S á t á n t a n g ó
O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o
[duration 45:00] 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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"Tango may never have been awarded with such a diverse and authentic perspective like this. PhonoPieces for two, three, four bandoneons and other supporting instruments (used at certain interludes as an acupuncture!). Tribute to own Bandoneon. Tribute to the Tango. Homage to Béla Tarr. ´By his own account, initially he sought to become a philosopher...´ Does not sound familiar here? If ´Sátántangó´ by Hungarian film director has 450 minutes, the album phonograph by Otacílio Melgaço has 45:00! This is the level of detail and complexity and ruminations and perplexities of the Brazilian composer and instrumentalist. Exotic Calving that sounds futuristic! The effects used often become the main instrument of this Work in another! Unclassifiable. Homage to Jorge Luis Borges. Perhaps, in a thought-provoking conclusion, we're walking along the mazes of Buenos Aires (the mythical Buenos Aires
belonging
to Melgaço undoubtedly is the same city that
belongs
to Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo) but
belonging
to a few hundred and hundred years later... Past, present, future. Melgaço reinvents the OMnipresent, reinvents the Ubiquitous
- a challenging paradox! -
athwart the viscerality ´neOTAnguera´ of his metaphysical ´Sátántango´!" (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)
"The Golem (Jorge Luis Borges; Translated by James Honzik)
If (as affirms the Greek in the Cratylus)
the name is archetype of the thing,
in the letters of ´rose´ is the rose,
and all the Nile flows through the word.
Made of consonants and vowels,
there is a terrible Name,
that in its essence encodes God’s all,
power, guarded in letters, in hidden syllables.
Adam and the stars knew it in the Garden.
It was corroded by sin (the Cabalists say),
time erased it, and generations
have forgotten.
The artifice and candor of man go on without end.
We know that there was a time in
which the people of God searched for the Name
through the ghetto’s midnight hours.
But not in that manner of those others
whose vague shades insinuate into vague history,
his memory is still green and lives,
Judá the Lion the rabbi of Prague.
In his thirst to know the knowledge of God
Judá permutated the alphabet through complex variations
and in the end
pronounced the name that is the Key
the Door, the Echo, the Guest, and the Palace,
over a mannequin shaped with awkward hands,
teaching it the arcane knowledge of
symbols, of Time and Space.
The simulacrum raised its sleepy eyelids,
saw forms and colors that it did not understand,
and confused by our babble
made fearful movements.
Gradually it was seen to be (as we are)
imprisoned in a reverberating net of
Before, Later, Yesterday, While, Now, Right, Left,
I, You, Those, Others.
The Cabalists who celebrated this mysterium,
this vast creature, named it Golem.
(Written about by Scholem,
in a learned passage of his volume.)
The rabbi explained the universe to him,
´This is my foot, this yours, and this the rope,´
but all that happened, after years,
was that the creature swept the synagogue badly.
Perhaps there was an error in the word
or in the articulation of the Sacred Name;
in spite of the highest esoteric arts
this apprentice of man did not learn to speak.
Its eyes uncanny,
less like man than dog and much less than dog but thing
following the rabbi through the doubtful
shadows of the stones of its confinement.
There was something
abnormal and coarse in the Golem,
at its step the rabbi’s cat fled in fear.
(That cat not from Scholem but of the blind seer)
It would ape the rabbi’s devotions,
raising its hands to the sky,
or bend over, stupidly smiling,
into hollow Eastern salaams.
The rabbi watched it tenderly but
with some horror. How (he said)
could I engender this laborious son?
Better to have done nothing, this is insanity.
Why did I give to the infinite
series a symbol more? To the coiled skein
on which the eternal thing is wound,
I gave another cause, another effect, another grief.
In this hour of anguish and vague light,
on the Golem our eyes have stopped.
Who will say the things to us that God felt,
at the sight of his rabbi in Prague?
Si (como afirma el griego en el Cratilo)
el nombre es arquetipo de la cosa
en las letras de 'rosa' está la rosa
y todo el Nilo en la palabra 'Nilo'.
Y, hecho de consonantes y vocales,
habrá un terrible Nombre, que la esencia
cifre de Dios y que la Omnipotencia
guarde en letras y sílabas cabales.
Adán y las estrellas lo supieron
en el Jardín. La herrumbre del pecado
(dicen los cabalistas) lo ha borrado
y las generaciones lo perdieron.
