K u n s t K a b i n e t t

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 58:15] 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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"´Kunst Kabinett´ (´Art Cabinet´ or ´Cabinets of curiosities´) is a kind of enigmatic Compendium. Precious sound inventory that unencrypts a glossary of compositional and multi-instrumental ´family jewels´ from the contemporary Sphinx that is Otacílio Melgaço." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"A Piece dedicated to 大竹富江, one for iconic Nico, another for Gunther Nakszynski; sui generis polystylistic, distinctive eclecticism...

An addendum seems welcome:

1- ´Polystylistics, a twentieth-century compositional process, is marked by the occurrence of two or more different stylistic features in a single composition, and it incorporates the practice of musical borrowing—either through direct quotation or allusion.´

2- ´Eclecticism can be used to describe the music of composers who combine multiple styles...´

Bringing to light the most obvious reference, we can listen present in the works of Alfred Schnittke already conventional examples.

There are relevant notes of Pablo S. Paz below...

melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/brenn-and-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-55-11

...and his writings seem sufficient. I'll just make a brief scenario to this hypnotic ´Kunst Kabinett´.

Water droplets + hermetic electronic background + (sonorities of) traditional Japanese drums + (sonorities of) music box + surreal flute improvisations + poly-dimensional sound poetry + dissonant string quartet + meditative chimes + subtle ´Bolero´ (Ravel) quote

or

Sea ripples + circumspect electronic background + frenetic jazzy drumming + post romantic symphonic strings + labyrinthine sound poetry + captivating traditional rhythms of Brazil + the exotic berimbau

or

Pulsating rock drums + surreptitious hint to the theatre Nipponese + contemporary lancinating strings + saxophones jazzy clusters + insinuating sound poetry + flickering rhodes piano alluding (over again) to Ravel (´Pavane pour une Infante Défunte´)

are some successive sonic magmas contained in the Pieces here. Concrete interventions and all that each of them intellectually suggests, sensory urges, geographically teaches, perceptually instigates, ... , spiritually prospects.

Otacílio prefers not to create a single instrumental body - just like an orchestra or combo - that undergoes linked metamorphoses; he creates an almost neutral basis used to support the successive, would say, ´resounding apparitions´. This individualized compositional mechanism generates a polystylistic and eclecticism quite idiosyncratic. If I were to draw a parallel, I invoke the ´Book of Imaginary Beings´ (written by Jorge Luis Borges). To paraphrase the author, could I preface such O.M.(usic) like this: ´As with all miscellanies... not... straight through... Rather we would like the listener to dip into the notes at random, just as one plays with the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope.´

´Kunst Kabinett´: Cabinets of Melgacian Wonder: Musei Melgaceus Historia!" (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - Cabinets of curiosities (also known as Kunstkabinett, Kunstkammer, Wunderkammer, wonder-rooms) were encyclopedic collections of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art (including cabinet paintings), and antiquities. "The Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater. The Kunstkammer conveyed symbolically the patron's control of the world through its indoor, microscopic reproduction." Of Charles I of England's collection, Peter Thomas states succinctly, "The Kunstkabinett itself was a form of propaganda" Besides the most famous, best documented cabinets of rulers and aristocrats, members of the merchant class and early practitioners of science in Europe formed collections that were precursors to museums;

II - Tomie Ohtake (1913 – 2015) was a Japanese naturalized Brazilian artist. Her work includes paintings, prints and sculptures. She was one of the main representatives of informal abstractionism in Brazil.

In 1936, when she was twenty-three years old, Ohtake traveled to Brazil to visit a brother but could not return due to World War II. Ohtake settled herself in São Paulo with her husband and started painting in 1951, after a visit to the studio of the painter Keisuke Sugano.

She had her first exhibition in 1957, in the Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna and in 1961 she participated in the São Paulo Biennale. In 1972 she participated in the Prints section of the Venice Biennale and in 1978 of the Tokyo Biennale. She created dozens of public space sculptures from the late eighties; her work has been featured in several cities in Brazil, but especially in the state of São Paulo.

In 1988 Ohtake was awarded the Order of Rio Branco by the public sculpture commemorating the 80th anniversary of Japanese immigration in São Paulo, and in 2006 she was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit.

Tomie Ohtake was the mother of architect Ruy Ohtake.

She died on February 12, 2015 at the age of 101;

III - Tetraodontidae is a family of primarily marine and estuarine fish of the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species, which are variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish, toadfish, toadies, honey toads, sugar toads, and sea squab. They are morphologically similar to the closely related porcupinefish, which have large external spines (unlike the thinner, hidden spines of Tetraodontidae, which are only visible when the fish has puffed up). The scientific name refers to the four large teeth, fused into an upper and lower plate, which are used for crushing the shells of crustaceans and mollusks, their natural prey.

Pufferfish are generally believed to be the second-most poisonous vertebrates in the world, after the golden poison frog. Certain internal organs, such as liver, and sometimes the skin, contain tetrodotoxin and are highly toxic to most animals when eaten; nevertheless, the meat of some species is considered a delicacy in Japan (as 河豚, pronounced as fugu), Korea (as 복 bok or 복어 bogeo ), and China (as 河豚 hétún) when prepared by specially trained chefs who know which part is safe to eat and in what quantity;

IV - In 2012, male pufferfish were documented carving large geometric, circular structures in the seabed sand in Amami Ōshima, Japan. The structures apparently serve to attract females and provide a safe place for them to lay their eggs;

V - Klaus Kinski (born Klaus Gunther Nakszynski; 1926 – 1991) was a German actor. He appeared in more than 130 films, and is remembered as a leading role actor in the films of Werner Herzog, including: Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Woyzeck (1979), Fitzcarraldo (1982) and Cobra Verde (1987). He was considered a "divisive and controversial figure in Germany. His violent outbursts on set—famously captured on film in Herzog's documentary 'My Best Fiend'—are the stuff of legend.";

VI - Nico (born Christa Päffgen; 1938 – 1988) was a German singer-songwriter, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress who became famous as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s. She is known for her vocals on the Velvet Underground's debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), and her work as a solo artist. She also had roles in several films, including Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) and Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls (1966);

VII - Alfred Schnittke (1934 – 1998) was a Soviet and Russian composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic Symphony No. 1 (1969–1972) and his first concerto grosso (1977). In the 1980s, Schnittke's music began to become more widely known abroad with the publication of his second (1980) and third (1983) string quartets and the String Trio (1985); the ballet Peer Gynt (1985–1987); the third (1981), fourth (1984), and fifth (1988) symphonies; and the viola (1985) and first cello (1985–1986) concertos. As his health deteriorated, Schnittke's music started to abandon much of the extroversion of his polystylism and retreated into a more withdrawn, bleak style;

VIII - The berimbau is a single-string percussion instrument, a musical bow, from Brazil. Was eventually incorporated into the practice of the Afro-Brazilian martial art capoeira, the berimbau (the soul of capoeira) leads the capoeiristas movement in the roda—the faster is playing the faster the capoeirista moves in the game. The instrument is known for being the subject matter of a popular song by Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell, with lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes. Is also a part of Candomblé-de-caboclo tradition;

IX - Book of Imaginary Beings was written by Jorge Luis Borges, published in 1957 under the original Portuguese title Manual de zoología fantástica, and expanded in 1967 and 1969 in Spain to the final El libro de los seres imaginarios. The English edition, created in collaboration with translator Norman Thomas di Giovanni, contains descriptions of 120 mythical beasts from folklore and literature.

...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.