P A V A N E_P O U R_U N E
I N F A N T E_R E S S U S C I T É E
(M E L G A C I A N_V A R I A T I O N S
O N_ A_T H E M E_O F_R A V E L)

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 23:58] 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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"Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) is a work for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, written in 1899 while the French composer was studying at the Conservatoire de Paris under Gabriel Fauré. Ravel published an orchestral version in 1910 using two flutes, an oboe, two clarinets (in B♭), two bassoons, two horns, harp, and strings.

He described the piece as ´an evocation of a pavane that a little princess [Infanta] might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish court´. The pavane was a slow processional dance that enjoyed great popularity in the courts of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

This antique miniature is not meant to pay tribute to any particular princess from history, but rather expresses a nostalgic enthusiasm for Spanish customs and sensibilities, which Ravel shared with many of his contemporaries (most notably Debussy and Albéniz) and which is evident in some of his other works such as the Rapsodie espagnole and the Boléro.

Maurice dedicated the Pavane to his patron, the Princesse de Polignac, and he probably performed the work at the princess's home on several occasions. It was first published by Eugène Demets in 1900, but it attracted little attention until the Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes gave the first performance on 5 April 1902.

Ravel intended the piece to be played extremely slowly - more slowly than almost any modern interpretation -, according to his biographer Benjamin Ivry. The critic Émile Vuillermoz complained that Ravel's playing of the work was ´unutterably slow´. However, the composer was not impressed by interpretations that plodded. After a performance by Charles Oulmont, Maurice mentioned to him that the piece was called ´Pavane for a Dead Princess´, not ´dead pavane for a princess´. When asked by the composer-conductor Manoah Leide-Tedesco how he arrived at the title Pavane pour une infante défunte, Ravel smiled coyly and replied, ´Do not be surprised, that title has nothing to do with the composition. I simply liked the sound of those words and I put them there, c'est tout!´. But Maurice also stated that the piece depicted a pavane as it would be danced by an Infanta found in a painting by Diego Velázquez.

If ´Ravel intended the piece to be played extremely slowly - more slowly than almost any modern interpretation -´, the Melgacian Variations take such a concept to paroxysm! And not only that. Otacílio as well expands the Pavane to the height of a ceremonial atmosphere; it can be said that thus acquiring a sacred level because if it is, even if poetically when it comes to the title, a Work originally dedicated to a defunct [who will be resurrected!], through its idiosyncratic variant paths, O.M. reveals to us what could be called - I repeat, in his own quite peculiar way - a Requiem.

A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead (Latin: Missa pro defunctis) or Mass of the dead (Latin: Missa defunctorum), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal. It is usually celebrated in the context of a funeral (where in some countries it is often called a Funeral Mass). Musical settings of the propers of the Requiem Mass are also called Requiems, and the term has subsequently been applied to other musical compositions associated with death, dying, and mourning, even when they lack religious or liturgical relevance. Melgaço exquisitely preserves such relevance through its subjectivized rituality and, by taking Ravel's aforementioned indication to the extreme, he emphasizes even more the elegiac aura that it intended to enshrine.

´I begin by considering an effect.´ Under an incredibly own framing: Musically, step by step / leap by leap / flight by flight [as Otacílio fulfills], I could make an analogy based on what O.M. proposes in this Opus and in correlated others. It is as if he altered so much 'the physical conditions of temperature and pressure' of the Composition from which the dawns of its (more than interventions) reCreations will bring us, thus generating a (transubstantiating) revolution in the firmness, stability, fastness, hardness, consistency et cetera of the ´initial Matter´! Keeping the allegory: Whether by condensation or liquefaction, solidification, fusion, vaporization, sublimation. ´I culminate by considering a reflect.´

Through the transfigura(c)tions since ´Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte´, O.M. often deliberately approaches the Unrecognizable, the Ineffable, ... an echoing Progeny that would symbolically be involving the ´beyond´, an ´after-life´? After all, at the epicenter is an azoic Infanta, êtes-vous d'accord? And, bringing her back to life - so we can hear what she now has to utter! -, the Melgacian kaleidoscope effervesces: The attraction that Butoh (and how much such a singular horizon of Death there) effectuates on Otacílio it could be included in all these ´dilatations´ that the resonant Construction in focus can unlimitedly insinuate to us. It is noted that there is a mysterious oddity (& odyssey) in ascendant evolution throughout the instrumental performance of the Delphic (camouflaged) melodic line,
as the m-e-t-a-f-o-r-m
whereby O.M. deals subtly (taking into account the thematic mosaic, hence) with dissonances. At the same time elegant and unco.

