawn from the Royal Academy of Music, Conservatoire de Lyon, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Sibelius Academy, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and the Franz Liszt Academy of Music.
Programmatic activity echoes initiatives by institutions like the Baroque Orchestra of Tokyo, Les Arts Florissants, The English Concert, Académie Bach de Paris, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Monteverdi Choir, Stuttgart Baroque Ensemble, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, Concerto Köln, Hespèrion XXI, La Petite Bande, Il Giardino Armonico, Musica Antiqua Cologne, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Ensemble Gilles Binchois, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, and Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. The society sponsors masterclasses, instrument-making workshops with luthiers from the Cremona Violin-Making School and workshops informed by collections at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. It facilitates residency programs that connect performers with archives including the Vatican Library, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, and the Archivio di Stato di Venezia.
The society publishes journals, critical editions, and monographs comparable to outputs from Early Music, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Music & Letters, Die Musikforschung, Acta Musicologica, Repertoire International des Sources Musicales, and the Oxford University Press lists. Scholarly work aligns with cataloguing projects such as the RISM database and interfaces with digitization efforts at the Europeana portal and the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek. Authors and editors have contributed editions of works by Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Claudio Monteverdi, Heinrich Schütz, Dietrich Buxtehude, Arcangelo Corelli, Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, Henry Purcell, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Francesco Cavalli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico Scarlatti, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Orlande de Lassus, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Josquin des Prez, Tomás Luis de Victoria, and Guillaume Dufay.
The society organizes recurring conferences and festivals modeled on events like the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Wratislavia Cantans, Early Music Festival Utrecht, Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Bachfest Leipzig, Cheltenham Music Festival, Oxford Early Music Festival, Schwetzingen Festival, Kasseler Musiktage, Berlin Festival, Wiener Festwochen, Prague Spring International Music Festival, Aix-en-Provence Festival, La Folle Journée, and the Ravenna Festival. These gatherings feature keynote lectures by scholars associated with the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Leipzig Gewandhaus School, Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.
Awards and fellowships align with honors from the Royal Philharmonic Society, Gramophone Classical Music Awards, SWR Classical Music Awards, Echo Klassik, Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Guggenheim Fellowship, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust, European Research Council, Arts and Humanities Research Council, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the DAAD. The society has conferred prizes and research grants recognizing work connected to archives such as the Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, and ensembles like Les Musiciens du Louvre and Freiburger Barockorchester.
Notable members and collaborators have included performers, scholars, and institutions linked to Gustav Leonhardt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, William Christie, John Eliot Gardiner, Ton Koopman, Masaaki Suzuki, Christoph Wolff, Susan McClary, Margaret Bent, Charles Burney, Paul McCreesh, Emmanuelle Haïm, Jordi Savall, Philippe Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood, Jasmin Christgau, Sigiswald Kuijken, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Robert Levin, Laurence Dreyfus, Richard Taruskin, Howard Mayer Brown, Christopher Rowland, John Butt, Andrew Parrott, Nicholas Kenyon, Martin Geck, Bernd Baselt, Reinhard Strohm, Manfred F. Bukofzer, Otto Deutsch, Hans Joachim Moser and ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants, The English Concert, Academy of Ancient Music, Concerto Cologne, Les Talens Lyriques, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, La Petite Bande, Hespèrion XXI, Tafelmusik, Freiburger Barockorchester, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
Category:Music organizations