Musical Recordings & Performances
The fifty three-voice fugues of Atalanta Fugiens — composed for Atalanta (soprano), Hippomenes (tenor), and the Golden Apple (cantus firmus) — represent the earliest known attempt to integrate musical composition into an alchemical emblem book.
Recordings
Ensemble Plus Ultra, dir. Michael Noone
“Maier: Atalanta Fugiens” — Complete cycle of all 50 fugues (~71 minutes). Claudio Records CR5468, issued 2011. Booklet notes by Joscelyn Godwin. Available on Apple Music, Spotify, and other streaming platforms. This is the standard modern recording and the most widely cited commercial release.
Joscelyn Godwin Edition Recording (1987)
The first complete recording of the fifty fugues, produced for Godwin's Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks edition. Performed by Rachel Platt, Emily Van Evera, Rufus Muller, and Richard Wistreich. Originally issued on cassette tape; later remastered and released on CD by Claudio Records. The Godwin edition (Phanes Press, 1989) includes modern notation that has been the basis for most subsequent performances and digital realizations.
Furnace and Fugue Vocal Recordings (2020)
Newly commissioned vocal recordings of all fifty fugues, produced for the Furnace and Fugue digital edition (Brown University / University of Virginia Press, 2020). Streamable emblem-by-emblem within the interactive edition. These recordings are integrated with high-resolution images and searchable text, allowing synchronized experience of Maier's multi-sensory program.
RIM c-Orchestra / David Kanaga (2021)
“Atalanta Fugiens 1–18” — Electronic and experimental re-imagining of fugues 1 through 18. Released via Bandcamp. A creative interpretation rather than a historically informed performance.
Camerata Mediolanense
Albums titled Atalanta Fugiens and Atalanta Fugiens (Deluxe Edition) — a free creative work inspired by Maier's themes rather than a direct realization of the 50 canons. Neo-medieval / dark ambient aesthetic.
Known Performances
International Conference on the History of Alchemy and Chymistry, Philadelphia (2006)
The conference “commenced with a performance of the early music ensemble Arcanum,” including three canons from Atalanta Fugiens, sung in Latin. Noted by Joscelyn Godwin as evidence that the work “is an obligatory inclusion at any alchemical musical recital.”
Les Canards Chantants (2014–present)
This vocal ensemble has performed and workshopped Atalanta Fugiens regularly since 2014, in collaboration with historians Donna Bilak and Tara Nummedal. Their lecture-performances include events at the Bard Graduate Center with performance demonstrations exploring the relationship between singing, seeing, and alchemical meditation.
MITO Festival (2020)
A performance project for the MITO SettembreMusica Festival, directed by Vanni Moretto. Documented in a four-video YouTube playlist titled “Atalanta Fugiens a MITO 2020.”
MIDI Files & Digital Realizations
Adam McLean’s Alchemy Website
The most comprehensive free source of MIDI files for Maier's fugues. The Atalanta Fugiens section includes downloadable MIDI realizations for a substantial subset of the 50 fugues, each with a “Save the MIDI file to your computer” link. McLean also hosts the hand-coloured emblem plates (1999) and the English translation from British Library MS Sloane 3645.
BitMidi / MidiCities
Individual fugue MIDI downloads available for selected fugues, including No. 22 and No. 33. Searchable by title on BitMidi.com and MidiCities.com.
Amaranth Publishing
Sells a notation and arrangement package of the Atalanta Fugiens with transcriptions. Useful as a source for creating custom MIDI realizations, though the files themselves are not free.
Video & Web Resources
Furnace and Fugue Digital Edition
furnaceandfugue.org — The born-digital scholarly edition by Donna Bilak and Tara Nummedal (University of Virginia Press, 2020). Features interactive synchronized text, image, and music for all 50 emblems. Winner of the 2022 Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Creativity in Digital History. Includes essays by Peter Forshaw on mytho-alchemy and Donna Bilak on steganography.
