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C о н я ш н и к и (Recitative for Lista) {Otac​í​lio Melga​ç​o} [duration 36​:​36]

by Otacílio Melgaço

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about

C о н я ш н и к и

R e c i t a t i v e
F o r
L i s t a

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 36:36] 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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"Traditionally recitative (also known by its Italian name ´recitativo´) is a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech. The mostly syllabic recitativo secco (´dry´, accompanied only by continuo) is at one end of a spectrum through recitativo accompagnato (using orchestra), the more melismatic arioso, and finally the full-blown aria or ensemble, where the pulse is entirely governed by the music. Recitative does not repeat lines as formally composed songs do. It resembles sung ordinary speech more than a formal musical composition. The term recitative (or occasionally liturgical recitative) is also applied to the simpler formulas of Gregorian chant, such as the tones used for the Epistle and Gospel, preface and collects.

Focusing on use of the voice, Otacílio Melgaço does not establish a middle ground between singing and speech, he opts for pure recitation (I would say, in paradoxical quintessential audible Soliloquy) and so gives full emphasis to the poetic substantiality of orality.

A recitation in a general sense is the act of reciting from memory, or a formal reading of verse or other writing before an audience. It was often popular for a poet himself to recite his poetry to an audience, and in the early twentieth century recitation developed into an autonomous art form. As a performing art. This is one of the peculiar dimensions of ´Cоняшники`.

Instrumentally, quite Melgacian, this prosodic Piece mixes secco and stromentato spectra. Sometimes the orchestral performance is minimal, creating a sufficient sound atmosphere. Without spaciality for the superfluous as if we were in a protracted time tunnel. Sometimes musical paraphernalia make parallel interventions, or as if ´comments´ or like generating ´sustainable ornaments´ for voice (dynamic nature, nunces of coloraturas, advanced/elaborated contrasts etc).

Regarding a compact resonant corpus like this, a cordial alert: if you think you hear a fragment - it´s enough, will be making a self-deception. ´Recitative for Lista´ is almost a kind of Mantra. Just as before the highest Art, you must live the whole experience to be able to truly grasp. Or understand, or feel, or intuit, ... , or metabolize in a way that will be authentically yours.

´You may know that the peony is Jeannin's, the hollyhock belongs to Quost, but the sunflower is mine in a way.´ (Vincent van Gogh to Theo)
If the ´sunflower belonged to the Dutch painter´, I will be categorical in proclaiming: Otacílio recitingly poeticizes the potentiality&potency that ´We belong to Music´ in every way." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"´Cоняшники´ denotes ´Sunflowers´ in Ukrainian.

It´s a magnetizing work dedicated to a cinematographic character. Played by an actress who have Ukrainian descent, and it´s also a tribute to Taras Shevchenko, the greatest man of letters in that country (plus, as it could not be otherwise, with Melgaço pointing a spotlight on all that happens contemporaneously there, everyone knows what I mean).

Laryssa Lauret. Her most notable film role was for ´Everything Is Illuminated´ as L-i-s-t-a. And certainly this was the trigger for the Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist surrender her. Sunflowers are indefectible trace because Lista lived in a house - in the countryside - surrounded by such mesmerizing flowers. The fascination caused by character will always remain in our conjecture. However, the beauteous Lauret, in this pellicle, is an avatar of Memory; a guardian of the Time - despite being or precisely because she´s so timeless. I venture to say that this was the genesis of sonic homage that O.M. brought to light.

And speaking about going to the meeting of light, in Shevchenko's Last Poem we read the following excerpt:
´We would create, reclining there,
An epic, soaring everywhere
Above the earth, hexameters
We'd twine. (...) Then we
Would sing prose, yet with harmony
And not haphazard.´ It could be a premonitory epigraph for ´Cоняшники´! And as an epilogue, it´s true: everything is brilliantly illuminated by the solar iridescent sonorities of these Melgacian Helianthuses." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - Laryssa Lauret (born August 9, 1939) is an American actress of Ukrainian descent. She has worked on Broadway and off Broadway as well as in television in long running roles, such as Dr. Karen Werner in The Doctors and for one season of The Guiding Light as Simone Morey;

II - Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko (1814 – 1861) was a Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, as well as folklorist and ethnographer. His literary heritage is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and, to a large extent, the modern Ukrainian language. Shevchenko is also known for many masterpieces as a painter and an illustrator. He was a member of the Sts Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood and an academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts. In 1847 Shevchenko was convicted for writing in Ukrainian language, promoting independence of Ukraine and ridiculing members of the Russian Imperial House;

III - Taras Shevchenko's writings formed the foundation for the modern Ukrainian literature to a degree that he is also considered the founder of the modern written Ukrainian language (although Ivan Kotlyarevsky pioneered the literary work in what was close to the modern Ukrainian in the end of the 18th century.) Shevchenko's poetry contributed greatly to the growth of Ukrainian national consciousness, and his influence on various facets of Ukrainian intellectual, literary, and national life is still felt to this day. Influenced by Romanticism, Shevchenko managed to find his own manner of poetic expression that encompassed themes and ideas germane to Ukraine and his personal vision of its past and future.

In view of his literary importance, the impact of his artistic work is often missed, although his contemporaries valued his artistic work no less, or perhaps even more, than his literary work. A great number of his pictures, drawings and etchings preserved to this day testify to his unique artistic talent. He also experimented with photography and it is little known that Shevchenko may be considered to have pioneered the art of etching in the Russian Empire (in 1860 he was awarded the title of Academician in the Imperial Academy of Arts specifically for his achievements in etching.)

His influence on Ukrainian culture has been so immense, that even during Soviet times, the official position was to downplay strong Ukrainian nationalism expressed in his poetry, suppressing any mention of it, and to put an emphasis on the social and anti-Tsarist aspects of his legacy, the Class struggle within the Russian Empire. Shevchenko, who himself was born a serf and suffered tremendously for his political views in opposition to the established order of the Empire, was presented in the Soviet times as an internationalist who stood up in general for the plight of the poor classes exploited by the reactionary political regime rather than the vocal proponent of the Ukrainian national idea.

This view is significantly revised in modern independent Ukraine, where he is now viewed as almost an iconic figure with unmatched significance for the Ukrainian nation, a view that has been mostly shared all along by the Ukrainian diaspora that has always revered Shevchenko.

He inspired some of the protestors during the Euromaida;

IV - ´Taras Shevchenko´ is a video tape released by the English rock band New Order. Is especially notable for the fact all four members of the group have left the stage before the final song "Temptation" comes to an end.

...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.

credits

released September 9, 2015

Hear more here:
soundcloud.com/otaciliomelgaco

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O t a c í l i o
M e l g a ç o {conception | composition | arrangement | synopsis | instrumentation | orchestration | engineering & sound design | art design [O.M., after van Gogh] | production | direction}

Special Guests: Nausícaaa Ensemble | Zycluz Quartett

Estúdio Yoknapotawpha/BR + Unidade Euromobile

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Otacílio Melgaço Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Multi-
Instrumentalist
from
Minas Gerais,
Brazil.
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Official (English) Site
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