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L'Enfer d'H​.​-​G​.​C. {Otac​í​lio Melga​ç​o} [duration 01​:​00​:​55]

by Otacílio Melgaço

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L ' E n f e r d ' H. -G. C.

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 01:00:55] 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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"'Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go.' (e. e. cummings)

Hell. Inferno.

The film L'Enfer (d'Henri-Georges Clouzot) features several innovative and practical lighting techniques by Andréas Winding and Armand Thirard. Most notably in the psychedelic climax of the film, rotating lighting rigs were placed in-front of the camera and actors. The final effect created the illusion of the actors faces transitioning between emotions, and personalities. They would also slowly change their emotions intensifying the effect when synced to each rotation.

The same inventive and experimental perspective visually, was present in the reverberating guideline. The original soundtrack was in charge of Gilbert Amy. Despite being unfinished, for all that's known publicly, an electroacoustic work in full compliance with the best resonant forefront of the time. Keeping an autonomous but no less interesting position, Otacílio Melgaço preferred to merge ambiguous interventions of acoustic guitars and atmospheric sonic landscapes.

If Otacílio addresses the issue of Stygian Jealousy, like the French director, Melgaço reaches a level of clangorous obsession that goes beyond the creation of Mr. Amy. [Addendum>>There's the beautiful soundtrack made by Bruno Alexiu for the documentary L'Enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot (2009) captained by Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea. But, with one or another exception, it's conventional. We're here dealing with contemporary proposals, a fact which involves another range of risk and daring.<<] If Otacílio is 'in search of lost time', Melgaço breaks the hourglass and allows each grain of sand drain through our fingers. And again and again, and again. Does not appear to be random the fact that the initials of the names of the main characters (O-dette / M-arcel), also form the initials of
O(tacílio) M(elgaço).
However, I believe that the main dimension of this discographic album is Dantesque.

Inferno (Italian for 'Hell') is the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin. 'The sad souls of those who lived without blame and without praise.' Recognize and reject sin sometimes seems to me something as monotonous.

Halfway along our life's path, 'they say that' the Absolute is endowed with monotony. M-o-n-o-t-o-n-y, in which sense?: equality, vacuum, dead-level, 'selva oscura'... A noteworthy variation, M-o-n-o-t-o-n-e: unchanging in pitch. The Absolute as Immutable. Perhaps, according to the Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist, the Inferno has the same characteristics. As if Hades were one of the Absoluteness manifestations. Citing Racine: 'Hell, covering all with its gloomy vapors, has cast shadows on even the holiest eyes.' Thus, such eyes (the ocularity is more accurate through the mists) can see better. And, holus-bolus, after the Melgacian L'Enfer d'H.-G.C., our ears now better listen. But hearing the antithesis of what we understand as Pandemonium because here - the ears become the most unconditional involucre to the more heavenly Absolute. Paradoxically, no less hellish. In favor of our supreme exultation.

'In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was l-o-s-t.' Now, ladies and gentlemen, listen!: the straight way was r-e-D-I-S-C-o-v-e-r-e-d!" (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. 'The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality,' wrote Dante Alighieri. Artistically, then, I can assure you that O.M. already has a place in Eden." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (French title: L'Enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot) is a film directed, written and produced by Henri-Georges Clouzot, cinematography by Andréas Winding and Armand Thirard, which remained unfinished in 1964. It was presented in 2009 as a full-length semi-documentary by Serge Bromberg;

II - The film depicts the extreme jealousy of a hotelier, Marcel (Serge Reggiani, then 42 years old), towards his wife, Odette (Romy Schneider, then 26 years old). It was shot partly in black-and-white, partly in colour. Clouzot selected the title as an allusion to Dante's Inferno, and the names Odette and Marcel refer to characters in Marcel Proust's novel À la recherche du temps perdu.

Despite an unlimited budget from Columbia Pictures—Clouzot worked with three crews and 150 technicians—the shooting was beset by severe problems: everyone suffered from the record heat during July in the Cantal region; the main actor Serge Reggiani claimed to be ill (Jean-Louis Trintignant was asked to replace him); the artificial lake below the Garabit viaduct, an important part of the location, was about to be emptied by the local authorities; then Clouzot suffered a heart attack and was hospitalised in Saint-Flour. After three weeks, the film was abandone;

III - In 2009, Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea released a 94 minute documentary with material selected from 15 hours (185 reels) of found scenes under the name L'Enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot. Bromberg was caught for two hours in a stalled elevator with a woman who turned out to be Clouzot's second wife, Inès de Gonzalez. Upon learning the identity of the woman and of the existence of the footage, Bromberg convinced her to release it to make his film. The documentary includes interviews with nine cast and crew members, notably Catherine Allégret, the production assistant from 1964, Costa Gavras, and the assistant cinematographer William Lubtchansky. Bromberg used the actors Bérénice Bejo and Jacques Gamblin to shoot some scenes where dialogue had to be delivered; the found material, which included some 30 hours of soundtrack, didn't contain suitable material;

IV - Gilbert Amy is a French composer and conductor. In 1954 he entered the Conservatoire de Paris, where he was taught and influenced by Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud and studied piano with Yvonne Loriod and fugue with Simone Plé-Caussade. His first compositions (Œil de fumée) date from 1955. In 1957 he met Pierre Boulez, under whose direction he composed his Piano Sonata. A year later Boulez commissioned from him a work called Mouvements, which was performed in Darmstadt by the Orchestre du Domaine Musical, an ensemble with the goal of promoting new music. From 1958 to 1961 he attended the courses given by Karlheinz Stockhausen in Darmstadt.

...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 July 7, 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 | production | direction}

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Otacílio Melgaço Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Multi-
Instrumentalist
from
Minas Gerais,
Brazil.
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