R e q u i e m F o r H ồ C h í M i n h
O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

- Concretelectronic Liturgy -

[duracion 01:22:19] 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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"´When the prison doors are opened, the real Dragon will fly out.´

Melgaço is a non-partisan man. His spirit is anarchic enough to not allow himself to be hostage of ideologies - whatever. The Requiem dedicated to Minh is unrelated to communism or nationalism, but with a deep admiration for the historical poetic Personality.

´For most of his tenure as President of North Vietnam, Hô Chi Minh lived in a modest stilt house behind the grandiose Presidential Palace in Hanoi. Painful memories of French rule were too fresh in the Vietnamese people's minds; the French Governors General who lived in the Palace were among some of the most hated people in Vietnam, and one might imagine that Uncle Ho - customarily called this way by the population - was not eager to follow in their footsteps. A visit to the northwest of the country in 1958 inspired Ho to commission a traditional stilt house for his personal use. When the Army architect submitted his plans to Ho, the leader requested that the toilet included in the design be removed, as it was too much of a departure from the traditional stilt house design. Two small rooms, no toilet. The President of North Vietnam moved into the small house on May 17, 1958, and lived there until his death in 1969.´

The Composer has revealed in testimony that this story was the starting point for the Liturgical Tribute. Interesting choice of electronic and concrete music to give substance to an artistic creation focused on transubstantiation! Through sparse mists incensing Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Henry, perhaps. However, I have no doubt, Melgaço never will dialogue with possible influences through what we consider conventional, predictable, obedient. Seems already proven, never imitator or even disciple - as is common to many current composers and instrumentalists. In this or any other Work. The important thing is to observe wich Spiritual Family he belongs. So we enter the best way possible in his fluids mazes ...

A relevant remark to the neophytes: this music is not geared to mere entertainment, obviously - the height of truism. It isn´t in the niche of soundtracks, as can confuse the unwary. We're on the possibilities of the contemporary sound that occupies the apex of History and also before a sense of aesthetic timelessness typical of Melgaço. Music on your visceral state magnetizing silences, noises, harmonies, ambiences, atmospheres, sonic landscapes, intensities, magnitudes, obscure meanderings, enlightened developments and an indescribable range which is the current Human transcultural expression. Simultaneously, transcendent music but in libertarian sense, cultivating freedom and flow of the Human spirit.

´The Human spirit is a component of human philosophy, psychology, art, and knowledge - the spiritual or mental part of humanity. While the term can be used with the same meaning as ´human soul´, human spirit is sometimes used to refer to the impersonal, universal or higher component of human nature in contrast to soul or psyche which can refer to the ego or lower element. The human spirit includes our intellect, emotions, fears, passions, and creativity. In the models of Daniel A. Helminiak and Bernard Lonergan, Human spirit is considered to be the mental functions of awareness, insight, understanding, judgement and other reasoning powers. It is distinguished from the separate component of psyche which comprises the entities of emotion, images, memory and personality. John Teske views human spirit as a social construct representing the qualities of purpose and meaning which transcend the individual human.´

Somewhat supported by concepts of Jean Paul Sartre, ´when the for-itself grasps the other in the others world, and grasps the subjectivity that the other has, it is referred to as transcending-transcendence.´ I suppose, this is the genesis of Requiem pour Hô Chi Minh - Concrètélectronique Liturgie.

´... and went to the country of the Nine Springs.´" (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"M y s t e r i u m T r e m e n d u m. Numinous homage to Hô Chi Minh! ´Numinous´ - taken from the Latin ´numen´, and used by some to describe the power or presence or realisation of a divinity. The word was popularised in the early 20th century by the German theologian Rudolf Otto in his influential book Das Heilige (1917; translated into English as The Idea of the Holy, 1923). According to Otto, the numinous experience has in addition to the tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling, a quality of fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel. The numinous experience also has a personal quality, in that the person feels to be in communion with a wholly Other.
It´s a perfect way to describe the content of this immeasurable Requiem. Reassuringly teleological, sublime sound spectra rising in Melgacian Sacré Oeuvre. Celui qui éclaire ..." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - His name has the following meaning

' B r i n g e r O f L i g h t '

but was not a real name. He took this name around the time of the August Revolution in 1945. His name was Nguyễn Sinh Côn when he was born. At age ten, he changed his name to Nguyễn Tất Thành, according to Confucian tradition. He would later use many pseudonyms. His most famous name was probably Nguyễn Ái Quốc meaning 'Nguyễn (by far the most common Vietnamese last name) who loves his country'.

II - Hồ Chí Minh (1890 – 1969) was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Việt Cộng (NLF or VC) during the Vietnam War.
He led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1965 due to health problems, but remained a highly visible figurehead and inspiration for those Vietnamese fighting for his cause—a united, communist Vietnam—until his death. After the war, Saigon, the former capital of the Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City.

...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.