A D_I U G U M_T A M E N
S U A V E_T R A N S E O
(M E L G A C I A N_V A R I A T I O N S
O N_ A_T H E M E_O F_O R F F)

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 22:27] 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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"´Experience first, then intellectualize. Elemental music is never just music. It’s bound up with movement, dance and speech, and so it is a form of music in which one must participate, in which one is involved not as a listener bust as a co-performer.´ (C.O.)

- i -

Carl Orff (10 July 1895 – 29 March 1982) was a German composer and music educator, best known for his Carmina Burana. The concepts of its Schulwerk were influential for children's music education.

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Carmina Burana is a cantata composed in 1935 and 1936, based on 24 poems from the homonym medieval collection. Its full Latin title is Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis (´Songs of Beuern: Secular songs for singers and choruses to be sung together with instruments and magical images´). It was first performed by the Oper Frankfurt on 8 June 1937. It is part of Trionfi, a musical triptych that also includes Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite. The first and last sections are called ´Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi´ (´Fortune, Empress of the World´) and start with ´O Fortuna´.

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´Featuring as the 21st song in the cycle, In Trutina was written for a love-stricken soprano who is wavering between wanton love and chastity. As a stand-alone work, In Trutina is a rather ambiguous piece for soprano and chamber ensemble. However, within the context of Carmina Burana, the true intentions of the singer become much clearer´, according to journalist Alex Burns.

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In music, Variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve melody, rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.

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Highlighting the original descant as a Universe unto Itself, the Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist Otacílio Melgaço engenders and reinforces a rather captivating paradox while, with maximum subtlety, stressing - ´menschlich, allzumenschlich´ - ambivalence in its Variations. As soon, a greater complexity & interpretive richness are maintained & expanded. He masterfully displaces such a seductive and also touching Opus into a distinctly sacred ambience.

>>I make a compressed personal statement: when Melgaço glimpses and, next, traverses liturgical horizons, he does so in a sublime, lofty, grand, unearthly mode that we are summoned to emanate (or give in to) a superhuman Silence. Not even our own breathing is heard when we break that boundary and, through the active, contempla(c)tive and rapturous might of that Music, everything is brought to light as what is beyond ourselves athwart the notes, chords, pauses, noises ... Sorry for the exegetical ´metaphysics´ but there is no other way to try to describe: it's about the believable as a reality of the waking that dematerializes before our ears and turns into (re)connections (re + ligare) with what we are yet to discover however coming from the suprareal: will make us uncover, stripping us of all veils.<<

Resuming InTrutinAriadne's thread: ... a distinctly sacral environment. In this sense, chasteness hovers. Yet Otacílio lets luxuriant Love run through every split second of his Oeuvre-in-ReCreation in sinuous suggestiveness, innuendo-in-arabesque. One of O.M.'s innovations: he proposes the simultaneity of an intersection among opposites. As we assume our contradictions and put them face to face and crisscross them, we are more suited to the contingencies of our earth-born condition, just as we are better grounded to perceive and conquer (worth the metaphor) ´a third bank of the river´.

In this metavers(i)o(n) there is no textuality. If there is an utterance, perchance it is that ... of Cherubs (unintelligible to mortals) or ... of Mermaids (if we, hypnotized, orbit around the - otherworldly / fathomless - introductory minutes) or ... of Beings (Living Souls) that dive into the voluptuous Abyss (either ascend towards ´Septimum Caelum´) of the most interpenetrating ´appassionato´ Feeling. There are no more possible words (not even in Latin), there is the SOUND - in awe-inspiring state of Grace - that translates the untranslatable, as a divine souffle. But, Ladies and Gentlemen, with immaculate concupiscence.

O Fortuna

Velut luna

Rota tu volubilis

Nunc per ludum

Dorsum nudum

Sors salutis!" (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"In trutina mentis dubia
fluctuant contraria
lascivus amor et pudicitia.
Sed eligo quod video,
collum iugo praebeo;
ad iugum tamen suave transeo.

[In the wavering balance of my feelings

Set against each other

Lascivious love and modesty

But I choose what I see

And submit my neck to the yoke;

I yield to the sweet yoke.]

How not to surrender to so incontournable V a r i a (c) t i o n s?

Quoting Carl Orff himself, 'Tell me, I forget, show me, I remember, involve me, I understand'. Otacílio has the proficiency (or the gift), at the same time, to show us and involve us, and more, go far beyond memories and understandings, Melgaço epiphanizes us!" (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - Variation form.