Let's go further: Watch the volume. Quasi all twenty-three minutes and fifty-eight seconds of the Track seem to have a more subdued intensity; if we want to get closer and aim for more distinctness, we will have to turn up the decibels (at our peril and need). Those more distracted may think that this should be already ´resolved´ beforehand (as if it were a misreckoning), based on their previous models of conceiving Listening. Commonplaces, preConceptions. Nevertheless Melgaço - aye - subverts such prefabricated paradigms when he inseminates [expression derived from philosophy] ´Esse´ into each of these precious filigrees. As we are already in the ´Realm of the Dead´ or in a procession with that north, the music sounds quite ethereal (ergo distanced; thence with the - initially mentioned - volume in another outlying, remote, unfrequented dimensionality): It is here (in concreteness) and, (abstracted), It is not, withal. This can equally be noticed in (in)genious factors. Sometimes the percussiveness of the march is hidden in the wake of a few piano chords ... to later reappear as the crests & valleys of our ´menschliches, allzumenschliches´ nature, as well reproducing what is confirmed opaque in a saga that pinpoints to the otherworldly. The same goes for the bells, in the inceptive ´Latin´ part (verily a kind of astonishing Ouverture, a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Melgacian coinage). They stand aback of a poetic-liturgical outlandish voice that yet acclimatizes us to the Transmundane (as if we anon belong to It). It's nuances like this [would be countless, I chose only one possible tip of the iceberg] that demonstrate how much each musical note is labyrinthinely polysemic under O.M.'s mantle. Little by little. Increasingly, more and more.

´I did my work slowly, drop by drop. I tore it out of me by pieces´, once said the notorious French musician. This is what the Brazilian multiartist expressed through his resurrected Variations. Per its inimitable timbres, multidimensional harmonies, mesmerizing harmonics and unique timing, Otacílio brings to light, nakedly and generously, his entire body & soul in immanent & transcendent fragments of the whole Being that he is. (Tear)drop by (Sun)drop." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"It is explicit how much the referenced sound œuvre here by Joseph Maurice Ravel has always been full of enchantments for Otacílio Melgaço. However, now, it reaches the stature of a milestone.

Despite O.M.'s hermetic biography, reserving the spotlight on his cultural creations and not on personal life, in the most intimate circles of conviviality ... it is known that the last few years (coinciding with the emergence of the fresh pandemic) have been filled with mourning, lute. With mountainous regret, one of the deaths was that of his father. In addition to several other connotations of ´losses´ / farewells that have funeral and burial (or, adopting relevant figure of speech: cremation - thus emphasizing Fire qua transubstantiating element -) as unavoidable destinations.

As a result, under the auspices of Melgaço, a pavane can be remasterminded as a solemn funereal ballet. The pavane[a] (Italian: pavana, padovana; German: paduana) is a slow processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century (Renaissance). The pavane, the earliest-known music for which was published in Venice by Ottaviano Petrucci, in Joan Ambrosio Dalza's Intabolatura de lauto libro quarto in 1508, is a sedate and dignified couple dance, similar to the 15th-century basse danse. The music which accompanied it appears originally to have been fast or moderately fast but, like many other dances, became slower over time. The word pavane is most probably derived from Italian [danza] padovana, meaning ´[dance] typical of Padua´ (similar to Bergamask, ´dance from Bergamo´); pavan is an old Northern Italian form for the modern Italian adjective padovano (= from Padua). This origin is consistent with the equivalent form, Paduana. An alternative explanation is that it derives from the Spanish ´pavón´ meaning ´peacock´. If in our context, we could refer to the exuberance and sublimity of such a bird, opening its tail feathers like a recolored sun reborning in the firmament. I think the election of the specific Munchian painting for the cover of the album [notwithstanding the allusive / pertinent constituents framed by darkness, this one - through the effects of light and color directed by the intervention of O.M. -: more verbatim solar] is proof enough of that. Plus: It doesn't seem to me that it is by chance that this sonic offspring is released as the first of 2023, therefore as a watershed that pays deference to the past but, simultaneously, turns to the irresistible future that becomes present (and gift).

The choice of ´Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte´ as the source of Variations - I reiterate: just like a landmark - is also a metaphor not only for all the dead who paraded solemnly before Otacílio but equally a clear sign of how his (´resuscitated´) life now embraces [worth underlining: ´pavanemente´] the Renascence as, in fact, a broad and elevated existential [cadenced] reGenesis." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.

Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the conservatoire, Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes the place of development. Renowned for his abilities in orchestration, Ravel made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' piano music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known.

A slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies or church music. Many of his works exist in two versions: first, a piano score and later an orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit (1908), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require skilful balance in performance.

Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public. From the 1920s, despite limited technique as a pianist or conductor, he took part in recordings of several of his works; others were made under his supervision;

II - In addition to numerous recorded performances within the classical repertoire, the Pavane maintains a significant presence in popular music. In particular, the song "The Lamp Is Low" was adapted from it. More recently, the Pavane appears in dozens of popular albums under both French and English forms of its title.

