Frank Corcoran

Auch die gerade am 14. März 2011 in der Church Of Christ, New York, vom North / South Consonance Ensemble unter der Leitung von Max Lifchitz erfolgreich uraufgeführten “Songs Of Terror And Love” (zu Texten von Jacopone Da Todi) haben schon im Titel stärkste emotionale Spannungen.

“Mein neues Werk ist für Basso, sehr schwierig und fürs so genannte Pierrot-Ensemble, also Violine oder Viola, Cello, Klavier, Klarinette oder Bassklarinette und Flöte. Da haben wir nach dem Modell von Arnold Schönberg sehr viele Möglichkeiten fürs Kolorit. Das interessiert mich sehr. Und diese Instrumente bei meinen Songs Of Terror And Love begleiten oder illustrieren, negieren oder addieren die Bass-Stimme.”

Eher untergeordnet sind Bearbeitungen, genauer: zwei Fugen von Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 876 und BWV 878) hat Frank Corcoran fünfstimmig für Kammerensemble (Flöte, Oboe, Klarinette, Horn, Perkussion, Klavier, Violine, Viola, Cello und Kontrabass) arrangiert, “eine Huldigung und Spaß und Spiele. Wir haben von Kolorit gesprochen. Am Anfang der einen Fuge hatte ich als Kolorit eine Jazztrommel und dadurch einen gewissen Swing. Das war gut gemeint, aber stilistisch falsch. Bach ist zu gut, deshalb Hände weg von seinen Originalen.”

In conclusio ist Kammermusik für den kleinen Raum bestimmt, wo “Flexibilität des Denkens und der Realisation möglich sind. Man braucht für Kammermusik eine andere Sensibilität als bei Opern oder Sinfonik”, eine Bereitschaft zum intensiven Zuhören. Doch Frank Corcoran beobachtet auch, “dass wir jetzt kein oder kaum echtes Publikum für zeitgenössische Musik haben. Seit dem Tod von Claude Debussy 1918, sind mehrere komplizierende Faktoren in die Gleichung gekommen: Rezeption und Vermarktung, Globalisierung und Internet. Richtig ist: Kammermusik ist voces intimae, Tagebuch, bis heute.”

Hans-Dieter Grünefeld

www.frankcorcoran.com

Diskographie

Kammermusik von Frank Corcoran

Music For The Book Of Kells (1990)
Frank Corcoran, Klavier; Percussion Modern (Hamburg), Ltg.: Dieter Cichiewicz

Wind Quintet (1992)
Stuttgart Wind Quintet, Ltg.: Willy Freivogel

auf:
Frank Corcoran
Mad Sweeny
Black Box 1026
(Vertrieb: www.cmc.ie)

Sweeneys Smithereens (2000)
Ensemble für Neue Musik München, Ltg.: Dieter Cichewiecz

5 Trauerfelder / Goirt an Bhróin (1996)
Perkussion Ensemble München, Ltg.: Dieter Cichewiecz

Fünf Lieder ohne Worte (1984)
für Oboe, Englisch Horn, Posaune, drei tiefe Streicher, Klavier und Schlagzeug
Das Neue Werk NDR, Ltg.: Dieter Cichwiecz

auf: Frank Corcoran
Zeitklang / Composers’ Art Label 13017
(Vertrieb: Klassik Center Kassel)

Piano Trio (1978)
Hesketh Trio

Rosenstock Lieder (1980)
Sabine Sommerfeld, Sopran; Hamburg Trio

The Wind Quintet “Sweeney’s Wind Cries” (1999)
Daedalus Quintet

auf:
Frank Corcoran
Mad Sweeney’s Shadow
Col legno WWE 20214
(Vertrieb: Harmonia Mundi)

Quasi Un Pizzicato (2004)
für Sprecher, Flöte, Harfe, Klavier und Perkussion

auf:
Frank Corcoran
Quasi Una Musica
Zeitklang / Composers’ Art Label 13021
(Vertrieb: Klassik Center Kassel

The Light Gleams (2006)
(nach Samuel Beckett)
für Sopran, Bassklarinette,Cello und Violine
Concorde, Ltg.: Jane O’Leary

auf: Contemporary Music From Ireland (Volume 6)
CMC 06
(Vertrieb: www.cmc.ie)

