M i c h e l e t

F a n t a i s i e
A v e c
G u i t a r e É l e c t r i q u e
P o u r
M o n s i e u r J. M.

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 33:15] all rights reserved

#

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)

+

"Otacílio Melgaço has never hidden his admiration for the French historian.

Michelet was perhaps the first historian to devote himself to anything like a picturesque history of the Middle Ages, and his account is still the most vivid that exists. His inquiry into manuscript and printed authorities was most laborious, but his lively imagination, and his strong religious and political prejudices, made him regard all things from a singularly personal point of view. There is an unevenness of treatment of historical incidents. However, Michelet's insistence that history should concentrate on ´the people, and not only its leaders or its institutions´ clearly drew inspiration from the French Revolution. Michelet was one of the first historians to apply these liberal principles to historical scholarship.

Michelet has several themes running throughout his works, these included the following three categories: Maleficent, Beneficent, and Paired. Within each of the three themes there are subsets of ideas that occur throughout Michelet's various works. One of these themes was the idea of Paired Themes, for example in many of his works he writes on Grace and Justice, Grace being the Woman or Feminine and Justice being more of a Masculine idea. Michelet, additionally, used Union and Unity in his discussions about National History, and Natural History. In terms of the Maleficent themes, there were subcategories these were: Themes of the Dry, which included concepts such as: The Machine, The Jesuits, Scribes, The Electric, Irony (Goethe), The Scholastics, Public Safety, fatalism (Hobbes, Molinos, Spinoza, Hegel) Themes of the Empty and the Turgid, which included the Middle Ages, the imitation, tedium, the novel, narcotics, Alexander, plethoric (engorged blood). Michelet also touches on Themes of the Indeterminate such as The Honnete-Hommes, Conde', Chantilly Sade, Gambling, Phantasmorgia, Italian Comedy, White Blood, Sealed blood.

Every man is a humanity, the universal history. In short, there´s much in common amongst them (Michelet/Melgaço) - starting with the iconoclasm, in my opinion. So it was not a surprise - in the best sense - Otacílio opt for a ruling electric guitar and not [let me think] ... an epochal string quartet - as many would end up doing, for instance.

Is nonetheless ironic dedicate a Fantasy to someone who devoted himself (so idiosyncratically) to write & rewrite the History. But that only confirms how much is idiosyncratic the own artistic and musical History of Melgaço, agree?

Like the words of Jules, ´You are one of the forces of nature.´ Michelet was a living proof of that. And now, as a Melgacian transhistorical work, over and over." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

"´If a work of art cannot live always in the present it must not be considered at all.´ (Pablo Picasso)

´He who would confine his thought to present time will not understand present reality.´ (Jules Michelet)

In-between, Otacílio Melgaço. I often say that the more there are contemporaneity in his overflowing creations, more open to Perennial (ie above the temporal boundaries) is he. And more trans-chronologically ubiquitous, more contemporary. It´s a virtuous circle conquered by rare artists but when it happens (as is the case here), is a quite real and realized fantasy.

Fantasy. The Fantasia (French: Fantaisie) is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. Because of this, like the impromptu, it seldom approximates the textbook rules of any strict musical form.

The distinctive stylistic (after all, according to J.M., ´style is the movement of the soul´), coloric textures, extemporizational layers, timbristic palette, orchestral architecture, harmonic landscapes, ´classical aura´ are some of the lavish aspects that make this sonic work worthy of all laurels. Somehow, the Guitar - electrified & under the filter of ethereal effects - gets a status of higher elevation through ´Michelet´.

To our curiosity, amazement and delight - a fabulous detail, ladies and gentlemen: the cover reveals a fragment of the score of this Fantaisie. Try to stare at the optical art and not blink your eyes. Nor the ears." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

&

I - Jules Michelet (1798 – 1874) was a French historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions.

In his 1855 work, Histoire de France (History of France), Jules Michelet was the first historian to use and define the word Renaissance ("Re-birth" in French), as a period in Europe's cultural history that represented a drastic break from the Middle Ages (which he loathed), creating a modern understanding of humanity and its place in the world. Historian François Furet wrote that his History of the French Revolution (1847) remains "the cornerstone of all revolutionary historiography and is also a literary monument." His aphoristic style emphasized his anti-clerical republicanism;

II - The term Fantasia was first applied to music during the 16th century, at first to refer to the imaginative musical "idea" rather than to a particular compositional genre. Its earliest use as a title was in German keyboard manuscripts from before 1520, and by 1536 is found in printed tablatures from Spain, Italy, Germany, and France. From the outset, the fantasia had the sense of "the play of imaginative invention", particularly in lute or vihuela composers such as Francesco Canova da Milano and Luis de Milán. Its form and style consequently ranges from the freely improvisatory to the strictly contrapuntal, and also encompasses more or less standard sectional forms.

...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.