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Unvanity Case Singles Series | L'​É​glise M​é​tropolitaine d'Art de Esot​é​rik Satie Conducteur {Otac​í​lio Melga​ç​o} [duration 42​​​​​:​21]

by Otacílio Melgaço

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U n v a n i t y C a s e S i n g l e s S e r i e s

L ' É g l i s e M é t r o p o l i t a i n e D ' A r t
D e E s o t é r i k S a t i e C o n d u c t e u r

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 42:21] 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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{Note by P.S.P. -

U N V A N I T Y
C A S E
S I N G L E S
S E R I E S,

Eight releases that portray, among many glimpsed, a Melgacian sonorous fantastical microcosm.

Symphony, suite, sonata, cantata, pastoral, madrigal, sarabanda, fantasia, fugue, rhapsody, capriccio, passacaglia, berceuse, tombeau, lied, concertino, gimnopedia, oratorio, mass, operetta, opera ... are customary part of the compositional vocabulary of Otacílio Melgaço. Here and now we come in contact with other perspectives (with one or two exceptions) that are beyond the frontiers of modern classical genre. Extrapolations already contained in several albums produced by him and which are also treasures of his vast discography but never before gathered in a Series.

An image full of perspicacity when we think of a portable ´compendium´ of quite personal complementary aesthetic man-made objects (and here I´m referring to the adaptation of the term by Mr. Melgaço), the Vanity Case is a small handbag used for carrying cosmetics or toiletries.

Unvanity Case (Singles Series). It´s possible to perceive at least two fundamentals embedded in the O.M. wordplay. There´s the properly denial of ´vanity´ (the dictionarist meaning: excessive pride in or admiration of one's own appearance or achievements; the quality of being worthless or futile. So he invents a neologism to reveal this clear denudation) and also the symbolist recognition of artifacts gathered in the same casing as is the special case, for example and in addition to others, of a mirror.

In a fashion, the message that the composer and multi-instrumentalist conveys to us is clear:

He looks at himself, limpidly. Something a great artist is often doing. Yes, paradoxically, Melgaço does not give up (peer through the subsequent figures of speech) ´cosmetic & toiletry´ elements of music (timbres, harmonies, durations, pauses, melodies, dynamics, rhythms, pitches, articulations, textures, technicalities, arrangements, mixes, masterings ...) and, consequently (as expected and desired): he shows himself to us. Something that often a great artist should do with transparency and, of course, a certain mystery. Another paradox. He shows himself to us just as in Greek tragedy/comedy, the Mask (again: ´cosmetic & toiletry´) does not hide: it brings even more to light who the character is.

And, resuming the title exegesis, reflecting on the portable character: in the condition of ´perpetuum mobile´, every EP brings us to a peculiar place (situated in some historical snapshot) in one of the four corners of the world or even orbiting the planet earth. This conceptual ballast, therefore, is a mention of travels and journeys and trips and gigs (and rays and twinkles) and sagas perpetrated by the artist. I draw attention to the fact that the relationship between the niche itself and the respective musical proposal is direct, bright. ´Moto perpetuo´ as much as the experiments with his music as being a restless, challenger creator - who takes risks in constant search and daring -. Creator in its integrity/fragmentation, complexity/plainness; O.M.: an ontological mosaic, a kaleidoscope in person always in displacement and in our direction, provoking us but, I have no doubt, in humanistic celebration. This, citing only one of the facets of an Art-in-Magnification as is the Melgacian.

´Everything is metaphor´, Otacílio usually utters. And when we realize the polysemous richness of his inventions (nor need I say that the vocable 'case' is equally read as ´an instance of a particular situation; an example of something occurring´), we can conclude how absolutely everything that the/this artist plays can be an exciting, constructive and Graceful fluxuosity. Through the looking glass, the reflector, the speculum! And who inhabits the other side of the mirror?

Eight times,
the response that - hitherto - echoes eight times,
Ladies and Gentlemen, is:
E a c h O n e O f U s.}

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"An ethereal piano beneath the soothing Oriental vestments.

L'Église Métropolitaine d'Art de Esotérik Satie Conducteur, Mémoires d'un Amnésique.
L'Église Métropolitaine d'Art de Esotérik Satie Conducteur, Le piège de Méduse.
L'Église Métropolitaine d'Art de Esotérik Satie Conducteur, Musiques intimes et secrètes.
L'Église Métropolitaine d'Art de Esotérik Satie Conducteur, La belle excentrique." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"L'Église Métropolitaine d'Art de Esotérik Satie Conducteur is a paronomasia on the part of the Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist Otacílio Melgaço with L'Église Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur or the Metropolitan Church of Art of Jesus the Conductor, alternatively translated as the Metropolitan Church of Art of Jesus, Leader (et cetera) - founded by Erik Satie, the French composer and pianist -.

A sacred homage? No doubt.
An exotic picardy? Yes.
Between this and that, the spirits of Satie and Melgaço become indiscernible.

[A bit of historical background:

L'Église Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur was founded in 1892, following Satie's break from Sâr Joséphin Péladan, ´High Priest of Wagnerism´ and the head of the revived Rosicrucian (Rose + Croix) Sect in Paris. At this time Satie was pianist at the Café de la Nouvelle Athènes and was associating especially closely with painters. Earlier that same year, Satie made his first abortive attempt at application to the Académie des Beaux-Arts whence a vacancy was left by Ernest Guiraud.