QUASI UNA STORIA for 13 Strings Frank Corcoran

In the nineties I composed a series of ” Quasi ” works for several different music- genres , eg. QUASI UNA FUGA, QUASI UN LAMENTO, QUASI UN CONCERTO, and so on.
It was thus clear that the composer today is no longer innocent; she knows too much music of the Western past written in the various forms. Thus ” Quasi Una Storia” is
quasi telling a story about this composer’s self-consciousness in dealing with music for strings.
Music in common with the other arts ( if a little less so ) has always striven to imitate, to tell a story, to narrate a tale . But this need not result in merely telling a story about a storm ( see Beethoven’s “Pastoral ” ) , about the composer’s love-lorn heart ( see Tchaikowsky’s ” Pathetique” ) or the hero’s derring – do ( see Strauss’ “Till Eulensgiegel ” ) etc.
The highest , most “abstract” music tells a story about its own musical nature ( see so many Mozart symphonies ) , about its very own tones and their vicissitudes within the musical work itself. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is a story ” about ” its first four well-known and – worn tones.
So my one movement ” QUASI UNA STORIA ” tells, sings and recounts, refers to its opening musical statement for the solo first violin; it soon appears also for solo cello and even for solo bass.
My “Quasi” Story pits constantly the one and the many , the soli and the tutti. It revels in the string colours of great compositions of the past which were composed fo rthe sonorous richness that a string orchestra posesses, from the sheen of a Henry Purcell or a Johann Sebastian Bach right up to great works of the 20 th. c. by a Bartok , a Ligeti or a Lutoslawsky . My opening building block expands its nervous tic idea untill all 13 strings are busy with their stringiness, their string thing. In the middle of my story about these string tones, the colour grows darker, then brighter again. ( As in so many recent Corcoran compositions, I use once again my Corcoran’s Seven Tones, my scale comprising of G A flat C sharp D E flat F sharp and A, my beloved ABC . )
At the end an impassioned plea on the double-bass brings back my story’s opening music. We have come the full cycle. My “Quasi” story is ended.

FRANK CORCORAN

VIOLIN CONCERTO Frank Corcoran

( Premiere in Dublin, Nov. 2 . 2012 . National Symphony Orchestra, Cond. Christopher Warren-Green, Soloist: Alan Smale )

When tonight´s soloist, Alan Smale, approached me about composing yet another, my new Violin Concerto, he said one
thing: ” Sing it ! ”

To write a concerto for the ( tiny ) violin and (enormous) orchestra nowadays is not as easy as to cross a field. Yes, I have my three movements, – roughly Moderate / Slow / Fast – and they must ” sing it ! ” Beethoven´s, Mendelssohn´s, Brahms´s do. – Sing what ?

After the orchestral explosion of fortissimo brass and percussion at the beginning of My Very Own Orchestral Story, the soloist gives the game away ; it sings the opening exposition, theme, idea, melody,
really a scale of seven tones : G A flat C sharp D E flat F sharp A. I´ve often used them as my A B C in other, very different works. Why these ? Who knows ?

Here is ” melody” , but also, as
stacked or squashed or collected or heaped – up tones, ” harmony ” . Building-blocks as song .I have to write as melodically as Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms. Alban Berg and György Ligeti, too. My ” collection” comes in a million guises, up , down, oblique, backwards,forwards transposed, invertd and so on.
Sing it. I use the ( not over- heavy – I´ve no tuba, not too much percussion, a harp, yes, in the lyrical Slow Movement ) orchestra as discrete accompaniment, as a foil to the leaping, darting, climbing , descending, singing human voice of the solo instrument, its joy and radiance and despair and roughness and cantability as my violin threads its line and lovely trellis-work up from the open G string to the highest regions of the E string.

String joy. Great energy ! Great . Sing it ! In this opening movement the short brass and wind chorales punctuate the violin´s Amhrán Mór, Great Song. Always my opening melodic idea and a second little ” lusingando” playfulness is the spiel . In the middle of this movement the
cadenza is ( – well, as it always is ) the soloist´s show-off acrobatics, the violinist painting his canvas with his sparkle of ideas, but they are all won from the opening tones ( as in Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms… ) , all woven into the orchestral canvas.

The Second Movement is all melody ( But can we in this 21.st c. still compose a Lied ? Yes, we can ! ), lovely and ravishing . Four times comes this Lied ( built again from my seven building-blocks of that First Movement opening ) . In German ” Lied” ( “Song” ) is close to ” Leid” ( ” Suffering” ) . The central Cadenza distills the
very essence of both. Then, near the close, the violins have the singing before the soloist´s final lovely pizz. and sigh.

The final Third Movement has a Mozartian last movement energy with its forward movement of fast ( string ) semiquavers, it´s racing towards its end. ” In my end is my beginning” – it sums up, it quotes the First and Second Mov.s before
pitting itself again against strong orchestral forces, tiny David against his Goliathic orchestra, light and shadow and gossamer explosions and clouds and heavenly regions, the hole thing . The solo instrument has the last say, its last sigh rudely cut off by low celli and basses.