It was recorded by Pedro Aznar on his eponymous album (1982), in which he made use of synthesizers instead of acoustic instruments. Some unusual interpretations include another electronic version by William Orbit in Pieces in a Modern Style (2000), Isao Tomita (1979) and the all-female synthesizer quartet Hello, Wendy (2014). Edgar Meyer recorded a version for double bass and piano on his CD Work in Progress (1990), a solo bass guitar version by Jimmy Earl (1995), Ali Aiman's minimalist/electronic adaptation in his Overture EP (2014) and Hayley Westenra's vocal adaptation "Never Say Goodbye", which appears in her album Pure (2004);

III - Variation form

Although the first isolated example emerged in the 14th century, works in theme-and-variation form first emerge in the early sixteenth century. Possibly the earliest published example is the diferencias for vihuela by Luis de Narváez (1538). A favorite form of variations in Renaissance music was divisions, a type in which the basic rhythmic beat is successively divided into smaller and smaller values. The basic principle of beginning with simple variations and moving on to more elaborate ones has always been present in the history of the variation form, since it provides a way of giving an overall shape to a variation set, rather than letting it just form an arbitrary sequence.

Keyboard works in variation form were written by a number of 16th-century English composers, including William Byrd, Hugh Aston and Giles Farnaby. Outstanding examples of early Baroque variations are the "ciaccone" of Claudio Monteverdi and Heinrich Schütz. Two famous variation sets from the Baroque era, both originally written for harpsichord, are George Frideric Handel's The Harmonious Blacksmith set, and Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988.

In the Classical era, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote a great number of variations, such as the first movement of his Piano Sonata in A, K. 331, or the finale of his Clarinet Quintet. Joseph Haydn specialized in sets of double variations, in which two related themes, usually minor and major, are presented and then varied in alternation; outstanding examples are the slow movement of his Symphony No. 103, the Drumroll, and the Variations in F minor for piano, H XVII:6.

Ludwig van Beethoven wrote many variation sets in his career. Some were independent sets, for instance the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120, and the Eroica Variations in E♭ major, Op. 35. Others form single movements or parts of movements in larger works, such as first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 12, Op. 26, or the variations in the final movement of the Third Symphony (Eroica). Variation sets also occur in several of his late works, such as the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 12, Op. 127, the second movement of his final Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111, and the slow third movement of the Ninth Symphony, Op.125.

Franz Schubert wrote five variation sets using his own lieder as themes. Amongst them is the slow movement of his string quartet Death and the Maiden D. 810, an intense set of variations on his somber lied (D. 531) of the same title. Schubert's Piano Quintet in A (The Trout, D. 667) likewise includes variations on his song The Trout D. 550. The second movement of the Fantasie in C major comprises a set of variations on Der Wanderer; indeed the work as a whole takes its popular name from the lied.

In the Romantic era, the variation form was developed further. In 1824, Carl Czerny premiered his Variations for piano and orchestra on the Austrian National Hymn Gott erhalte Franz der Kaiser, Op. 73. Frédéric Chopin wrote four sets for solo piano, and also the Variations on "La ci darem la mano" from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, Op. 2, for piano and orchestra (1827). A further example of the form is Felix Mendelssohn's Variations sérieuses.

Johannes Brahms wrote a number of sets of variations; some of them rely on themes by older composers, for example the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel (1861; piano), and the Variations on a Theme by Haydn (1873; orchestra). The latter work is believed to be the first set of variations for orchestra alone that was a work in its own right, rather than part of a symphony, suite or other larger work. Karl Goldmark's Rustic Wedding Symphony (1875) starts out with a set of variations as its first movement. Antonín Dvořák's Symphonic Variations (1877) and Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations (1899) are other well-known examples. Anton Arensky's Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky (1894) is among his most popular compositions;

IV - Variation sets have also been composed by notable twentieth-century composers, including