Peter Forshaw: “The Emblemata of the Atalanta Fugiens”
Infinite Fire Webinar II, Ritman Library / University of Amsterdam (November 2012). A detailed scholarly lecture walking through individual emblems, discussing mytho-alchemy, the quadrivium structure of each discourse, and Maier's relationship to the emblem tradition. Available on YouTube via the Embassy of the Free Mind channel.
“Singing Nature’s Secrets” Lecture
Public lecture with live performances exploring Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1618) and the Furnace and Fugue digital edition (2020). Available on the Furnace and Fugue YouTube channel.
MITO 2020 YouTube Playlist
“Atalanta Fugiens a MITO 2020” — Four-video playlist documenting Vanni Moretto's performance project for the MITO SettembreMusica Festival. Searchable on YouTube.
YouTube Coloured Prints with Instrumental Music
A full set of 50 emblems with accompanying instrumental versions of the music has been uploaded to YouTube. Individual emblem videos pair Adam McLean's coloured prints with instrumental realizations of the corresponding fugues.
Adam McLean's Alchemy Website
alchemywebsite.com/atalanta.html — The most comprehensive single web resource for Atalanta Fugiens outside of Furnace and Fugue. Hosts the English translation (from MS Sloane 3645, transcribed by Clay Holden, Hereward Tilton, and Peter Branwin), MIDI files, and hand-coloured plates.
Scholarly Writing on the Music
| Author | Work | Year | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joscelyn Godwin | Atalanta Fugiens: An Edition of the Fugues, Emblems, and Epigrams | 1987 | First modern musical edition with complete transcriptions and recording |
| Joscelyn Godwin | “Musical Alchemy: the Work of Composer and Listener” (Temenos) | 1985 | Theoretical foundations of Maier's musical-alchemical synthesis |
| Joscelyn Godwin | “A Background for Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens” (Hermetic Journal) | 1985 | Intellectual context for the musical emblem book |
| Douglas Leedy | Review of Godwin edition (Notes) | 1991 | Technical musicological assessment of the fugues' sophistication |
| C. Morris Wescott | “Atalanta Fugiens” (AthanorX) | n.d. | Modal-planetary correspondences; cantus firmus as structural anchor |
| Peter Forshaw | “Laboratorium, Auditorium, Oratorium” | n.d. | Alchemical music including Maier's fugues and Khunrath's songs |
| Johann F.W. Hasler | “Performative and Multimedia Aspects of Late-Renaissance Meditative Alchemy” | 2011 | AF as meditative practice; performance dimensions |
| Bilak & Nummedal (eds.) | Furnace and Fugue | 2020 | Digital edition with newly commissioned vocal recordings of all 50 fugues |
About the Fugues
Each of the fifty emblems includes a three-voice fugue (more precisely, a canon) composed for three vocal parts. The three voices represent the dramatis personae of the overarching Atalanta myth: Atalanta (the fleeing volatile principle, typically the soprano), Hippomenes (the pursuing fixed principle, typically the tenor), and the Golden Apple (the catalytic agent, as the cantus firmus or bass). C. Morris Wescott has demonstrated that Maier's modal choices — Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian — correspond to planetary associations that relate to the alchemical stages depicted in each emblem's plate. The cantus firmus derives from the liturgical chant tradition, and the canons employ archaic compositional techniques including retrograde motion and mensural manipulation. Forty of the fifty fugues have been identified as based on compositions by the Elizabethan composer John Farmer.
Nothing is known about Maier's ideas on how the fugues were to be performed in practice, though some scholars believe they served as auditory support during corresponding alchemical work in the laboratory. Since Maier served as counsellor to Rudolf II, it is possible that the music was performed at the imperial court. The subtitle of the work promises compositions “suitable for singing in couplets, to be looked at, read, meditated on, understood, weighed, sung, and listened to, not without a certain pleasure.”