FRANK CORCORAN

Hi Frank,

jetzt habe ich etwas Ordnung ins Buch gebracht. Ich schicke Dir den
Ordner, wo die meisten Texte in der von uns verabredeten Reihenfolge
zusammen gestellt sind. Mir fehlen noch folgende Texte: “It’s a Cold
Wind Blowing”, “Looking Back”, “Composer’s Note On The Piano Trio”,
“Eight Haikus”, alle von Dir, und der Epilog “Farewell Haiku”. Hast Du
die Texte noch in Deinem Computer? Dann bitte schicken.

Die Diskographie und Biographischen Anmerkungen zu den Autoren und
auch das Gedicht “To Frank” von Liddy muss ich noch (ab-)schreiben.
Den Bildteil mache ich demnächst.

Den Ordner kannst Du durch Anklicken aufmachen, und dann die einzelnen
Texte auch anklicken.

Schau mal bitte, ob ich etwas vergessen habe, ergänzen muss etc.

Subject: De Senectudine

Mihi placet latine ?

( Lingua Latinorum erat alienatio secunda ; prima erat naturaliter : Teanga na nGael – etiam lingua linguarum atque lingua hebreorum et Dei )

Exemplum : ” Nocteque puellas ”

– sed verum est timor mortis ( conturbantis me ) et timor puellarum et,eheu timor inferorum et timor matris meae et timor patriset timor

ceterorum apud Scholam Borrisokanensem

et ceterorum et linguarum et

mundi sonorum.

Cras tantae syllabae et sonorum .

De urbe urbarum et confusionis . Stercorum . Lucris lucrarum. De Inferis inferorum Romanorum.

Here’s a delightful piece of zany music critic’s hogwash which
hilariously conceals the vapidity of its utterance and
the non-profundity of the thought,
all wrapped and served up with
envious seriousness!

Franks Werk inszeniert das Scheitern, das sich unmittelbar an oder jenseits der Grenzen dessen einstellt, was wir hören und physisch umsetzen können, und das als Scheitern selbst stets spürbar ist. Die Klänge seiner Musik sind abwechselnd dicht, körperlich spürbar, fieberhaft; und wie sie dem Interpreten in der Aufführung entgleiten, überträgt sich auf das Hörerlebnis.

2016 RTE “CROSSCURRENTS”

We just spoke on the phone — as promised, here are the two interviews I heard:

1.) http://www.crosscurrents.ie/frank-corcoran
2.) https://soundcloud.com/cmcireland/cross-currents-episode-1

CABHAIR / GRÁSTA / GNADE / ELEGANZA do Frainc ´O Corcoráin !

Frank agus na Muca
Gabriel Rosenstock

Na muca a mhúin an ceol duit
Nótaí ísle
Nótaí arda
Nótaí nach gcloiseann na muca féin

Tá breis is 200 ainm ar Éirinn
Inis na Muc ceann acu

Is beannaithe í an dair
Is beannaithe dá réir sin
An mhuc a itheann toradh na darach
An dearcán

Tá tú 70
Tá tú ag iompú i do dhearcán

Mo sheacht mbeannacht ort

Frank and the Pigs
It was the pigs that taught you music
Low notes
High notes
Notes that the pigs themselves don’t hear

Ireland has more than 200 names
One is Inis na Muc, Isle of Pigs

The oak is sacred
By osmosis so too
The pig that eats the fruit of the oak
The acorn

You are 70
You are turning into an acorn

Seven blessings upon you
=============================

In einer eMail vom 08.07.2011 17:28:55 Mitteleuropäische Zeit schreibt FBCorcoran@aol.com:

Irish Composer: CORCORAN Frank.

Age : 67 years . Ireland.

I participated in the IMEB Competition 1999. My ” SWEENEY´S VISION ” ( 1997 WDR Cologne

Commission ) was awarded a Premier Prix.

IMEB Competition was

EXCELLENTLY conceived and administered. It contributed GREATLY to my career as a composer !
It is a great shame that the French Ministry of Culture has chosen to withdraw vital support from IMEB and to force it to
close this July 2011….
IMEB was foremost in its field; it was a flag-ship for French musical culture and for
international electronic music in all its many facets.
Yes. A great shame for this great cultural nation. A great shame ! “Mor mo naire !”

NORTH/SOUTH CONSONANCE, INC. presents
MARCH MADNESS!

Premieres by Composers from Ireland and the US

FRANK CORCORAN Variations on Myself

BINNETTE LIPPER Ten-Able

JOYCE SOLOMON MOORMAN The Snow Storm

WILLIAM PFAFF The Road is All

Binnette Lipper Joyce Solomon Moorman
Frank Corcoran Harry Bulow William Pfaff

Max Lifchitz, conductor
The North/South Chamber Orchestra

Tuesday, March 12 at 8 PM
Christ & St. Stephen’s Church
120 West 69th Street, NYC
(between Broadway & Columbus)
Free Admission

www.northsouthmusic.org
33rd Season (1980-2013)