Frank Corcoran

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 .

Again, why ? A double white martyrdom , flight from which precise address was the question that wanted no smarty pants answer ( a bit like the desired ” Why Don´t The Irish Understand Non Improvised / Traditional Music ! ? ” – well, why don´t we ? – ) like ” shure, the ould sow sulks now ! ” or such like. It was a great grace. Oisín i ndiaidh na Féinne had the grace of an Early Celtic ( poor John Wayne ) birth ; his fleeting steer hung on to this long harp ( tuned, as it happened , in E Flat . It did. ) . Fair enough the German blonde locks; and long after Fianna father´s tears had morphed into a holly sprink. With this, its ink now blog this: we build and build – a pity ! And have not here a lasting city ! But where we should endure , Sure there we´re SO unsure ! Why is this ? Watch tomorrow .

Well we got over them Alps , all things and great mountain tunnels considered, and no shortage of fresh snow above ground. So what is it that shaped this double exile ? From the land of ” Jawohl!” to that of ” Si! Magari! ” , I now wonder, the viaticum passed ? Was it the usual cunning and distance and getting the other angle ? I wonder about fate or design that shapes our ends, as the bags are silently unpacked for a while anyhow. Here it´s ham in the burg, snug as a rug, air-cured. ” A mighty burg ist unser Gott !” “Burg” is ” Buirgheas” , surely ? – As in ” Buirgheas
Uí Chéin” , englished poorly into ” Borrisokane” where ´twas far that I was, an unwashed lad, from Alpine tunnels and choral haikus ( more later on the 2011 premiere of ” EIGHT HAIKUS BY FRANK CORCORAN” for S S A A T T B B Choir ) .

That tree-riding snake I wrote recently enough about has now ( I do hope – for it and me ) entererd its winter langour. The walnut-hamstering brown squirrel was not seen since ; our wind, this bone -cutting tramontana, whistles its Lazio Caoine for this good year, all nibs hung up to dry, like the fishermen´s nets at the lake shore in Marta. There´ll be no boat going out to our islands this wintry November. No place on troubled , post-volcanic waters. Cross the mighty Alps ( how did Hannibal bring along enough hay for his elephants , enough supplies of matches and vinegar to fire – split Alpine pass rocks, I do wonder as I blow on my fingers ) . Move on up. Bring one nib along. Music note-paper. On the off chance that.. I never know how the wind will change its icy tune.

Dawn just snuck up now to shake cold birds awake to their modest enough October song, just a motive or phrase repeated, hardly a melisma to be heard among them . Burn the summer´s waste wood today, certainly. Batten hatches down for five months. ( I will. ) Composed the FIVE TENOR LIEDER, RHAPSODIC BOWING for 8 Celli, FOUR PIECES FOR 2 CLARINETS, whil I prepare the Violin Concerto for its 2012 premiere . And The Tones Were Made Tunes, its orchestral birth ; other, sundry, good 2010 works, too. I saw the long snake disappearing up the Birds´Choral Tree very fast, spelling dreadful , avian disaster for some.
The rabbit family failed to penetrate their fence. Tomatoes exploded, ditto vegetable marrow. Space-time behaved itself. Felice tu !

Each year , including this one, I have to buy a new sun-hat. Why ? A lone squirrel is pinching now from my walnut tree. And all parturitioning vipers keep about their invisible business as the nights get really cold here . Two hens, like dogs , answer the call of old Maria-Rovensa , next garden. Morning birds chitter alright after the rapidly dying heat. While thinking of the New York premiere ( early in 2011 ) of newest ” SONGS OF TERROR AND LOVE ” ( I englished Jacopone Da Todi´s great shout ! ) I scribbled this October Haiku:

Grease this chalice, grace !

“E lucevan le stelle” ….

Basho hiccups twice.

I am gathering there IS a modest readership. Beware – again , again, it threatens sane sanity´s composer´s logic – the Anti – Corcoran Theorem : ” The quality of the work ( qQ x Ww = I P ) is equal to its performances , how many , my son? How grave ?

I put this to myself ( it is now three in the October morn , about to be born ) : when awake, bake a Haiku or three.

Twice Basho scribbles.
” Harder than planting rice is
To wash my own back….”

Or what about this Haiku-baking:

Sweet Heart of Jesus,
You, my gentle vocative.
Underfoot an ant.

Well, is this, then death?
A last, lonely ciccada
Is worried no more.

Is glic iad lucha / San fhomhar oll-órga. Ari´s / Ní bheidh a leithéid ann….

( A last baked Haiku for now as our roses-fingering dawn sneaks in …. )

Guarda i ratti !
M´immenso di Autunno .
– Ciascuno così

I put this to myself ( it is now three in the October morn , about to be born ) : when awake, bake a Haiku or three.

Twice Basho scribbles.
” Harder than planting rice is
To wash my own back….”

Or what about this Haiku-baking:

Sweet Heart of Jesus,
You, my gentle vocative.
Underfoot an ant.

Well, is this, then death?
A last, lonely ciccada
Is worried no more.

Is glic iad lucha / San fhomhar oll-órga. Ari´s / Ní bheidh a leithéid ann….

( A last baked Haiku for now as our roses-fingering dawn sneaks in …. )

Guarda i ratti !
M´immenso di Autunno .
– Ciascuno così