Although the first isolated example emerged in the 14th century, works in theme-and-variation form first emerge in the early sixteenth century. Possibly the earliest published example is the diferencias for vihuela by Luis de Narváez (1538). A favorite form of variations in Renaissance music was divisions, a type in which the basic rhythmic beat is successively divided into smaller and smaller values. The basic principle of beginning with simple variations and moving on to more elaborate ones has always been present in the history of the variation form, since it provides a way of giving an overall shape to a variation set, rather than letting it just form an arbitrary sequence.

Keyboard works in variation form were written by a number of 16th-century English composers, including William Byrd, Hugh Aston and Giles Farnaby. Outstanding examples of early Baroque variations are the "ciaccone" of Claudio Monteverdi and Heinrich Schütz. Two famous variation sets from the Baroque era, both originally written for harpsichord, are George Frideric Handel's The Harmonious Blacksmith set, and Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988.

In the Classical era, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote a great number of variations, such as the first movement of his Piano Sonata in A, K. 331, or the finale of his Clarinet Quintet. Joseph Haydn specialized in sets of double variations, in which two related themes, usually minor and major, are presented and then varied in alternation; outstanding examples are the slow movement of his Symphony No. 103, the Drumroll, and the Variations in F minor for piano, H XVII:6.

Ludwig van Beethoven wrote many variation sets in his career. Some were independent sets, for instance the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120, and the Eroica Variations in E♭ major, Op. 35. Others form single movements or parts of movements in larger works, such as first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 12, Op. 26, or the variations in the final movement of the Third Symphony (Eroica). Variation sets also occur in several of his late works, such as the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 12, Op. 127, the second movement of his final Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111, and the slow third movement of the Ninth Symphony, Op.125.

Franz Schubert wrote five variation sets using his own lieder as themes. Amongst them is the slow movement of his string quartet Death and the Maiden D. 810, an intense set of variations on his somber lied (D. 531) of the same title. Schubert's Piano Quintet in A (The Trout, D. 667) likewise includes variations on his song The Trout D. 550. The second movement of the Fantasie in C major comprises a set of variations on Der Wanderer; indeed the work as a whole takes its popular name from the lied.

In the Romantic era, the variation form was developed further. In 1824, Carl Czerny premiered his Variations for piano and orchestra on the Austrian National Hymn Gott erhalte Franz der Kaiser, Op. 73. Frédéric Chopin wrote four sets for solo piano, and also the Variations on "La ci darem la mano" from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, Op. 2, for piano and orchestra (1827). A further example of the form is Felix Mendelssohn's Variations sérieuses.

Johannes Brahms wrote a number of sets of variations; some of them rely on themes by older composers, for example the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel (1861; piano), and the Variations on a Theme by Haydn (1873; orchestra). The latter work is believed to be the first set of variations for orchestra alone that was a work in its own right, rather than part of a symphony, suite or other larger work. Karl Goldmark's Rustic Wedding Symphony (1875) starts out with a set of variations as its first movement. Antonín Dvořák's Symphonic Variations (1877) and Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations (1899) are other well-known examples. Anton Arensky's Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky (1894) is among his most popular compositions;

II - Variation sets have also been composed by notable twentieth-century composers, including

