K a s p a r H a u s e r

- P i e c e F o r S t r i n g s -

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 01:11:19] 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 necessary prologue:

´On May 26, 1828, a teenager was found wandering a public square in what is now Nuremberg, Germany. He wore tattered clothing and clutched an envelope containing two letters. The first was addressed to the captain of a local cavalry regiment asking him to take the young lad into his charge, apparently written by an anonymous poor laborer who found and raised the abandoned boy but who could no longer keep him. A second letter, dated 1812 and unsigned but apparently written by his mother, stated that the boy's father was no longer alive, that she could not take care of him, and he was being sent to join the military.

The boy, about 16 or 17, seemed confused and appeared unable to read or write other than his name, ´Kaspar Hauser.´ When asked about his life, at first he could only say he didn't know who he was (other than his name) or where he had come from. Hauser acted strangely, for example preferring bread and water to meats and vegetables, and having no civilized manners. But within several weeks, much to the astonishment of everyone, he apparently learned to read and write. The following year, capitalizing on his newfound fame, his autobiography was published in which he claimed to have spent his entire life in a small, dark room, sleeping on straw and fed by unseen strangers.

Celebrity 'savant'. Hauser became famous, with hundreds of books, magazine articles, films, and even plays written about him. As one article published in the November 1874 issue of ´Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine´ noted, ´One of the strangest stories of the century is that of Kaspar Hauser ... for a quarter of a century (1828-1853) it is doubtful if any single individual in all Europe was so much discussed, or awoke so great an interest and curiosity. The newspapers on both sides of the ocean were full of him; pamphlets and books were printed to sustain this or that theory of his birth and belongings; philanthropers, philosophers, and savants were aroused on his behalf.´

Adding intrigue and tragedy to an already baffling case, there were apparently several attempts on his life, the last one coming five years after his discovery, when he was fatally stabbed in 1833.

So who was this mysterious boy? Some people believe that Hauser was an undiagnosed epileptic and that some of his claims and visions might be medical in origin; others believe that the poor boy must have been delusional and driven mad by the neglect and abuse he suffered for much of his life (assuming, of course, that his story of abuse was true).

One widely repeated conspiracy theory holds that Hauser was actually the rightful heir to a royal throne, secreted away for some nefarious reason. After all, many said, why would the boy have been so mistreated, and why would several assassins try to kill a teenage boy, if his existence wasn't a threat to someone powerful? Though popular, this idea has been widely discredited by scholars as unlikely. The gothic idea that a mysterious person of unknown origin may really be, through the machinations of a powerful conspiracy, the rightful heir to royalty was certainly not unique to Hauser. In fact many such stories and rumors were popular in the first half of the nineteenth century; Alexandre Dumas famously used that plot device in his book ´The Man in the Iron Mask´ in the mid-1800s.´ (Benjamin Radford)

In Portuguese, ´Aço´ is a suffix indicating an augmentative.
´Aço´, Melga-ç-o suffix, also means in English, ´Steel´.
Otacílio Melgaço: The Man in the Steel Mask (?)

Before him, an ambition and a challenge.

On the one hand, it´s always an ambitious attempt to portray sonorously such real character (who was Kaspar Hauser). On the other hand, it´s thought-provoking take on considerable challenge and allow yourself to evoke an ´epiphany´ (as the present musical composition is revealed). For me, lies in this ´sonic transubstantiation´ the accomplishment of Melgaço in an extraordinary and heart touching Piece for Strings.

In my point of view, there are two niches in the whole work. The introductory, until about the first fifteen minutes and twenty seconds. The second, in its vastness, complements the rest. The first has a subjectivist treatment, introspective, even oneiric; representing the inner universe of the character; orbits a peculiar reality, not palpable, not entering in the ordinary world. The second part, after the rite of passage (that Melgaço enigmatically pointed as a lapse of silence, a slight - but quite eloquent - pause), reports Mr. Hauser in contact with people, paradigms, customs, conventions, (attempts of) conversions; few receptions many rejections - few understandings many impositions - few empathies many antipathies; a new life as passport, unfortunately, to an old and premature (menschliches, allzumenschliches) death. The sharp, stabbing, laminar Strings offer us incredible dynamics and nuances, I would say even aurally lysergic. There´s never a adaptability or assimilation (thus, we´ll never be absorbed by a comfort zone); we went all a sonic journey in balancing on a tightrope because harmony always leads us to new directions, destinations (carrying incredible senses of balance and imbalance). The unexpected. The unpredictable. The fated no destination. We´re here indescribably (superhumanly?) guests of a prophet with no home! In that inhabits the mastery of Mr. Melgaço both when translates idiosyncratically an intriguing figure to the musical dimension as when consecrates himself like an exceptional creator, very very personal.

