Alchemy and Music

Abstract

THE audience for the Friday evening discourse delivered at the Royal Institution on November 22 had a double treat, for after listening to Prof. John Read's address entitled “A Musical Alchemist”, some recently transcribed music by Count Michael Maier (1618) was sung by student members of the St. Andrews University Choir under the direction of Mr. F. H. Sawyer, lecturer in music in the University. Certain alchemical works published at or near Frankfort during the seventeenth century, largely under the name of Michael Maier, are rich in allegorical illustrations, which Prof. Read terms, for convenience, ‘the Frankfort emblems'. The publishing firm of Lucas Jennis of Frankfort took a prominent part in issuing Maier's works. His emblems are often provided with a Latin epigram, together with a cryptic title and a discourse in the same language. “Atalanta Fugiens”, or “Atalanta Fleeing”, published by Maier at Oppenheim in 1618, contains fifty such epigrams, written in elegiac couplets and set to music by the versatile author. Maier's so-called ‘fugues' are in reality rounds, or canons, for three voices. At the end of Prof. Read's discourse, Mr. F. H. Sawyer, who has made a close study of this interesting alchemical music, explained its construction and characteristics, after which examples were sung. It is to be presumed that these ‘incantations' were intended to be sung at critical moments during the decoction of the Philosopher's Stone, such operations being directed also by prayer and astrological influences. To what extent Maier, or other alchemists, endeavoured to influence their laboratory operations by means of music is not clear. However, in view of the alchemical belief in the beneficent influence of music, it is likely that the processes of the ‘Great Work’ were sometimes performed to the accompaniment of musical chants or incantations.