A k h e n a t o n S y m p h o n y
O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o
I Adagietto con cosmogonico Spiritu
II Moderato con insolito Brio
III Adagio con Infinitudine (sidereo-solare)
IV Andante Moderato con Metafisica - Finale (cerimonialistico-maestoso)
[duration 36:18] all rights reserved
Contemporary Classical Piece dedicated to the
Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt
A k h e n a t o n
(also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaten, Ikhnaton and Khuenaten; meaning "Effective for Aten") known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV (sometimes given its Greek form, Amenophis IV, and meaning Amun is Satisfied)
The symphonyc Melgacian Opus embraces their Life and Work
A.S. in tribute to Herman Poole Blount, legal name Le Sony'r Ra:
S u n R a
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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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"´Pharaoh Akhenaton was known as the Heretic King. It was said that one day Akhenaton had a vision wherein he saw a sun disc between two mountains. He felt that God was guiding him to make change. He was shown the God, Aten, as the Sun Disk - the Light.´ I could use the same words to describe this extraordinary creation of Melgaço!
Post Scriptum - Among others, pianist Glenn Gould became a great admirer of Fartein Valen - Norwegian composer and music theorist -, and said at the recording of Valen's Piano Sonata no. 2, ´For the first time in many years I have found a looming personality in the 20th-century's music.´
In paraphrase, here´s my verdict: For the first time in many years I have found a looming personality in the 21th-century's music. Otacílio Melgaço." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)
"O.M. owns an idiosyncratic Style and some evidence of this can be fascinatingly detectable. Immanence and transcendence in Style. His orchestral body of colossal nature; labyrinthic inventiveness in using various instruments and their cosmopolitan timbres; cadences that surprise us in unpredictability; compositional intervention through iconoclastic, unimaginable mixes; universal and timeless themes; (...) Music revealed in all their breadth and depth; the Art that pierces time and space. The Great Hymn to the Aten is the longest form of one of a number of hymn-poems written to the creator god Aten and attributed to King Akhenaton who radically changed traditional forms of Egyptian religion replacing them with Atenism. The hymn-poem provides a glimpse of the religious artistry of the Amarna period expressed in multiple forms encompassing literature, new temples, and in the building of a whole new city at the site of present day Amarna as the capital of Egypt. Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson said that ´It has been called 'one of the most significant and splendid pieces of poetry to survive from the pre-Homeric world.' Egyptologist John Darnell asserts that the hymn was sung.´ Excerpts: ´O sole god, like whom there is no other! Thou didst create the world according to thy desire, Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts, Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet, And what is on high, flying with its wings. (...) All Eyes are on your beauty until you set.´ Through ´Akhenaton Symphony´, all Ears also." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)
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I - Historian James Henry Breasted considered Akhenaton to be “the first individual in history,” as well as the first monotheist, romantic, and scientist.
He is especially noted for abandoning traditional Egyptian polytheism and introducing worship centered on the Aten, which is sometimes described as monotheistic or henotheistic. An early inscription likens the Aten to the sun as compared to stars, and later official language avoids calling the Aten a god, giving the solar deity a status above mere gods.
Styles of art that flourished during this short period are markedly different from other Egyptian art. In some cases, representations are more naturalistic, especially in depictions of animals and plants, of commoners, and in a sense of action and movement—for both nonroyal and royal people. However, depictions of members of the court, especially members of the royal family, are extremely stylized, with elongated heads, protruding stomachs, heavy hips, thin arms and legs, and exaggerated facial features. Significantly, and for the only time in the history of Egyptian royal art, Akhenaton's family are shown taking part in decidedly naturalistic activities, showing affection for each other, and being caught in mid-action (in traditional art, a pharaoh's divine nature was expressed by repose, even immobility). The depictions of action may correspond to the emphasis on the active, creative nurturing of the Aten emphasized in the "Great Hymn to the Aten" and elsewhere.
II - On day 13, Month 8, in the fifth year of his reign, the king arrived at the site of the new city Akhetaten (now known as Amarna). A month before that Amenhotep IV had officially changed his name to Akhenaton. Amenhotep IV changed most of his 5 fold titulary in year 5 of his reign. The only name he kept was his prenomen or throne name.
A m e n h o t e p I V
Horus name: Kanakht-qai-Shuti "Strong Bull of the Double Plumes"
| Nebty name: Wer-nesut-em-Ipet-swt "Great of Kingship in Karnak"
| Golden Horus name: Wetjes-khau-em-Iunu-Shemay "Crowned in Heliopolis of the South" (Thebes) | Prenomen: Neferkheperure-waenre "Beautiful are the Forms of Re, the Unique one of Re" | Nomen: Amenhotep Netjer-Heqa-Waset "Amenhotep god-ruler of Thebes"
A k h e n a t o n
Horus name: Meryaten "Strong Bull, Beloved of Aten" | Nebty name: Wer-nesut-em-Akhetaten "Great of Kingship in Akhet-Aten" | Golden Horus name: Wetjes-ren-en-Aten "Exalter of the Name of Aten" | Prenomen: Neferkheperure-waenre | Nomen: Akhenaton "Effective for the Aten"
III - Akhenaton changed thousands of years of art in Egypt. Gone were the images of Amun and the other gods of Egypt, now replaced by Aten, the solar disc. When Akhenaton built his monuments with images of the Pharaoh, he moved away from the traditions of a strong, handsome muscular Pharaoh. Images of Pharaohs with idealized bodies were gone. The Pharaoh was shown as misshapen as was his wife Nefertiti. It became fashionable to show images of the entire royal family with elongated heads, faces, fingers, toes, wide hips, This gave the artists of Amarna new freedom to show scenes of the real life of the Pharaoh, something that had never been done before. The temple was covered with scenes of the Aten, the sun disc with its rays shining down, ending in hands holding ankhs, the hieroglyph for life. The people wondered why the images of the other Gods where not represented.
The priests worried about the God Amun and the fact that the 'Rebel Pharaoh' had declared their god extinct and deserted the religious capitol of Egypt. Gone were the royal offerings. The resources of Egypt were flowing out of the established cities of Egypt and into the desert. People who earned their livings based on the old religions - wood carvers, scarab makers, and others were out of business. The people worried about their afterlife and what would happen now that they were not worshipping the traditional Gods. All of the old belief systems into the next world were discarded. The vision of the afterlife changed.
The idea of Akhenaton as the pioneer of a monotheistic religion that later became Judaism was promoted by Sigmund Freud in his book Moses and Monotheism and thereby entered popular consciousness. Freud argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhenaton's death. Freud argued that Akhenaton was striving to promote monotheism, something that the biblical Moses was able to achieve. Following his book, the concept entered popular consciousness and serious research.
With a belief in monotheism, several researchers believe Sigmund Freud was also Moses, Akhenaton and Zoroaster. That cannot be proven.
...for purposes of pragmatism and clear exegesis,
Wikipedia was the main 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.