Satie's involvement in the Rosicrucian Sect was at times tumultuous. Although acting as ´Master of the Chapel´ for the sect, Satie was frustrated by the implication that he was a disciple of Péladan. In 1890, he had become the sect's ´official musician.´ His music was considered acceptable, ´mystical´ and ´ritualistic´ albeit not Wagerian. It is to be remembered that Satie would later declare, when speaking of a distinct, French style, of his own desire to compose music ´without the sauerkraut.´

Upon founding L'Église Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur, Satie became Parcier et Maître de Chapelle or Parcener and Master of the Chapel, establishing his Abbatial Residence at 6 rue Cortot. He began issuing various edicts and excommunications immediately, condemning all ´evildoers speculating on human corruption ... to the hatred of righteous persons,´ as recognised within the Church as ´Christians having claims of an aesthetic order.´ The general mission of the Metropolitan Church of Art is best summarised in Satie's own words:

´We have thus resolved, following the dictates of Our conscience and trusting in God's mercy, to erect in the metropolis of this Frankish nation, which for so many centuries aspired above all others to the glorious title of Elder Daughter of the Church, a Temple worthy of the Saviour, conductor and redeemer of all men ; We shall make of it a refuge where the Catholic faith and the Arts, the which are indissolubly bound to it, shall grow and prosper, sheltered from profanity, expanding in all their purity, unsullied by the workings of evil.´ -- Le Cœur, VIe-VIIe fascicles, Sept.-Oct.1893.

The various publications of the Metropolitan Church of Art are marked by their bold, flowery, and entirely bombastic language, written in a sort of pseudo-antique French. The writings extol the virtues of artistic sacrifice and abject poverty, which reflect the very lifestyle that Satie and his close affiliates embraced. Commentary on certain affairs of the day was also at times provided, as well as ´Church News,´ which included the arrival of certain church figures to the Eternal City and pleas for ´the infidel anglicans´ to return ´to the bosom of the Catholic Faith.´

The cartulary of the Church of Art also served as a vehicle for Satie's vitriolic attacks against various critics of his day. Perhaps most noteworthy among them was Henry Gauthier-Villars, better known by his nom de plume Willy, Satie's bitter enemy. In 1904, the two men came to blows.

Satie is widely acknowledged to have been the only member of the Metropolitan Church of Art. In the Cartulary of the Church, however, there do appear on more than one occasion contributions by a one François de Paule, Lord of the Marches of Savoy.

The final Cartulaire de l'Église Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur, No. 2-63, appeared in June 1895. It concludes with A Prayer for the Worthy and against Sinners, chastising ´atheists, blasphemers, free-thinkers, the vain-glorious, resolute Jews, anglican heretics, Simoniac freemasons and others.´ Earlier that year Satie had published two Brochures, Commune qui mundi nefas (24 January) and Intende votis supplicum (8 March). The suspension of his publications through the Metropolitan Church of Art and his following third abortive attempt at application to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1896, upon the vacancy left by Ambroise Thomas, marks the conclusion of what is sometimes considered Satie's ´Mystic Period´ and the commencement of his adoption of a less religiously affectatious eccentricity.]

Monsieur Satie was really the only member of the said Church and (a crank?) excommunicated everyone who disagreed with him. After such a faithful tribute to Erik, certainly to O.M. this wouldn't happen.

The reinvention of pianistic sonority is hypnotic here. And the tambura (or tanpuri, banndar), seductively able to keep an ´umbilical cord anchored´ while the over forty minutes of Melgacian liturgical music achieve azygous hieratic levels. If we carry out an analysis even more accurately, we´ll realize that the heart, the core of the Satiesque imaginary is pulsating in L'Église Métropolitaine d'Art de Esotérik ...: minimalist spectra; enchanting dose of absurdity; unconventionality; purposeful absence of pyrotechnics and virtuosistic onanisms; a rather idiosyncratic Mystique; adumbrations of surrealism; insertion of concrete syntax incorporating, for example, noises; impressionistic overtones and so on.

It´s worth remembering that the nickname ´Esotérik Satie´ was given by comedian Alphonse Allais. Of course, this did not go unnoticed by Otacílio. Allais wrote the earliest known example of a completely silent musical composition. His Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Great Deaf Man of 1897 consists of twenty-four blank measures. It predates similarly silent but intellectually serious works by John Cage and Erwin Schulhoff by many years." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (1866 – 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, Surrealism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd.

An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a "gymnopedist" in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. Later, he also referred to himself as a "phonometrician" (meaning "someone who measures sounds"), preferring this designation to that of "musician", after having been called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book on contemporary French composers published in 1911.

In addition to his body of music, Satie was "a thinker with a gift of eloquence" who left a remarkable set of writings, having contributed work for a range of publications, from the dadaist 391 to the American culture chronicle Vanity Fair. Although in later life he prided himself on publishing his work under his own name, in the late 19th century he appears to have used pseudonyms such as Virginie Lebeau and François de Paule in some of his published writings;

II - Satie's composition most clearly linked to his Église Métropolitaine period later became known as the Messe des pauvres ("Mass of the Poor"). At the time of its composition (1893-1895), Satie referred to it as Grande Messe de l'Église Métropolitaine d'Art.

Other compositions, like the 15 July 1893 Modéré are seen as preparatory studies for the Messe des Pauvres by Satie scholars;

III - Alphonse Allais (1854 – 1905) was a French writer and humorist, who was born in Honfleur, Calvados and who died in Paris.

...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.

credits

released January 11, 2017

Hear more here:
soundcloud.com/otaciliomelgaco

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M e l g a ç o {conception | composition | arrangement | synopsis | instrumentation | orchestration | engineering & sound design | art design | production | direction}

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Otacílio Melgaço Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Multi-
Instrumentalist
from
Minas Gerais,
Brazil.
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"Music is like a bewitched Mistress." (Paul Klee)
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