Los artificios y el candor del hombre
no tienen fin. Sabemos que hubo un día
en que el pueblo de Dios buscaba el Nombre
en las vigilias de la judería.
No a la manera de otras que una vaga
sombra insinúan en la vaga historia,
aún está verde y viva la memoria
de Judá León, que era rabino en Praga.
Sediento de saber lo que Dios sabe,
Judá León se dio a permutaciones
de letras y a complejas variaciones
y al fin pronunció el Nombre que es la Clave,
la Puerta, el Eco, el Huésped y el Palacio,
sobre un muñeco que con torpes manos
labró, para enseñarle los arcanos
de las Letras, del Tiempo y del Espacio.
El simulacro alzó los soñolientos
párpados y vio formas y colores
que no entendió, perdidos en rumores
y ensayó temerosos movimientos.
Gradualmente se vio (como nosotros)
aprisionado en esta red sonora
de Antes, Después, Ayer, Mientras, Ahora,
Derecha, Izquierda, Yo, Tú, Aquellos, Otros.
(El cabalista que ofició de numen
a la vasta criatura apodó Golem;
estas verdades las refiere Scholem
en un docto lugar de su volumen.)
El rabí le explicaba el universo
´esto es mi pie; esto el tuyo, esto la soga.´
y logró, al cabo de años, que el perverso
barriera bien o mal la sinagoga.
Tal vez hubo un error en la grafía
o en la articulación del Sacro Nombre;
a pesar de tan alta hechicería,
no aprendió a hablar el aprendiz de hombre.
Sus ojos, menos de hombre que de perro
y harto menos de perro que de cosa,
seguían al rabí por la dudosa
penumbra de las piezas del encierro.
Algo anormal y tosco hubo en el Golem,
ya que a su paso el gato del rabino
se escondía. (Ese gato no está en Scholem
pero, a través del tiempo, lo adivino.)
Elevando a su Dios manos filiales,
las devociones de su Dios copiaba
o, estúpido y sonriente, se ahuecaba
en cóncavas zalemas orientales.
El rabí lo miraba con ternura
y con algún horror. '¿Cómo' (se dijo)
'pude engendrar este penoso hijo
y la inacción dejé, que es la cordura?'
'¿Por qué di en agregar a la infinita
serie un símbolo más? ¿Por qué a la vana
madeja que en lo eterno se devana,
di otra causa, otro efecto y otra cuita?'
En la hora de angustia y de luz vaga,
en su Golem los ojos detenía.
¿Quién nos dirá las cosas que sentía
Dios, al mirar a su rabino en Praga?
I do the following reflection...
´...and in the end pronounced the name that is the Key, the Door, the Echo, the Guest, and the Palace, over a mannequin shaped with awkward hands, teaching it the arcane knowledge of symbols, of Time and Space.´ Beyond Time, beyond Space - Otacílio pronounced the name! Pronounced the Key, the Door, the
E c h o,
the Guest, the Palace, the Symbol:
S á t á n t a n g ó!
¿Por qué di en agregar a la infinita serie un símbolo más? Why did I give to the infinite series a symbol more? Move the Tango to a language of contemporary music is fabulous but others have already done. What makes me wonder is...Otacílio accomplishes this in a very special way because ´Sátántangó´ (Disk of Imaginary Beings) sounds
u n h e a r d!
At the same time is dense, fey, iconoclastic, intimidating, fascinating as tigers, mirrors, labyrinths, libraries, swords...between the myth and the poetic of Borges (and doing the decoding of the creative, ironic, powerful Title, between the myth and the poetic of Tarr and Krasznahorkai, of course). Withal the Tango between melgacian poetic and mythology! ´Gradually it was seen to be (as we are) imprisoned in a
r e v e r b e r a t i n g
net of Before, Later, Yesterday, While, Now, Right, Left, I, You, Those, Others, All of Us!
Post Scriptum - Otacílio Melgaço & Buenos Aires. ´(...) De toda suerte humana; aquí mis pasos Urden su incalculable laberinto. Aquí la tarde cenicienta espera El fruto que le debe la mañana; Aquí mi sombra en la no menos vana Sombra final se perderá, ligera. No nos une el amor sino el espanto; Será por eso que la quiero tanto.´ Borges & Melgaço are interconnected by common themes, including cities, tigers, mirrors, labyrinths, libraries, swords, dreams, philosophy...
