Frank Corcoran

Crack or clack finger bones in this bracing December cold.
“Ireland consists of one huge grave-yard. They like to keep it that way: it reminds them that they have suffered. ” Good man, John Cage. Still, not too cold for a few Haikus, quasi variations.

NARCISSUS 1.

Fair Narcissus slid
Under to watery death
He kissed his Greek lips

NARCISSUS 2.

Flailing wildly the
Lush, lithe youth drowned in his own
Watery beauty.

NARCISSUS 3.

His Greek curls combed high
Narcissus slipped and, drowning,
Halved his reflection.

NARCISSUS 4.

Young, wet ephebos
Kissed his own mouth as he fell
To his water-death.

These frozen finger-bones clack on their bodhrán message. Winter out !
Then consider “QUASI UNA VISIONE” by Frank Corcoran for that crazily balanced Ensemble Modern .
It was (
cold, sic et non, but not these clacking finger-bones ) no mean achievement . Try to compose that RTE 2005 ” Living Music” Festival, 18. February 2005, ” QUASI UNA VISIONE ” for so few strings PLUS so strong brass PLUS wood and percussion ? Re-try ?

This e-corner has in the past ( modestly enough) considered a few modest themes. eg.
the composer´s time, the composer´s times, quare themes and sighs, society and its new music, art as eg. conceal the Horatian transmutation of measured sound into gold or into geld. Then there´s musical charlatans etc.
Little e-snips and e-insights, whistle down the wind, music stringy, blown, hacked or whacked motivs. Keeping the hand in, watch the lips; this humble corner fights against sonic rubbish and world music-rape. In itself it is a small contribution at the cold end of a cold November in very cold Advent Hamburg at the end of a, my good enough year. “Winter out” this winter. In this e-corner today we blow gently on the flame, co-wintering. Don´t let the fire out ! Do not forget high ecstasy; it was a southern sun and me
setting ( for S.S.A.A.T.T.B.B. Choir) my very own texts , my own EIGHT HAIKUS BY FRANK CORCORAN.
Take a typical choral trigger:
” A crow , snatching snow / Beak, claw, craw, all white and black / The eye pitiless “.
And what a trigger ! The ” a” s and ” o ” s and ” b” s and ” k”, ” cr” etc.
Yes, I composed my EIGHT HAIKUS texts as eight triggers for the
plosive-lyrical-melismatic-ackrobatickery of ecstatic choir sounds.
Don´t let this wintry flame out.

1. Icy wind. 2. Hang on to the ( Atlantic VERY feral ) composer´s

prow. 3. Record what these two , faithful to their fingers, finger. 3.
No ? No. No. M new(est) works vomit and bow.

Well censure our composer charlatans. Well-crafted be my radio-utterances , written and e-typed shorts about Seáiníní Cage . He – and I – died defending ” independence. ”

Apparently, you, that composer, must begin with. With eg. x y z tones / harmonies / rhythm-coloure-thickness etc. Best you´d ( I learned this from Boris Blacher, his death approaching, it was 1970 ) expose , develop , re-gurgitate them or their all changed selves.

Consider, okay in its splendid self, the quickie, the ” quasi un haiku” . Breve and semi-breve, no bad ally in these bad, bad times.
The repertoires shiver ever more, together . For the ( few remaining ) biggy music-agencies in London . Ever more orchestras are ( made ) prepared ( ? ) to perform ( ? ) ever ( ? ) less composers. Whisper. I tiptoe. Suffer.
No, it is neither ” inevitable ” , nor was it always so . ( Suffer me at this e – moment to remain silent about an everpresent “musical” charlatanerie in “our” European music-map this , on ” our” ” arts´” brittle November Hamburg night .

I see the “Well, then, who´s is the actual art-work ? ! ” brigade are back.
Is it the artist´s ? Her music-copyist´s ? The perception of all its potential / actual audiences ( shaky mathematics here; slobbery metaphysics ) till the end of Time ( when´ll that be, Saint John Wayne ? ) ? What then of the author´s rights ? Writes?
Rite and reason conflate and conflict , surely, in the musical composition, whether it is the concept, the score or the sounding brass ? Is that it ? Right so.
Hafiz sings ( sounds ? ) it well:
” Come – the Palace of Heaven rests on pillars of air.
Come – and bring me wine; our days are wind. “

I see it differently. The same questions keep cropping up.
What is a musical composition ? One of mine , say ? 1. Old chestnut, is it my thought out concept , my scribbled and messy score, a bloody awful or sublimely musical performance ? Or what ? Could it be the sum total of all that mental time I spent with my obscure intuitions, my dreamed up intervals, synaesthetic colours and all ? ( Surely not ? ) Is it perhaps the sum total of all its performed performances ( are there others ? ) , actual or potential ? The score as a list of sound-possibilities , whether sound or not ? – Sound gerrul that you are …. And then , why ” my ” ? Surely, when it´s finished, it is – like any child of mine – then launched into the world of others, fighting its own corner, offering possibilities and interpretations each time different ? No longer ” my ” then ? Or still, for ever ” my ” ?

I blow on my cold fingers. twice, thrice. Is this music ?

So am I my tones ? My eg. “feeling-tone ” ? Well ? If, it´s well-known, after all, that ” Cadenza = Death ” ? See what I might say or see ? )

Yes, these last five or six years were rich. Very. We recorded the hay-results. Backing our, at that time, Killavalla black mare and the switch now had become a, my , poor, little diagonal – pull a handle tripped hay-car , I was still very young, it was very precious . Certainly, this world would become my Swiss ” Alm ” , my rescue from this desert I trod. Yes, I
did reason. ” Who´ll love me ? In this, my idyllic Irish North Tipperary bog infinitely killing ? Me ?

I do so love my wastepaper basket; so airy-light ; so kenotic. He who empties himself should.
Certainly nowadays, every new Corcoran work is an obsession. My remaining years, yelling at the Second Law Of Obsessed Thermodynamics, must. Obsession with a motiv, a few intervals, a hidden text or texture. New SONGS OF TERROR AND LOVE ( March 14 2011 New York Premiere – watch this space ) to texts in Umbran and English by Jacopone da Todi are obsessed by the opening motivs of his ” Stabat Mater ” and Tommaso da Celano´s ” Dies Irae ” . Quite apart from various spins off from these great Medieval Latin Hymns ( are they hymns ? ) I react also to spins off his texts, I know.
My new Violin Concerto ( premiere 2012 in Dublin – again, watch this space ) is certainly obsessed with the four open strings of the soaring violin ( – how could it be otherwise ? ) , but also with the lightness of being and bow, the linearity of all my sung song, occasionally plucked, too . “RHAPSODIC BOWING ” for 8 Celli ( 2011 premiere ; again, this space …. ) as my title announces its obsession with deep or high cello strings. ” SYMPHONIES OF SYMPHONIES OF WIND ” for 23 Wind ( 1981 Vienna premiere by the O.R.F.S.O. / Lothar Zagrosek ) is a different obsession again, eg. with the deepest B Flat of the Double Bassoon ( fff ) at the end. Blown obsessions also obsess.
Or take the ” EIGHT HAIKUS BY FRANK CORCORAN ” for Double Choir ( again, it will be 2011 ) and my obsession there with vowel music, sung colours .