Alchemy & Renaissance Bohemia

             In the past & recent year, I have devoted a significant amount of time & study to Alchemy & the "heavenly" cosmos.  Early on, I came across "Atalanta Fugiens" by Michael Maier & was very taken with it !  It's a book of images with composed, simple chamber music to accompany each image.  The book is a series of woodcuts of flat imagery with symbols from, or elements of the Great Work within it.  The music is made of fugues which are repetitious & overlapping, like in a round.  However, changes within the round to descending or ascending pitches of singing in different lines desolve in the rhythm.  The voices then meet again to sing together the final words of each line.
              
              I stumbled upon this excellent compilation of songs called "Renaissance Music in Bohemia" when googling the name of the performance group, "Ad Cameralis & Ad Vocem" & Atalanta Fugiens, in hopes of finding it's CD release.  I found this site: http://intoclassics.net/news/2011-06-24-23928 in czech and was stoked to find the link still in use.  I did all the leg work of transcribing the words in to the itunes format so I'm happy to present this as a gift for all readers:

http://www.mediafire.com/?2805fh83l24e5sg

http://www.mediafire.com/?bxbcf81lkreddpb

              

                  As you may have already seen this has a selection of Atalanta Fugiens on it, and I must say it is the very best I have been able to find.  I originally found it on youtube posted by user agir3 (much thanks to you).  I hope you enjoy the selections & the rest of the compilation !