R O S Á R I O
T o m b e a u D ´ A r t h u r B i s p o

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 01:02:12] 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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"While Otacílio Melgaço pays posthumous tribute to Arthur Bispo do Rosário, he draws - in tripartite Piece - a magnificent map of the existence of the honoree.

One of the highlights: a thorough inclusion of noise. All noises are cinematic, cinematographic; full of dramatic power. Besides having an important function musically, are stupendously imagetic! Flawless element to biographical phono cartography of the honoree.

´Under the diagnosis of ´schizophrenic-paranoid´, Bispo do Rosário began to make objects with different types of materials from the trash and junk found in the mental institution. Among the works, stand out vessels (a recurring theme due to his relationship with the Navy in his youth), banners, and household objects. His best known work is the Presentation Cloak, that do Rosário should wear on the Day of Judgement. With them, he intended to mark the passing of God on Earth. ´The voices tell me to do this way´, he said about his art.´

And whose voices probably have O.M. heard?
Impossible to say. Or find out.
What I can assure is that ROSÁRIO confirms the high level that contemporaneously categorizes Melgaço.

Arthur Bispo rebuilt the world in his legacy and spanned the entire History. Gave every object a name; brought to baptism all human reality. Was a reinventor, propagator of a (new) cosmogony. ´New´ or
I think is more suitable to say: Eternal. In his brilliant imagination is undoubtedly so. And what more can want a true Artist? In his creative universe, glossary of sounds, compositional breadth, thematic plurality, instrumentation without borders...Otacílio Melgaço, for those who really delve into his creations, has done exactly the same with Music." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

"A Tombeau.

´Preeminently comes in two forms, as a slow elegiac allemande grave in 4/4 or as a pavan, a tri-partite renaissance dance already long out of date for the era of tombeaux, but with all the trappings of the allemande. There are also a few unique tombeaux that appear as gigues; that is because the gigue grave resembles the allemande in a number of respects. As opposed to the Italian lamento, the tombeau should not have used expressive elements of mourning, which were skeptically viewed in France. Nevertheless, certain typical onomatopoetic features were used: repeated note motifs depicting the knocking of Death at the door, ascending or descending diatonic or chromatic scales which depict the soul's tribulation and transcendence. Froberger's Lamentation on the Death of Ferdinand III or the Meditation sur ma Mort Future would be a prime example of such a form. Some tombeaux include a motif of four descending notes, a metaphor for grief given influential expression by John Dowland in his Lachrimae (1604). These genres offered many suitable expressive characteristics: the suspirans figure (a three-note upbeat), dotted rhythms, particularly in repeated notes, and slow-moving harmonies in the minor mode whose gravity is heightened by a tendency to settle on pedal points. Later examples also tend to use chromatic progressions related to the lamento bass. The few courante tombeaux exploit the same rhythmic features in triple metre.´

There are passages in ROSÁRIO dealing with mastery the characteristics mentioned above. A very meticulous labor. And more: How O.M. updates the form is well established. Makes the past quotes - even if through deliberate compositional particles strategic and punctual - however exceeds the predictability of contemporaneity (´predictability´ with which Melgaço never communed) and throws us again to unspeakable perceptions.

Here an almost extrapolation but carries significant importance. If the honoree suffered from ´psychopathology´, hallucinations, delusions...; if he was a hostage of what science calls ´Insanity´ (a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns...and...each of us can draw conclusions that), a deed is unquestionable: Starting from a free understanding, Melgaço carries a ´Portrait of Madness´ or, in addition, his music portrays

´how Art
can reveal
the metamorphosis
of Craziness into high Clarity!´

Far beyond the tombstone - the legacy of Arthur, in my view, is proof of that. The composition of Melgaço, without any hesitation, is the solemn Consecration." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

- Also check out ´Brenn And´ - the other part of the diptych:
melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/brenn-and-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-55-11 -

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I - Arthur Bispo do Rosário (1909 or 1911 - 1989) was a Brazilian outsider artist. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, he lived in an psychiatric institution in Rio de Janeiro for 50 years, where he created his works of art with found objects, as part of a "divine mission". His work has gained recognition by art critics in the 1990 decade, when they were first displayed at the Venice Biennale in 1995.
Art critics classified it as avant-garde and compared to the ready-mades by Marcel Duchamp.

II - A Tombeau is a musical composition (earlier, in early 16th century, a poem) commemorating the death of a notable individual. The term derives from the French word for "tomb" or "tombstone". The vast majority of tombeaux date from the 17th century and were composed for lute or other plucked string instruments. The genre gradually fell out of use during the 18th century, but reappeared in the early 20th with Maurice Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin (1919).
Other 20th century tombeaux include Manuel de Falla's Le tombeau de Debussy for solo guitar, Arthur Benjamin's Le tombeau de Ravel for clarinet and piano, and the last movement of Pli selon pli by Pierre Boulez.

...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.