The philosophical term ´Borgesian conundrum´ is named after him and has been defined as the ontological question of ´whether the writer writes the story, or it writes him.´ The original concept put forward by Borges is in Kafka and His Precursors—after reviewing works that were written before Kafka's, Borges wrote: ´If I am not mistaken, the heterogeneous pieces I have enumerated resemble Kafka; if I am not mistaken, not all of them resemble each other. The second fact is the more significant. In each of these texts we find Kafka's idiosyncrasy to a greater or lesser degree, but if Kafka had never written a line, we would not perceive this quality; in other words, it would not exist. The poem ´Fears and Scruples´ by Browning foretells Kafka's work, but our reading of Kafka perceptibly sharpens and deflects our reading of the poem. Browning did not read it as we do now. In the critics' vocabulary, the word 'precursor' is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotation of polemics or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.´
´Whether the writer writes the story, or it writes him.´ The musician composed Sátántangó and now and then, extraordinarily/metaphorically, just also has written Borges (and the muse Buenos Aires) ´las partituras´? Would be a more bewitching melgacian tribute? And so the Argentine writer receives elegies in the titles of the nine Pieces. Reverse borgesian conundrum... And so, hopefully, a hitherto blind Jorge, through his hearing rubbed by Melgaço, - a sensory domino effect - has finally restored his vision; has revived his vision for even reading a word, even a single lexical, the most vital: Sátántangó!
Hanging Gardens.
Melgaço & Buenos Aires.
Melgaço & Borges.
Melgaço & Tango.
Melgaço & Bandoneon...
Projected, prophesied, decanted, destined Gardens of No Forking Paths." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)
&
I - Sátántangó is a 1994 Hungarian film directed by Béla Tarr. Shot in black-and-white, it runs for more than seven hours. It is based on the novel Satantango by Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai, who has been providing Tarr with stories since his 1988 film Damnation. Tarr had wanted to make the film since 1985 but was unable to proceed with the production due to the strict political environment in Hungary.
II - This film is based on literary sources and had a screenplay, but much of it was still improvised on set. Tarr had this to say on the subject of having a screenplay, but on his filming method in general:
"No, we never use the script. We just write it for the foundations and the producers and we use it when looking for the money. The pre-production is a very simple thing. It takes always a minimum of one year. We spend a year looking all around and we see everything. We have a story but I think the story is only a little part of the whole movie."
III - The plot deals with the collapse of a collective farm in Hungary near the end of the Communist period. Several people on the farm are eager to leave with the cash they will receive for closing down the community, but they hear that the smooth-talking and charismatic Irimiás, who had disappeared over two years ago and whom they thought to be dead, is returning. Much of the film's plot concentrates on the impact and consequences of Irimiás' return through multiple POVs as the communards must cope not only with Irimiás' scheming, but that of each other.
IV - The tango (possibly from Latin tangere, meaning "touch") is a partner dance that originated in the 1890s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Uruguay and Argentina, and soon spread to the rest of the world. Early tango was known as tango criollo (Creole tango). Today, there are many forms of tango extant. Popularly and among tango dancing circles, the authentic tango is considered to be the one closest to the form originally danced in Argentina and Uruguay.
V - A newer style sometimes called tango nuevo or "new tango" has been popularized in recent years by a younger generation of dancers. The embrace is often quite open and very elastic, permitting the leader to initiate a great variety of very complex figures. This style is often associated with those who enjoy dancing to jazz - and techno-tinged, electronic and alternative music inspired in old tangos, in addition to traditional Tango compositions. Tango nuevo is largely fueled by a fusion between tango music and electronica, though the style can be adapted to traditional tango and even non-tango songs.
VI - The bandoneon (in Spanish: bandoneón) is a type of concertina particularly popular in Argentina, Uruguay and Lithuania. It is an essential instrument in most tango ensembles from the traditional orquesta típica of the 1910s onwards, and in folk music ensembles of Lithuania. The bandoneon, so named by the German instrument dealer, Heinrich Band (1821–1860), was originally intended as an instrument for religious and popular music of the day, in contrast to its predecessor, the German concertina (or Konzertina), considered to be a folk instrument by some modern authors. German sailors and Italian seasonal workers and emigrants brought the instrument with them to Argentina in the late 19th century, where it was incorporated into the local music, such as tango.
...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.
