A г и т п р о п S i n f o n i e t t a

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 15:15] all rights reserved

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The artist Otacílio Melgaço has two official curators in the virtual world. A curator (from Latin: ´curare´, meaning ´to take care´) is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, library or, as the present case: sound archive) is a content specialist charged with an institution's collections and, highlighting the context in force here, involved with the interpretation of personal (heritage) material. Both, Mr. Paz and Mr. Campbell, are, therefore, reviewers of the Melgacian works. To learn more about their missions, tasks, assignments and responsibilities by means of valuable informations regarding the compositional process, the performative rhizomes and other special features, just click the following link: otaciliomelgaco.wixsite.com/preamblebypsp
(O.M.Team; P r e l u d e)

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"´I shake the world with the might of my voice,
and walk – handsome.

If you wish,
Not a man, but a cloud in trousers!

Hey, you!
Heaven!
I am coming!

Not a sound.

The universe sleeps,
its huge paw curled
upon a star-infested ear.´ (Vladimir Mayakovsky)

Agitprop (from Russian: агитпроп, portmanteau of ´agitation´ and ´propaganda´) is political propaganda, especially the communist one used in Soviet Russia, that´s spread to the general public through popular media such as literature, plays, pamphlets, films, and other art forms with an explicitly political message. In the Western world, agitprop often has a negative connotation.

I glimpse, more immediately, two approaches that Otacílio Melgaço accomplishes through this Sinfonietta:

Thinking about contemporaneity, it alludes to the role that Russia today represents for the planet. Since the likely influence in the recent presidential elections in the USA and lately in the campaign for the chair but in France until what´s the ´model of nation´ that such country (politically, diplomatically ...) propagates for the world. Such a critical judgment is open to all of you who will hear the sound Piece and who are or intend to be conscious planetary citizens, averse to alienation and with independent thoughts, free spirits. Apropos, more and more this concept, agitprop, goes beyond its ´red´ historicity nowadays and is present in the daily life of several states (Eastern and Western) through heterodox forms. Just see how Donald J. Trump uses the Twitter, for example.

Another perspective is exclusively artistic. Although there´s a clear clue that puts into view the issue of the politicization of artists. It would be something indispensable or not, what kind of posture are we talking about and so on. If a ´pamphlet art´ tends to be ridiculous because precisely tendentious and even blind spot (thus ideologies trivialize, imbecilize and impoverish the cultural genesis), can independent-minded acting be an element of breeding in an interesting way? I believe that yes, as an object of reflections, awarenesses; signs against lethargy or subservience. I, especially in the cultural case, believe that yes ... if art occupies the forefront and isn´t shaped by unilateralist (forced) political positions (or of lobotomized engagement). On the contrary, I mean the Artist (with a capital ´A´) assuming part of his responsibility (the word ´responsibility´ might seem a bit austere, I would suggest ´citizenship´ or ´humanism´) to mandkind as a person who treasures ethical principles that must be dialogued, debated; never muted or muzzled. Ideal cradle for dignified, liberating, ascensional attitudes, do you agree?

Resuming the thread of the skein, ... exclusively artistic ... if we remember the legacy left by wonderful musicians, poets, novelists, painters, graphic designers, playwrights, actors, choreographers, dancers, filmmakers ... that the former Soviet Russia bequeathed us.
I´m sure that O.M., always provocatively paradoxical, also strips the art of a political (in the sense of ´doctrinal´) shroud. In this manner, agitprop comes to be melgacianly decoded as the creative and constructive means that artists themselves possess to establish bridges between offspring and the audience. And how Agit(ation) and Prop(aganda) - here without the persuasive pejorativeness - can - materially or in act - be works of Art. Or should. As ´Aгитпроп Sinfonietta´ does not cease to be, inter alia." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

"A sinfonietta is a symphony that is smaller in scale or lighter in approach than a standard symphony. Although of Italian form, the word is not genuine in that language and has seldom been used by Italian composers. It appears to have been coined in 1874 by Joachim Raff for his Op. 188, but became common usage only in the early 20th century.

