Frank Corcoran

irish composer

ME AND MYSELF OVERWHELMED AT 1977 WARSZAWSKA J

Eheu fugaces indeed….

Great that I enjoyed it greatl, Lutoslawsky’s CELLO CONCERTO

. A great work and a great opening strategy. ( I’d got to the Warsaw Spring in 1977 – it now seems so

incredible that the

good old Roinn Oideachais let me go. – Warsaw was an incredibly gray city with gray Jaruselskian soldiers all

over the place – it appeared as if not a stone from the Germans’ onslaught on the Ghetto had been repaired yet

…. Truly awful.

And yet so many East European composers were so grateful for that glimmer of hope and

that opening to us spoiled Westerns which the Festival provided .

Lutoslawski and the Missus stood at the top of the staircase in Symphony Hall and we all shook the

heroic hand – moving stuff…. It gob-smacked me as to how hugely important new music was for the Poles.

But also to see how vibrant also the other ( half-starved ) arts played their role.

And I was also puzzled by how they all hated the Govt.. . but yet how you couldn’t say a bad word about stiff,

half-blind, old General Jarusewlski who presided over it .

And me then coming out of a little country which understood nothing of ” Irish ” composed music.

Strange.

Posted under: Humble Hamburg Musings

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