Sergei Rachmaninoff (Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for piano and orchestra, and his variations for solo piano on themes by Chopin and Corelli),
Charles Ives (Variations on "America", 1891),
Ernő Dohnányi (Variations on a Nursery Tune for piano and orchestra, Op. 25, 1914),
Arnold Schoenberg (Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31, and Theme and Variations, Opp. 43a and 43b),
Igor Stravinsky (Pulcinella: XV Gavotta con due variazioni, 1920; Octet: II Tema con variazioni, 1922; Ebony Concerto: III, 1945; and Variations: Aldous Huxley in memoriam, 1963–64),
Alban Berg (Act 1, Scene 4 and the beginning of Act 3 scene 1 of Wozzeck),
Olivier Messiaen (Thème et variations for violin and piano, 1932),
Miklós Rózsa, Theme, Variations, and Finale (1933),
George Gershwin (Variations on "I Got Rhythm" for piano and orchestra, 1934),
Anton Webern (Variations, Op. 27 for piano, and Variations, Op. 30 for orchestra),
Reinhold Glière (Harp Concerto in E♭: II, 1938),
Paul Hindemith (Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, 1943),
Benjamin Britten (including the Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, 1937, and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra [Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Purcell], 1946),
William Walton (second movement of the Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1947–49, and Variations on a Theme by Hindemith, 1963),
Leonard Bernstein (part 1 of his Symphony No. 2: The Age of Anxiety, 1949, is a Prologue and 14 variations),
Luigi Nono (Variazioni canoniche sulla serie dell'op. 41 di A. Schönberg, 1950),
John Cage, Variations I–VIII (1958–67), Hymns and Variations, for twelve amplified voices (1979),
Ben Johnston, String Quartet No. 4 "Ascent" (Variations on "Amazing Grace", 1973),
Frederic Rzewski, The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975),
Frans Geysen, De grote variatie for organ (1975),
Cristóbal Halffter, Variaciones sobre la resonancia de un grito, for 11 instruments, tape, and live electronics (1976–77),
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Variations for cello and rock band (1977),
Steve Reich (Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards, 1979),
John McGuire, Forty-eight Variations, for two pianos (1976–80), and
John Williams, Variations on "Happy Birthday" for orchestra (1995).
An unusual option was taken in 1952 with the Variations on an Elizabethan Theme, a set of six variations on Sellenger's Round for string orchestra, in which each variation was written by a different composer: Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Oldham, Humphrey Searle, Michael Tippett, and William Walton.

Graham Waterhouse composed a trio Gestural Variations in 1997 and Variations for Cello Solo in 2019, and Helmut Lachenmann composed a trio Sakura-Variationen on the Japanese song in 2000.

A significant sub-set of the above consists of variations on a theme by another composer;

III - Skilled musicians can often improvise variations on a theme. This was commonplace in the Baroque era, when the da capo aria, particularly when in slow tempo, required the singer to be able to improvise a variation during the return of the main material. During this period, according to Nicholas Cook, it was often the case that "responsibility for the most highly elaborated stage in the compositional process fell not upon the composer but upon the executant. In their instrumental sonatas composers like Corelli, Geminiani, and Handel sometimes supplied the performer with only the skeleton of the music that was to be played; the ornamentation, which contributes crucially to the music's effect, had to be provided by the performer." Cook cites Geminiani's elaboration of Corelli (see above) as an example of an instance "in which the composer, or a performer, wrote down a version of one of these movements as it was meant to be played."

Musicians of the Classical era also could improvise variations; both Mozart (see Mozart's compositional method) and Beethoven made powerful impressions on their audiences when they improvised. Modern listeners can get a sense of what these improvised variations sounded like by listening to published works that evidently are written transcriptions of improvised performances, in particular Beethoven's Fantasia in G Minor, Op. 77, and Mozart's Variations on an Aria by Gluck, K. 455.

Improvisation of elaborate variations on a popular theme is one of the core genres of jazz. According to William Austin, the practice of jazz musicians "resembles the variations on popular songs composed for the keyboard at the end of the 16th century by Byrd, Bull, Sweelinck and Frescobaldi, more than the cumulative variations of Beethoven and Brahms." Generally, the theme used is stated quite explicitly at the outset. However, some jazz musicians employ a more oblique approach. According to Gamble, "Charlie Parker's performance of Embraceable You can be appreciated fully only if we are familiar with the tune, for unlike many jazz performances in which the theme is stated at the beginning, followed by improvisations on the theme, Parker launches almost immediately into improvisation, stating only a fragment of the tune at the end of the piece." Coleman Hawkins' famous interpretation of "Body and Soul" shows a similar approach. "On 11 October 1939, Coleman Hawkins went into New York's RCA studios with an eight-piece band to record the 1930 composition Body and Soul. It was already a favourite among jazz musicians, but nobody had ever played it like this. Pianist Gene Rodgers plays a straight four-bar introduction before Hawkins swoops in, soloing for three minutes without playing a single note of the tune, gliding over the chord changes with such harmonic logic that he ends up inventing bebop."

Improvisation by means of spontaneous variations, ornaments, embellishments and/or alterations to a melody is the basis of most sub-Saharan African music (traditional and pop) extending from melody and harmony to form and rhythmic embellishments;

IV - classicalexburns.com/2019/08/14/carl-orff-in-trutina-to-love-or-not-to-love/

...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.