Music
Some Renaissance alchemists expressed their ideas through music. A similar trend continues today as some musicians express themselves using alchemy.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae contains illustrations of musical instruments alongside the text, "Sacred music disperses sadness and malignant spirits", suggesting that music may have played a role in alchemical practice. The strongest example of music within alchemy can be found in the seventeenth century work of Michael Maier. His Atalanta Fugiens included fifty fugues. The fugues were arranged in three voices symbolizing the philosopher’s stone, the pursuing adept, and obstacles in his way. These have also been interpreted as corresponding to the alchemical tria prima. The text of Maier’s Cantilenae Intelectuales de Phoenice Redivivo is organized similarly, in three musical voices. Maier writes:
All things in this Universe, all forms, heavenly or earthly, being created in there is, between them, an exact and marvellous proportion of parts, strengths, qualities, quantities and effects, such that, together they seem to resemble an extraordinarily harmonious usic, and there is between spiritual beings, amongst which is to be numbered the ind, or intellect in man, a similar musical concord. ‘Tis the same too for the hidden subject of the Hermetic Philosophers: a sort of philosophical micro-world, naturally divided into three ordered parts, bass, tenor and soprano, just as the hammers heard by Pythagoras in the smithy played a pleasant harmony by reason of their various and proportional weights.Alchemy continues to influence musicians. In more recent times, concept albums have been created around alchemical motifs. Alchemy can be incorporated into song or album structure, cover art, and lyrics. Some examples include:
- Jorge Ben Jor, A Tábua De Esmeralda
- Manuel Freire, Pedra Filosofal (1969)
- Bruce Dickinson, The Chemical Wedding (1998)
- Dire Straits, Alchemy
- Susumu Hirasawa, Philosopher's Propeller (2000)
- Home (UK band), The Alchemist
- Yngwie Malmsteen, Alchemy (1999)
- Marilyn Manson, Holy Wood
- Morgana Lefay, Grand Materia (2005)
- Van Morrison, The Philosopher's Stone (1998)
- Mudvayne, The End of All Things to Come
- Pink Floyd, A Saucerful of Secrets
- The Smashing Pumpkins, Machina/The Machines of God (2000)
- Thrice, The Alchemy Index
Read more about this topic: Alchemy In Art And Entertainment
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“Yes; as the music changes,
Like a prismatic glass,
It takes the light and ranges
Through all the moods that pass;”
—Alfred Noyes (1880–1958)
“Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“A man in all the world’s new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain.
One who the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)