P o s t S c r i p t u m

The choice of Otacílio in terms of an unprecedented artistic representation for a portrait of Kaspar - through the work of Giuseppe Arcimboldo - is really irreproachable, polysemic and figuratively/metaphorically fascinating." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

"Logician: Let’s pretend that this is a village. In this village live people who tell only the truth. Here is another village. The people here only tell lies. Two paths run from these villages to where you are standing and you are at the crossroads. A man comes along, and you want to know which village he comes from the village of the truth-tellers or the village of the liars. Now in order to solve this problem, to solve it logically you have one question, and only one. What is the question?

Nurse: That’s too difficult for him, how can he know that.

Logician: I admit, the question is thorny. If you ask the man whether he comes from the village of truth and he does, then he will say, truthfully, yes. But if he comes from the village of lies, he will lie and also answer yes! Yet there exists one question which will solve the problem.

Nurse: That’s much too hard, too complicated.

Logician: You have one question, Kaspar and only one, to solve this problem of logic.

Nurse: I wouldn’t know either.

Logician: lf you can’t think of the question then I shall tell you. If you came from the other village would you answer ‘no’ if I were to ask you whether you came from the liars’ village? By means of a double negative the liar is forced to tell the truth. This construction forces him to reveal his identity, you see. That’s what I call logic via argument to the truth!

Kaspar: Well, I know another question.

Logician: You do? There is no other question, by the laws of logic.

Nurse: There isn’t?

Kaspar: But I do know another question.

Logician: Let us hear it, then!

Kaspar: I should ask the man whether he was a tree-frog. The man from the truth village would say
´No, I’m not a tree-frog´, because he tells the truth. The man from the liars’ village would say ´Yes, I’m a tree-frog´, because he would tell a lie. So I know where he comes from.

(...)

Probably a film was important as a reference to the composer and multi-instrumentalist Otacílio Melgaço.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle; lit. Every Man for Himself and God Against All) is a 1974 German drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Bruno Schleinstein and Walter Ladengast. The film follows the real story of foundling Kaspar Hauser quite closely, using the text of actual letters found with Hauser. The film follows Kaspar Hauser (Bruno Schleinstein), who lived the first seventeen years of his life chained in a tiny cellar with only a toy horse to occupy his time, devoid of all human contact except for a man, wearing a black overcoat and top hat, who feeds him. One day, in 1828, the same man takes Hauser out of his cell, teaches him a few phrases, and how to walk, before leaving him in the town of Nuremberg. Hauser becomes the subject of much curiosity, and is exhibited in a circus before being rescued by Professor Georg Friedrich Daumer (Walter Ladengast), who patiently attempts to transform him. Hauser soon learns to read and write, and develops unorthodox approaches to logic and religion; but music is what pleases him most. He attracts the attention of academics, clergy and nobility, but is then physically attacked by the same unknown man who brought him to Nuremberg. The attack leaves him unconscious with a bleeding head. He recovers, but is again mysteriously attacked; this time, stabbed in the chest. Hauser rests in bed describing visions he has had of nomadic Berbers in the Sahara Desert, and then dies.

It´s worth reiterating: Hauser soon learns to read and write, and develops unorthodox approaches to logic and religion; but
music
is
what
pleases
him
most.

M u s i c.

Every Man For Himself, God Against All But Without Music, Life Would Be An Even Bigger Mistake!

O.M. does not make mistakes, here's proof: stunning, affecting and unquestionable!" (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

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I - Kaspar Hauser fits into the contemporary European image of the "wolf child" (despite the fact that he almost certainly was not one), and he became possibly the best-known example of the genre. As a result, his story inspired numerous works;

II - K. H.'s story has inspired numerous musical references. There have been at least two operas named Kasper Hauser, a 2007 work by American composer Elizabeth Swados and a 2010 work by British Rory Boyle;

III - Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526 or 1527 – 1593) was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of objects such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and 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.