B e e t h o v e n s T a u b h e i t
O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o
[duration 03:41:25] 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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"The monumentality of this Work is indescribable! The numinous enchantment with which the strings were created, instrumentalized, extended, overlapped - I would say - 'above time and space': a preterhuman beauty, a slashing capacity of extraordinary overjoy.
'Beethovens Taubheit' means 'Beethoven's deafness'.
Is not exactly feasible describe an epiphany - I repeat -, but
1- The subject is fascinating [Another splendid Melgacian insight; a theme replete with metaphorical possibilities. Since an epicenter that is the intrinsic/vital/inevitable eclipse between Sound (including under the musical complexion) and Silence - throughout physiological, philosophical, mystical ... polysemy - until an approach about the disease itself that Ludwig suffered and how as well mythologically an aesthetic rereading/reinterpretation can currently be made (the Tragedy of a musician who loses its most precious artistry: the capability to make use of his ears! Ergo we're facing an archetypal harrowing Drama and how Ludwig van Beethoven reacted: on the one hand, humanly; on the other, as a creator - videlicet: becoming a even more differentiated creator!)];
2- The decoding towards the resonant territoriality is impeccable [There are aspects (from fabulous conceptions up to semiotic minutiae) that refer to O.M.'s genius, I will point to a triad of several: i- If the deafness makes us glimpse the non-sound, along all the vast tracks, impressively there is no at least a single pause! (except, sure, the inaudible apotheotic denouement); ii- The entire sequence appears to be a description of the gradual deafening and Melgaço interferes in our auditory acuity to highlight it - through crescent sonic filters; iii- Beethoven died at the age of 57; the duration of the fifth part, the crowning: 5 minutes and 7 seconds!
As a sui generis appendix, I would draw attention to the scarlet visual art. The cover seen in small proportion and more distantly, suggests a landscape. As we approach and measures are extended, we're facing the bust of Beethoven. Approaching or moving away from, the result is, in my opinion, magical and very symbolic. But why red? This brings me to Ingmar Bergman. As once said Acquarello, 'Cries and Whispers' is a remarkable film of intoxicating beauty and extraordinary depth. The color red, featured prominently in the film (as in Krzysztof Kieslowski's 'Red') is used to create a multifaceted visual theme. The effect is one of immersion: a soul foundering in the corporal life blood, a stifling, forced intimacy arising from absence and isolation, and a body slowly consumed by illness. I believe this was the Melgacian hypnotic prospect.];
3- The performance is touching [A Piece that requires a Herculean concentration, certainly something very close to what Otacílio usually call 'Sphinxian State of Trance'. A mix of focus and abstraction, rigorous involvement and physical extrication, abysmal density and luminous lightness. Apropos, do the translation, ladies and gentlemen, of the effulgent five titles and you'll find a transcendent poetic essentiality - to be under the wings of Silence: It would be hear the Light? (The Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist asks us - or rather, most likely he answers!)].
Just like in exclamatory Wagnerian words: 'I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired.'
Überm Sternenzelt dort oben!" (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)
"Unsophismable, we witness a deafening Chef d'oeuvre!
There are some quotations made by the German music icon - born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire - that here O.M. proves ecstatically, rapturously:
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy;
Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life;
Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken;
Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine;
However ... Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?
Contemporaneously I know with whom. His name is Otacílio Melgaço." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)
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I - Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies, 5 concertos for piano, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, and 16 string quartets. He also composed other chamber music, choral works (including the celebrated Missa solemnis), and songs;
II - Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by Christian Gottlob Neefe. During his first 22 years in Bonn, Beethoven intended to study with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and befriended Joseph Haydn. Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792 and began studying with Haydn, quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death;
III - Around 1796, by the age of 26, Beethoven began to lose his hearing. He suffered from a severe form of tinnitus, a "ringing" in his ears that made it hard for him to hear music; he also tried to avoid conversations. The cause of Beethoven's deafness is unknown, but it has variously been attributed to typhus, auto-immune disorders (such as systemic lupus erythematosus), and even his habit of immersing his head in cold water to stay awake. The explanation from Beethoven's autopsy was that he had a "distended inner ear," which developed lesions over time.
As early as 1801, Beethoven wrote to friends describing his symptoms and the difficulties they caused in both professional and social settings (although it is likely some of his close friends were already aware of the problems). Beethoven, on the advice of his doctor, lived in the small Austrian town of Heiligenstadt, just outside Vienna, from April to October 1802 in an attempt to come to terms with his condition. There he wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter to his brothers which records his thoughts of suicide due to his growing deafness and records his resolution to continue living for and through his art. Over time, his hearing loss became profound: at the end of the premiere of his Ninth Symphony in 1824, he had to be turned around to see the tumultuous applause of the audience because he could hear neither it nor the orchestra. Beethoven's hearing loss did not prevent him from composing music, but it made playing at concerts—a lucrative source of income—increasingly difficult. After a failed attempt in 1811 to perform his own Piano Concerto No. 5 (the "Emperor"), which was premiered by his student Carl Czerny, he never performed in public again until he conducted the Ninth Symphony in 1824.
A large collection of Beethoven's hearing aids, such as a special ear horn, can be viewed at the Beethoven House Museum in Bonn, Germany. Despite his obvious distress, Czerny remarked that Beethoven could still hear speech and music normally until 1812. Around 1814 however, by the age of 44, Beethoven was almost totally deaf, and when a group of visitors saw him play a loud arpeggio of thundering bass notes at his piano remarking, "Ist es nicht schön?" (Is it not beautiful?), they felt deep sympathy considering his courage and sense of humor (he lost the ability to hear higher frequencies first).
As a result of Beethoven's hearing loss, his conversation books are an unusually rich written resource. Used primarily in the last ten or so years of his life, his friends wrote in these books so that he could know what they were saying, and he then responded either orally or in the book. The books contain discussions about music and other matters, and give insights into Beethoven's thinking; they are a source for investigations into how he intended his music should be performed, and also his perception of his relationship to art. Out of a total of 400 conversation books, it has been suggested that 264 were destroyed (and others were altered) after Beethoven's death by Anton Schindler, who wished only an idealised biography of the composer to survive. However, Theodore Albrecht contests the verity of Schindler's destruction of a large number of conversation books.
...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.
