"The overall form of Transit is dictated by the texts and their order of presentation. Whilst each of them retains a large amount of internal self-sufficiency (each representing one type of transformation) taken together they collectively represent an open-ended progression from material transformation (represented by texts concerning transmutation by Paracelsus) via cosmological (Heraclitus on the perpetual dissolution and reconstitution of the universe through fire) to universal/mystical transformation (the teachings on the nature of eternity contained in the Corpus Hermeticum attributed to Hermes Trismegistus)." - Ferneyhough, source unknown.

"Transit was composed between 1972 and 1975 and reflects in its lengthy period of gestation the slow development and musical realisation of an idea which I had carried round with me for several years - that of trying to redefine common ground linking the arts with other fields in a manner rising above the tastefully descriptive..... The starting point for my work on this composition was an anonymous woodcut depicting a renaissance magus in the act of penetrating the last sphere separating the mortal from the divine, the contingent from the absolute." - Ferneyhough.
(Woodcut shown below).

Available here along with his other works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGFHH2YW...Y&index=19

   

Contemporary Neoclassical Music by Anna Bondareva - Allure, Pt.4: I. Alchemical Dream, II. Nigredo, III. Astra Mortem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84fXK7kY-2M

https://annabondareva.com/

   

https://www.symbols.com/category/9/Alchemical+Symbols

Chemical Analyses Find Hidden Elements From Renaissance Astronomer Tycho Brahe’s Alchemy Laboratory 

"In the Middle Ages, alchemists were notoriously secretive and didn’t share their knowledge with others. Danish Tycho Brahe was no exception. Consequently, we don’t know precisely what he did in the alchemical laboratory located beneath his combined residence and observatory, Uraniborg, on the now Swedish island of Ven. Only a few of his alchemical recipes have survived, and today, there are very few remnants of his laboratory. Uraniborg was demolished after his death in 1601, and the building materials were scattered for reuse."

https://www.eurasiareview.com/25072024-c...aboratory/

&

https://heritagesciencejournal.springero...24-01301-6

"Since 1971, we have been specializing in antiquarian, secondhand, and rare books (sixteenth to twenty-first century) as well as a large selection of esoteric publications."

https://www.jdholmes.com/

https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/54737/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mRcPHuto9A&t=2055s


https://rolfwallin.org/

By Peter Maxwell Davies.

"The title refers to the alchemical process of ‘whitening’ ‘by which a base metal may be transformed into gold, and by extension, to the purification of the human soul.’ This is an interesting piece, which uses the magic square of mercury as its most fundamental compositional structure."

https://larkfall.wordpress.com/2017/01/2...e-of-fire/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzJlMQc02jM

"In an address to Maximilian II, which prefaces his Monas Hieroglyphica (1564), John Dee emphasises that the Monad is not only an alchemical device, but a universal one, with the potential to revolutionise all the arts and sciences. Amongst the examples given are applications to geography, astronomy and music, of which Dee writes:

“How justly may the musician be struck with wonder when here he will perceive inexplicable, celestial harmonies without any movement and sound.” (Josten 1964, 130-1)."

https://larkfall.wordpress.com/2017/01/2...e-of-fire/

Premiered at the Tangeman Sacred Concert in Cincinnati, Ohio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL42D9vPn8o