Wednesday 22 November 2017

Atlanta Fugiens



Michael Maier Atalanta Fugiens.jpeg






Atalanta fugiens by Michael Maier was first published in 1617 at Frankfurt at the press of Johann Theodor de Bry. This alchemical emblem book included 50 engraved emblems with an associated 'fugue' or musical canon. In a sense this book with its integration of image, text and sound was one of the first attempts at multimedia.

To make the emblematic images more accessible to the modern eye, I have hand-coloured the images, and have also re-created the music and made it more approachable to contemporary ears by programming it for a modern synthesiser. The music was originally devised as Latin verses sung in three parts.

I have orchestrated the music and played it through a multi-timbral synthesiser (Yamaha SY77) which incorporates sampled instruments. I have used a wide palette of instruments to provide variety, a number of horns (french horn, flugel horn, trumpets), woodwind (oboe, clarinet, bassoon, flute), harp, harpsichord, and some strings, organs and orchestral sounds. I have avoided any modern entirely synthetic sounds as well as the piano. The general sound can be likened to an early music group, but of course with no pretentions to authenticity.



Adam McLean, May 2013






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a6X-JUL2LE















                            





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