Smaller but not lighter, rather heavy is the focused composition. With extraordinary condensation power, Mr. Melgaço elevates to the pinnacles the expressive and expressionist capacity of an orchestral corporeity as a sonic mass, a wall of sound. Added to that, electronic elements and exciting effects. I have the impression that the Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist manipulates, handles music like a sculptor in front of clay and marble at the same time. Auguste Rodin once said ´The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation´. For him - Otacílio - and (there isn´t the slightest doubt) for us, ´Aгитпроп (Agitprop) Sinfonietta´, Ladies and Gentlemen, is absolutely incendiary." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

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I - The term Agitprop originated in Soviet Russia as a shortened name for the Department for Agitation and Propaganda (отдел агитации и пропаганды, otdel agitatsii i propagandy), which was part of the central and regional committees of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The department was later renamed Ideological Department. Typically Russian agitprop explained of the policies of the Communist Party and persuaded the general public to share its values and goals. In other contexts, propaganda could mean dissemination of any kind of beneficial knowledge, e.g., of new methods in agriculture. After the October Revolution of 1917, an agitprop train toured the country, with artists and actors performing simple plays and broadcasting propaganda. It had a printing press on board the train to allow posters to be reproduced and thrown out of the windows if it passed through villages.

It gave rise to agitprop theatre, a highly politicized left-wing theatre that originated in 1920s Europe and spread to the United States; the plays of Bertolt Brecht are a notable example. Russian agitprop theater was noted for its cardboard characters of perfect virtue and complete evil, and its coarse ridicule. Gradually the term agitprop came to describe any kind of highly politicized art;

II - Two suggested Sinfoniette:

Heitor Villa-Lobos's Sinfonietta No. 1 (1916) and Sinfonietta No. 2 (1947)

Astor Piazzolla's Sinfonietta for chamber orchestra, Op. 19

...for purposes of pragmatism and clear exegesis,
quotes have Wikipedia as a source...

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Between two parentheses...
(Atonalism, Twelve-Tone, Serialism, Musique Concrète... Acousmatic. Eletroacoustic. Magnetic Tape. Expressionism, New Objectivity, Hyperrealism, Abstractionism, Neoclassicism, Neobarbarism, Futurism, Mythic Method. Electronic...Computer Music, Spectral, Polystylism, Neoromanticism, Minimalism and Post-Minimalism...are addressed by Melgaço. Paradoxically New Simplicity and New Complexity also.
Art Rock, Free Jazz, Ethnic Dialects, Street Sounds are occasional syntax elements.
All the possibilities mentioned above and others that were not mentioned are the usual accoutrements of the composer/instrumentalist to establish his ´babelic´ glossary. We can prove this in a short passage of a single composition up along the entirety of a conceptual phonograph album. All distributed over a career and idiosyncratic records. Have we a universe before us and I propose to see it through a telescope, not a microscope.
I propose not handle very specialized topics here. Otherwise would be, with the exception of musicians and scholars, all hostages of a hermetic jargon. Because more important is to present Otacílio Melgaço to the general public and not to a segment of specialists. Faction of experts not need presentations, depart for the enjoyment beforehand. For this reason there is no niche here for intellectual onanism and encrypted musical terminology. The reason for these parentheses is to establish such elucidation. The non-adoption of technicalities leads to more panoramic, amplifier reviews. Are You always welcome. Those who do not dominate contemporary music and are introduced to the world of ubiquitous O.M. [autodidact and independent artist who, being more specific, does not belong to schools or doctrines; artist who makes Music and that´s enough; music devoid of labels or stylistic, chronological, historical paradigms or trends] and Those who belong to the métier and turn to enjoy propositions they know and also delving into advanced Melgacian sound cosmogonies...
I conclude poetically. ´Certeza/Certainty´ by Octavio Paz. ´Si es real la luz blanca De esta lámpara, real La mano que escribe, ¿son reales
Los ojos que miran lo escrito? De una palabra a la otra Lo que digo se desvanece. Yo sé que estoy vivo Entre dos paréntesis.´ If it is real the white light from this lamp, real the writing hand, are they real, the eyes looking at what I write? From one word to the other what I say vanishes. I know that I am alive between two parentheses.
We´re all more and more a-l-i-v-e now.)
- P.S.P.