I C O N O S T A S I S

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o
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H o n i G S t a h l O r c h e s t e r

[duration 53:54] 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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"A liturgical Piece. Although unofficially, a Mass, can I attest. As always, intriguing. Maybe apocryphal. As always, apocryphal. When Otacílio is at the side of the Gargantuan HoniG Stahl, we have a mesmerizing trinity: stunned sound landscapes; ostensibly supernatural (in its etymology) or metaphysical approach; contending orchestral mass.

By purposely altering the traditional order of the sacred ceremony (according to O.M.) and also with a certain due westernness, we could denominate each division as follows:

1) Early Rites; 2) Eucharistic liturgy; 3) Liturgy of the Word (Orchestra and Choir); 4) Final Rites.

Alias, if we think that the artist Melgaço has an inexorable link with a sense of timelessness, simultaneously his connection with contemporaneity is powerfully perceptible. If it´s possible a Sonic Expression that translates with naked impeccability scenarios globally announced now (all humanity becomes protagonist of a Pirandellian play in which the characters are looking for an author and more and more those who present themselves as answer look like faces of terribility); ... scenarios globally announced now - in innumerable connotations, many of them harassing enough -: this Exposure has a heterodox ritualistic and quite audible name: ´ICONOSTASIS´.

´Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods´, said Gilbert K. Chesterton. For me, the iconic message behind such Melgacian work of bounden art is the reversal of this. It´s time to sacrifice our ´gods´ over the altars of bread and wine, of our true flesh and true blood. In the most humanistic sense. When this happen, if it does happen, mandkind, in its truthfulness and wholeness, will really be taking its first steps. Because will be the feet of all those who have their physiognomies portrayed in ´ICONOSTASIS´ that will finally be in motion. Illic est oculus qua res quam adamamus." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"In Eastern Christianity an iconostasis is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church. Also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere within a church. The iconostasis evolved from the Byzantine templon, a process complete by the fifteenth century. The word comes from the Greek εἰκονοστάσι(-ον) (eikonostási(-on), still in common use in Greece and Cyprus), which means ´icon stand´.

Before a barricade of ikons, each of us, perplexed. Reconnected. Every portrait, our faces - one by one. Did we try to become Dorian Gray but were we unmasked by the nauseating ´heretics´ uncertainties of the present days? A current (phono) pictorial reading of Mr. Melgaço: who we are and who we are becoming. Scary or bizarrely comforting? Probably a third margin between one and the other. In the beginning, the verb/the breath. And in the end, beautiful friends? Our elaborate plans? Everything that stands? Can you picture what will be? A gate of pictures." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - A direct comparison for the function of the main iconostasis can be made to the layout of the great Temple in Jerusalem. That Temple was designed with three parts. The holiest and inner-most portion was that where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. This portion, the Holy of Holies, was separated from the second larger part of the building's interior by a curtain, the "veil of the temple". Only the High Priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies. The third part was the entrance court. This architectural tradition for the two main parts can be seen carried forward in Christian churches and is still most demonstratively present in Eastern Orthodox churches where the iconostasis divides the altar, the Holy of Holies containing the consecrated Eucharist – the manifestation of the New Covenant, from the larger portion of the church accessible to the faithful. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition only men can enter the altar portion behind the iconostasis;

II - The Iconostasis does not really "separate" the nave from the Holy of Holies; rather, it brings them together. The Iconostasis is the link between heaven (the Holy of Holies) and the nave (The Holy Place). Therefore, everything is symbolic upon the Iconostasis. The Icons of Christ the Theotokos and various saints and feasts are there because Christ, the Theotokos, the saints etc., lead us and guide us into the Holy of Holies. Therefore, the personages on the Icons upon the Iconostasis guide us into heaven, and therefore the Iconostasis connects not separates. The Icons upon the Iconostasis also are windows and bridges into heaven (although all icons, no matter where, are windows and bridges into heaven). Therefore, in a sense the Iconostasis represents Christ, who is the connection, the door, between both realms. The perfect explanation for the Iconostasis, and its uniting purpose, is seen in Hebrews 10:19-20, "Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh."

...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.