Embodying Memory and Intimate Voice: Unfolding Derrida, Barthes, and Catroga in Paulo C. Chagas’s Canções de Adélia (2017-2022)
This paper aims to examine the convergence of Derrida’s philosophical treatment of the singing voice, Barthes’s le grain de la voix, and Catroga’s insights on memory as they relate to Adélia Prado’s poetics and Paulo Chagas’s musical interpretations in Canções de Adélia. Derrida’s notion of voice as an intimate, self-reflective phenomenon provides a foundation for understanding Prado’s poetry. Within Derrida’s framework, the voice holds a privileged space of internal presence, where meaning does not depend on external listeners but instead unfolds as an internal dialogue. When this perspective is applied to the act of singing, it reveals a dual role: the voice is both an expression of inner self-presence and an externalized medium that resonates within the listener. In Chagas’s compositions this duality is central. He negotiate between the reflective nature of Prado’s poetics and the shared performance experience.
Barthes’s concept of le grain de la voix describes the physical, textural quality that conveys a singer’s unique identity and embodied essence beyond semantic content. In Chagas’s work, the “grain” serves as an interpretive bridge, bringing Prado’s poetic voice, rich in existential depth and familiarity with the sublime within the mundane, into an embodied musical form. Barthes’s grain emphasizes the texture of voice as a bodily phenomenon, highlighting how Prado’s introspective words are transformed through Chagas’s interpretive, embodied performance. Chagas’s subtle use of dynamics, careful phrasing, and rhythmic shifts are designed to express Prado’s themes. These musical choices reflect Derrida’s call for a restrained, almost austere approach to the singing voice that respects the original intimacy of Prado’s text while allowing the music to act as a shared, interpretative space rich in expressive layers.
Catroga’s theory on memory adds a layer of temporal complexity to this interaction by highlighting memory’s fragmented and non-linear nature: memory is a “palimpsest” of layered histories and identities, both individual and collective. In Canções de Adélia, Chagas uses silence, fragmentation, and suspended moments to evoke the phenomenon of memory as an act of embodied recollection. These moments of pause and interruption function as musical representations of memory’s incompleteness and fluidity, allowing the compositions to reflect Prado’s poetic nostalgia for the small, profound moments of human experience. Chagas’s music becomes a temporal soundscape of shared memory, where each note and silence recalls the emotional immediacy and embodied presence within Prado’s poetry.
Combining these three philosophical approaches, Canções de Adélia emerges as a harmonious blend of voice, memory, and poetry through/of/by/in Chagas’s music. The composition maintains the intimacy of Prado’s inner voice while extending it into an embodied, communal experience. Through restrained dynamics, the physicality of vocal “grain”, and the echoes of fragmented memory, Canções de Adélia embodies Derrida’s insights on presence, Barthes’s notion of voice’s textural essence, and Catroga’s memory layers, thereby creating a contemplative, multi-dimensional artwork that deeply resonates with Prado’s poetic themes of love, spirituality, and everyday heroism. This work highlights the intersection of philosophy, poetics, and music in exploring how internal voice, embodied expression, and shared memory transform introspective poetry into an intimate yet collective experience.
Keywords: Canções de Adélia, embodied memory, intimate voice, poetic resonance
Biography
Dr. Ivana Petković Lozo is a musicologist whose research centres on European fin-de-siècle music, the relationship between music and art, and the philosophy and aesthetics of music. She served as an Assistant Professor of Musicology at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade until 2024. Additionally, she taught in the Interdisciplinary Studies program at the University of Arts in Belgrade. She is currently a visiting scholar in the Department of Music at USR. Ivana has published articles in leading national and international musicology journals, monographs, and essay collections, and has participated in international conferences, roundtables, forums, symposia, and radio broadcasts. She authored The Late Oeuvre of Claude Debussy: ‘Truths’ about the French Myth (2011) and co-authored Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac in The Writings of ‘Others’ with Olga Otašević (2014). She is a member of the International Musicological Society, the Serbian Musicological Society, and the Music Writers’ Chapter of the Composers’ Association of Serbia.
University of California, Riverside, USA – ivanarpetkovic@gmail.com