The Wimshurst's Machine: Music

• MP3 short clip, hi-fi play (broadband)
• MP3 short clip, lo-fi play (modem)

When we started to work on our new album, this track came out as first and was completed as last. Lots of acoustic and electronic instruments, it was so full that it required lot of work and care. When we wrote this song, we thought to make an opening track for a suite of 8 tracks ("The Alchemist", call it "title track... ehm... title suite, since it gives the title to the entire album), so we needed also a long intro, who had to be the intro for this track but set the mood for the whole suite, and since the suite becomes dark and moody along with the story it tells, we needed a fresh start, like the sun before the storm it strikes. So we did try to put a bit of latin flavors and the "alchemic laboratory sounds" you may hear at the start and at the end of the song represents the alchemist's lab. The story will be published in the inlay card of the CD (if I can make a good translation in time) and maybe also published here in the "Lyrics" section of each of the songs of the suite.

THE ALCHEMIST
modern suite in 8 parts
1-Intro: the call of adventure
2-Philosopher's stone
3-Intermezzo: captured
4-Prisoner
5-Meditations
6-Intermezzo: the torture machine
7-Torquemada
8-The Escape (Finale)

THE TELL TALE BEHIND THE TRACK
(Italian after English):
THE ALCHEMIST
original story wrote by Duilio Chiarle
translation by Fabrizio B. Maracich

I) - INTRO: THE CALL OF ADVENTURE
Alchemy is the forerunner of modern chemistry, this is certain, but not only that. Alchemy is science and more, is research in a spiritual dimension. Sometimes it enters the realms of magic. To be an alchemist a wide range of knowledge was required: theology, ancient tomes and exotic languages, such as Arabian, Greek, Latin and Hebraic.
The knowledge of so many things and so many strange languages was quite often considered a sign of sorcery. Almost every time the word went off about a sorcerer the religious authorities sought after the suspected wizard, pursue him or her because they didn’t understand their purpose and methods. Alchemy was a dangerous science, for the distinction between science and sorcery were not very clear as in the third millennium. Science, as well as sorcery was considered dangerous businesses. To be an alchemist was a great adventure, but a risky one.
The man we are talking about was one of them…
The legend says that a mysterious alchemist moved to Spain in a time in which the conquer was not yet completed. In these times the country was permeated by different cultures, with an intellectual symbiosis among the academic community.
Ferdinando De Aragona and Isabela De Castilla made a decision to take care of the people instead of having a intellectual elite: elites, they know, were prone to made their government unstable.
A Master Inquisitor of Spain Territories was then named shortly afterward: he was their Father Confessor Tomàs de Torquemada, Prior of the Santa Cruz monastery. They assigned to him the task to give the Spain one people, one language and one religion.. The Pope himself granted to Tomàs the title of Grand Inquisitor, a role that he fulfilled with great fervor. History witnesses the results of his work. Before the departure of Columbus to discover the New World he reached is aim. In less than 20 years Spain has been completely changed.
Nobody can say where the alchemist come from, or who he was. Somebody said he came from Turin, others said, erroneously, that he was Nostradamus.
Unfortunately the traces found in the documents written during the Holy Inquisition reveals only a report of an interrogation, but then the name and fate of the alchemist are omitted, and lost.
But we know the legend and something can be added to the story.
And when history does not allow us to go further, the legend, the voice of the people coming from the past centuries, the word that passes from father to son will help us to clear the mist that the time has put on the event.
But a veil of uncertainty remains, and we can't remove it, nor we want to do that. We can only bring you along, driving you to taste the flavor of his great adventure: the alchemist's adventure.
Imagine his face, in the pale light of a candle, surrounded by boiling chemicals in strange, dark room…



L'ALCHIMISTA
storia originale di Duilio Chiarle

I) - IL FASCINO DELL'AVVENTURA
L’alchimia è anche l'antenato della chimica moderna. Anche. Ma non soltanto. Alchimia non è solo scienza. E' anche ricerca di una dimensione spirituale; a tratti confina con la magia. Essere alchimista richiedeva conoscenze molto vaste: teologia, conoscenza dei trattati antichi e di tante lingue: arabo, greco, latino, ebraico. Conoscere tante cose e certe lingue misteriose era sovente considerato segno di stregoneria. Spesso, le autorità religiose hanno perseguitato questi bizzarri scienziati dei quali non comprendevano gli scopi ed i metodi. E così si trattava certamente di una scienza difficile e pericolosa. Il confine tra scienza e magia non era così distinto come nel terzo millennio e a quel tempo la magia era considerata molto più pericolosa. Fare l'alchimista era una grande avventura. Un'avventura rischiosa. E l'uomo di cui narriamo la storia, era uno di loro...
Narra una leggenda popolare che un misterioso alchimista si fosse trasferito in Spagna, al tempo in cui la “reconquista” non era ancora stata ultimata. A quel tempo, in quel paese, cultura latina, ebraica ed araba vivevano una simbiosi negli intellettuali e negli studiosi. Si potevano trovare manoscritti rari di ogni genere e lingua e molte culture convivevano senza fondersi scambiandosi le conoscenze, ma non formavano certo un popolo omogeneo. E così, Ferdinando d’Aragona ed Isabella di Castiglia decisero che era meglio un popolo unito di una cultura importante; dovettero scegliere tra un popolo ed una elite. E, si sa, le elite non danno mai un governo stabile. Nominarono così un “Primo Inquisitore Generale dei territori di Spagna”: questi era il loro padre confessore Tomàs de Torquemada, Priore del Monastero di Santa Cruz, e gli diedero il compito di dare alla Spagna un solo popolo, una sola lingua ed una sola religione. Il Papa stesso lo nominò “Grande Inquisitore” ed egli svolse il suo compito con zelo. E come la storia testimonia, raggiunse il suo scopo alla partenza di Colombo per il nuovo mondo. In meno di vent’anni, la Spagna era totalmente diversa.
Nessuno può dire da dove venisse l’alchimista, chi fosse. C’è chi dice che venisse da Torino, chi lo confonde erroneamente con Nostradamus. Purtroppo le tracce dei verbali della Santa Inquisizione giungono all’interrogatorio e poi si fermano misteriosamente e ne omettono persino il nome e la sorte. Ma noi che ne conosciamo la leggenda, possiamo dirvi di più. E dove la storia non ci permette di andare oltre, la leggenda, la voce della gente dei secoli andati, il passaparola di padre in figlio e di figlio in nipote e da questo ai discendenti ci aiuta a diradare quelle brume che i secoli hanno steso sulla sua vicenda. Ma rimane un velo di nebbia che non possiamo e non vogliamo togliere. Noi possiamo soltanto condurvi per mano ad assaporare il fascino della sua grande avventura: l’avventura dell’alchimista. E tra il ribollire delle ampolle immaginiamo il suo volto...