T o t e m

F i v e I m p r o m p t u s F o r P i a n o

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 02:02:36] 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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"An Impromptu (loosely meaning ´offhand´) is a free-form musical composition with the character of an ex tempore improvisation as if prompted by the spirit of the moment, usually for a solo instrument, such as Piano and believe me, all you hear in this phonographic record is a Piano. Transubstantiated by O.M.

Here's what Otacílio Melgaço engenders. By the Totem of a moment that becomes perennial, unfathomable, bottomless, sans limite,
beyond silence beyond sound." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"We are face to face with a confessional work.

Poets, and to a lesser extent fiction writers, often use anthropological concepts. For this reason literary criticism often resorts to psychoanalytic, anthropological analyses. In the chapter titled ´The Importance of Dreams´ in Man and His Symbols, Carl Gustav Jung wrote of the ´resistance to the idea of an unknown part of the human psyche´ and that ´the individual's psyche is far from being safely synthesized; on the contrary, it threatens to fragment only too easily under the onslaught of unchecked emotions... We too can become dissociated and lose our identity.´ However, Jung also characterizes cultures who hold totemic beliefs (as he sees them) as ´primitive.´

A Totem is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe. The totemic symbol may serve as a reminder of the kin group's ancestry or mythic past. While the term ´totem´ is Ojibwe in origin, belief in tutelary spirits and deities is not limited to indigenous peoples of the Americas but common to a number of cultures worldwide. Totemistic beliefs are found in regions of Africa, Arabia, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Arctic.

The notes sprayed by the piano keys are acupuncturistic! Often the improvisations seem unexpected and enigmatic drizzles! Distortions, overlays, timbre mutations, synesthesia sonic, ... , все разрешено - everything is permitted! Despite all this, or precisely because of it - maybe, taking into consideration the sound complexity of the stunning ´Five Impromptus´, what he´s (O.M.) trying to convey to us is a message of primal simplicity just like the words of Louise Bourgeois: ´Look at it this way - a totem pole is just a decorated tree. My work is a confessional.´

Definitely musically there are no taboos for Mr. Melgaço." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - According to Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, Johann Baptist Cramer began publishing piano pieces under the (sub-)title of "impromptu." (AMZ, Mar. No II, 1815, col. 6), which seems to be the first recorded use of the term impromptu in this sense;

II - Since the very concept of unpremeditated, spur-of-the-moment inspiration without studied care is at the heart of Romantic artistic theory, it did nоt take long before the first generation of Romantic composers took up the idea. Others were:
Jan Václav Voříšek was the first one to compose impromptus published under that title, in 1822.
Franz Schubert published two sets of four Impromptus for piano op. 90 and 142 (1827). After his death 3 more unnamed piano compositions (Klavierstücke) were sometimes named Impromptus.
Frédéric Chopin composed 4 Impromptus, including the famous Fantaisie-Impromptu.
Robert Schumann wrote some Impromptus, published as Op. 5.
Franz Liszt composed an Impromptu in F sharp (sometimes called Nocturne) and a piano piece named Valse-Impromptu.
Alexander Scriabin is known to have written at least nine impromptus for the piano in his early period.
Jean Sibelius composed six impromptus for piano op. 5 (1893)

The impromptu genre remained popular all throughout the 19th century.

In the 20th century, there are also several examples of composers naming their compositions "Impromptu", such as:
Gabriel Fauré composing six Impromptus between 1881 and 1913.
Richard Rodney Bennett composing five Impromptus for guitar in 1968
Maurice Journeau composing six Impromptus between 1971 and 1974.
Donald Martino composing Fantasies and Impromptu in 1980.
Nikolai Kapustin composing four Impromptus between 1991 and 1997.
Lowell Liebermann composing Three Impromptus Op.68 in 2000.
Vince Mendoza's Epiphany, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and published in 1999. The first piece of the album is named Impromptu.
One of Queen's compositions, performed at Wembley Stadium and other performances is named Impromptu;

III - Totemism (derived from the root -oode- in the Ojibwe language, which refers to something kinship-related, c.f. odoodem, "his totem") is a religious belief that is frequently associated with animistic religions. The totem is usually an animal or other natural figure that spiritually represents a group of related people such as a clan.

Totemism was a key element of study in the development of 19th and early 20th century theories of religion, especially for thinkers such as Émile Durkheim, who concentrated their study on Indigenous societies. Drawing on the identification of social group with spiritual totem in Australian aboriginal tribes, Durkheim theorized that all human religious expression was intrinsically founded in the relationship to a group.

In his essay "Le Totémisme aujourd’hui" (Totemism Today), the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss argued that human cognition, which is based on analogical thought, is independent of social context. From this, he excludes mathematical thought, which operates primarily through logic. Lévi-Strauss argues that the use of physical analogies is not an indication of a more primitive mental capacity. It is, rather, a more efficient way to cope with this particular mode of life in which abstractions are rare, and in which the physical environment is in direct friction with the society. He also holds that scientific explanation entails the discovery of an "arrangement"; moreover, since "the science of the concrete" is a classificatory system enabling individuals to classify the world in a rational fashion, it is neither more nor less a science than any other in the western world. Lévi-Strauss diverts the theme of anthropology toward the understanding of human cognition.

...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.