C o d e x G i g a s / C o d e x S e r a p h i n i a n u s

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

Piece for Percussion and Prepared Piano

I Codex Gigas
II Codex Seraphinianus

[duration 33:44] all rights reserved

CG/CS in tribute to John Milton Cage Jr.
and
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse

#

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)

+

"´The story behind the making of Codex Gigas (´the giant codex´) is that it was the work of one monk who was sentenced to death by being walled up alive. Indeed, an analysis on the text does suggest that it was written by just one scribe due to the level of uniformity throughout. The legend says that the monk produced the manuscript in just one night …with the devil’s help.´ With the help of Cage and Varèse, Melgaço presents one of the most obscure, unfathomable and seraphimic faces of his sonic offspring." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"Prepared Piano and Percussion; perfect joint for a metaphysical narrative; engaging and spiral compositional codes as an undulating caravan in a ´désert noir´. Caravanserai - here - integrated by musicians metaphorically in covenant with God ´or´ the Devil; ... or trying to discover the difference ... (...) ´Codex Gigas / Codex Seraphinianus´! I think this phonograph album deals with the Duality. However, deeply embedded in an Unity. Metaphorically God ´and´ the Devil! (Presumably this is not the sequence if we apprehend well the title of the Work in question. Should we misplace the order of names?) What really matters is that we are invited to delight in this endless cadence ... Cadence in arabesque. We are ritually invited to participate in an Epiphany! Allow ourselves to be invaded by Epiphany. The Composer leads us to a state of Trance! Let us open the controversial books and each page will come ... May be heard indecipherable words, polysemous illustrations through the imagery phono syntax given birth by Otacílio Melgaço? Discover for yourself. If you survive (there would never be a more beneficial and breathtaking challenge), you'll be stronger." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

&

I - The Codex Gigas (English: Giant Book) is the largest extant medieval manuscript in the world. It is also known as the Devil's Bible because of a large illustration of the devil on the inside and the legend surrounding its creation. It is thought to have been created in the early 13th century in the Benedictine monastery of Podlažice in Bohemia (modern Czech Republic). It contains the Vulgate Bible as well as many historical documents all written in Latin. During the Thirty Years' War in 1648, the entire collection was stolen by the Swedish army as plunder, and now it is preserved at the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm, on display for the general public.

II - Codex Seraphinianus, originally published in 1981, is an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world, created by the Italian artist, architect, and industrial designer Luigi Serafini during thirty months, from 1976 to 1978. The book is approximately 360 pages long (depending on edition), and written in a strange, generally unintelligible alphabet. Originally published in Italy, the book has since been released in several countries. The Latin noun codex referred to a book with pages (as opposed to a scroll), and is often applied in modern usage to a manuscript with pages, especially an antiquarian one. Seraphinianus is a Latinisation of the author's surname, Serafini (which in Italian, refers to the seraphs). The title Codex Seraphinianus may thus be understood as "the book (or manuscript) of Serafini".
Various artists such as Italo Calvino, Tim Burton, Douglas Hofstader and John Cage said, at some point, have the Codex Seraphinianus as a source of inspiration;

III - See also

melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/le-monde-codifi-pi-ces-pour-piano-pr-par-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-01-02-24

...for purposes of pragmatism and clear exegesis,
Wikipedia was the main source...

\|/

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.