Sergei Rachmaninoff (Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for piano and orchestra, and his variations for solo piano on themes by Chopin and Corelli),
Charles Ives (Variations on "America", 1891),
Ernő Dohnányi (Variations on a Nursery Tune for piano and orchestra, Op. 25, 1914),
Arnold Schoenberg (Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31, and Theme and Variations, Opp. 43a and 43b),
Igor Stravinsky (Pulcinella: XV Gavotta con due variazioni, 1920; Octet: II Tema con variazioni, 1922; Ebony Concerto: III, 1945; and Variations: Aldous Huxley in memoriam, 1963–64),
Alban Berg (Act 1, Scene 4 and the beginning of Act 3 scene 1 of Wozzeck),
Olivier Messiaen (Thème et variations for violin and piano, 1932),
Miklós Rózsa, Theme, Variations, and Finale (1933),
George Gershwin (Variations on "I Got Rhythm" for piano and orchestra, 1934),
Anton Webern (Variations, Op. 27 for piano, and Variations, Op. 30 for orchestra),
Reinhold Glière (Harp Concerto in E♭: II, 1938),
Paul Hindemith (Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, 1943),
Benjamin Britten (including the Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, 1937, and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra [Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Purcell], 1946),
William Walton (second movement of the Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1947–49, and Variations on a Theme by Hindemith, 1963),
Leonard Bernstein (part 1 of his Symphony No. 2: The Age of Anxiety, 1949, is a Prologue and 14 variations),
Luigi Nono (Variazioni canoniche sulla serie dell'op. 41 di A. Schönberg, 1950),
John Cage, Variations I–VIII (1958–67), Hymns and Variations, for twelve amplified voices (1979),
Ben Johnston, String Quartet No. 4 "Ascent" (Variations on "Amazing Grace", 1973),
Frederic Rzewski, The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975),
Frans Geysen, De grote variatie for organ (1975),
Cristóbal Halffter, Variaciones sobre la resonancia de un grito, for 11 instruments, tape, and live electronics (1976–77),
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Variations for cello and rock band (1977),
Steve Reich (Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards, 1979),
John McGuire, Forty-eight Variations, for two pianos (1976–80), and
John Williams, Variations on "Happy Birthday" for orchestra (1995).
An unusual option was taken in 1952 with the Variations on an Elizabethan Theme, a set of six variations on Sellenger's Round for string orchestra, in which each variation was written by a different composer: Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Oldham, Humphrey Searle, Michael Tippett, and William Walton.

Graham Waterhouse composed a trio Gestural Variations in 1997 and Variations for Cello Solo in 2019, and Helmut Lachenmann composed a trio Sakura-Variationen on the Japanese song in 2000.

A significant sub-set of the above consists of variations on a theme by another composer;

V - Skilled musicians can often improvise variations on a theme. This was commonplace in the Baroque era, when the da capo aria, particularly when in slow tempo, required the singer to be able to improvise a variation during the return of the main material. During this period, according to Nicholas Cook, it was often the case that "responsibility for the most highly elaborated stage in the compositional process fell not upon the composer but upon the executant. In their instrumental sonatas composers like Corelli, Geminiani, and Handel sometimes supplied the performer with only the skeleton of the music that was to be played; the ornamentation, which contributes crucially to the music's effect, had to be provided by the performer." Cook cites Geminiani's elaboration of Corelli (see above) as an example of an instance "in which the composer, or a performer, wrote down a version of one of these movements as it was meant to be played."

Musicians of the Classical era also could improvise variations; both Mozart (see Mozart's compositional method) and Beethoven made powerful impressions on their audiences when they improvised. Modern listeners can get a sense of what these improvised variations sounded like by listening to published works that evidently are written transcriptions of improvised performances, in particular Beethoven's Fantasia in G Minor, Op. 77, and Mozart's Variations on an Aria by Gluck, K. 455.

Improvisation of elaborate variations on a popular theme is one of the core genres of jazz. According to William Austin, the practice of jazz musicians "resembles the variations on popular songs composed for the keyboard at the end of the 16th century by Byrd, Bull, Sweelinck and Frescobaldi, more than the cumulative variations of Beethoven and Brahms." Generally, the theme used is stated quite explicitly at the outset. However, some jazz musicians employ a more oblique approach. According to Gamble, "Charlie Parker's performance of Embraceable You can be appreciated fully only if we are familiar with the tune, for unlike many jazz performances in which the theme is stated at the beginning, followed by improvisations on the theme, Parker launches almost immediately into improvisation, stating only a fragment of the tune at the end of the piece." Coleman Hawkins' famous interpretation of "Body and Soul" shows a similar approach. "On 11 October 1939, Coleman Hawkins went into New York's RCA studios with an eight-piece band to record the 1930 composition Body and Soul. It was already a favourite among jazz musicians, but nobody had ever played it like this. Pianist Gene Rodgers plays a straight four-bar introduction before Hawkins swoops in, soloing for three minutes without playing a single note of the tune, gliding over the chord changes with such harmonic logic that he ends up inventing bebop."

Improvisation by means of spontaneous variations, ornaments, embellishments and/or alterations to a melody is the basis of most sub-Saharan African music (traditional and pop) extending from melody and harmony to form and rhythmic embellishments;

VI - If we look at the proximity of the releases and the album covers themselves, it can be seen that this sound work openly dialogues, in countless senses, with

melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/la-prochaine-peau-pi-ce-sonique-pour-synth-tiseur-percussion-clarinette-basse-sifflement-et-r-citation-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-59-59

...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.