Frank Corcoran

Irish Composer

Sundays at Noon present: Music from Mythic Ireland March 2nd 2025- Frank Corcoran

Date and time
Sunday, March 2 · 12 – 1pm GMT. Doors at 11:59am
Location
Hugh Lane Gallery

Parnell Square North D01 F2X9 Dublin 1
Show map
About this event
Sundays at Noon cocert series present:



MUSIC AND WORDS FROM MYTHIC IRELAND – Frank Corcoran


Frank Corcoran : recitation, Early Irish Lyrics, piano

RIAM Percussion Ensemble , conductor Richard O’´Donnell.



Programme

Frank Corcoran : TRAUERFELDER/ GOIRT AN BHRÓIN
Frank Corcoran : MUSIC FOR THE BOOK OF KELLS


Frank Corcoran

“I came late to art music; childhood soundscapes live on. The best work with imagination/intellect must be exorcistic-laudatory-excavatory. I am a passionate believer in “Irish” dream-landscape, two languages, polyphony of history, not ideology or programme. No Irish composer has yet dealt adequately with our past. The way forward – newest forms and technique (for me especially macro-counterpoint) – is the way back to deepest human experience.”

Born in Borrisokane, County Tipperary, Corcoran studied at Dublin, Maynooth (1961–4), Rome (1967–9) and Berlin (1969–71), where he was a pupil of Boris Blacher. He was a music inspector for the Irish government Department of Education from 1971 to 1979, after which he took up a composer fellowship from the Berlin Künstlerprogramm (1980–1). He has taught in Berlin (1981), Stuttgart (1982) and Hamburg, where he has been professor of composition and theory in the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst (1983–2008). He was a visiting professor and Fulbright scholar at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in the U.S. in 1989-90 and has been a guest lecturer at CalArts, Harvard University, Princeton University, Boston College, New York University, and Indiana University.

Corcoran has been a member of Aosdána, the Irish academy of creative artists, since its inception in 1983. He was the first Irish composer to have had a symphony premiered in Vienna (1st Symphony, Symphonies of Symphonies of Wind, in 1981).

Corcoran lives in Germany and Italy.

Frank Corcoran at 80: Retrospective Concert 6 December 2024 19:00 Fanny Hensel-Saal, Hochschule fuer Musik und Theater Hamburg

Retrospective concert marking Irish composer Frank Corcoran’s 80th birthday featuring a new work commissioned by Hochschule fu?r Musik und Theater (HfMT) – Hamburg.

Performed by students of the university, David Stromberg (Cello) and Bernhard Fograscher (Piano), conducted by Cornelia Monske.

Order of the evening:

19.00 Welcome and introduction at Fanny Hensel Saal

20.00 Portrait concert in multifunctional studio (see below)

21.00 Reception with the Irish Consul General

21.40 Conclusion: “QUASI UNA MISSA” for electronics (1999 WDR commission. 2000 Swedish EMS Prize), Multifunctional Studio

Programme
Frank Corcoran – 9 LOOKS AT ” Pierrot “, for flute, clarinet, piano, violoncello, violin (2022 NEW MUSIC DUBLIN)

Frank Corcoran – ICE-ETCHINGS, for solo cello (1990 Rome Festival)

Frank Corcoran – TRAUERFELDER, for 5 percussionists (1995 commissioned by Dr. Christine Weiss, Senator of Culture Hamburg)

Frank Corcoran – CAOINES AND CANONS

Frank Corcoran – SMITHEREENS AND SHARDS (2024 HfMT Hamburg)

Tickets
Free admission.

Venue
Fanny Hensel-Saal, Hochschule fu?r Musik und Theater Hamburg
Harvestehuder Weg 12 20148 Hamburg
Hamburg
Germany

Friday 29th April  2022 Frank Corcoran

12.30pm

Kevin Barry Recital Room

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble 

Sinead Hayes, Conductor 

Joanne Quigley-McParland, violin 

David McCann, Cello 

Aisling Agnew, Flutes 

Sarah Watts, Clarinets 

Daniel Browell, Piano 

Frank Corcoran Nine Looks at Pierrot 

Rhona Clarke Non-stop 

Frank Corcoran Melodies and Mobiles 

Elaine Agnew Green 

Frank Corcoran Caoines and Canons (World Premiere) 

Great minds think alike. Hard Rain commissioned a new work from Irish composer Frank Corcoran for their new 2021/22 season, only to discover that New Music Dublin had done the same. It felt appropriate, therefore, that HardRain’s performance at NMD this year should celebrate these two new works and include Corcoran’s Nine Looks at Pierrot, a work that features on the ensemble’s recent album release.

IS THIS BETTER THAN, AHEM, NOTHING ?

As found in the Oxford Music Online encyclopedia (only accessible through universities):

Corcoran has developed a distinct and complex language of aleatory macro-counterpoint

in which sound layers are superimposed polyphonically but retain independence through

distinctive polymetric, agogic and dynamic indications. This technique is evident from

the early Piano Trio (1978) to Ice Etchings no.1 and Mad Sweeney (both 1996). His

many cultural interests are reflected in the texts of his vocal works; the opera

Gilgamesh (1990), for example, is based on a Sumerian epic. The Irische Mikrokosmoi

for piano (1993) are based on traditional Irish melodies and rhythms.

FROM A GOOD FRIEND . NOW DEAD….

This is what I wrote on Facebook (your picture and the first lines of the cmc report

come on screen)

> I know this is from last year, but thinking back on his sublime

Music for the Book of Kells and Trauerfelder/Goirt an Bhróin/Fields of Sorrow

at the Hugh Lane Gallery last December,

which reduced members of the audience (including this scribe) to tears,

I really think his international recognition should be more widely known in

Ireland.

Yes, it’s ‘Art Music.’ Yes, it may take a few listens to adjust the ear.

But the rewards are great.

I’m rather proud he’s my third cousin!

He will be 70 this year, so it’s no better time to discover him if you haven’t
already.

> http://cmcireland.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/frank-corcoran-award/

NDR KULTUR ” PRISMA MUSIK “

0:00 Prisma Musik

Thema: Kleine Schule des musikalischen Hörens

Frank Corcoran hört das Cellokonzert von Edward Elgar

“Elgars langsame Passagen zerreißen mich innerlich gerade … Es ist wie das Destillat einer Träne”, gestand Jacqueline du Pré einmal, die vielleicht berühmteste Interpretin dieses Werks. Kurz nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg entstand das Cellokonzert, das man einmal die “Elegie auf eine untergegangene Zivilisation” genannt hat, in der ländlichen Abgeschiedenheit seines Landhauses in Sussex. Das Werk markiert gleichsam den Gegenpol zu “Pomp and Circumstance” in Elgars Schaffen, eine Musik des Abschieds, verhaltener und sparsamer in den Mitteln als alle Orchesterwerke der Vorkriegszeit.

20:00 Nachrichten, Wetter

22:00 Variationen zum Thema

Musikbeispiele zum Themenabend

Edward Elgar:
Konzert für Violoncello und Orchester e-Moll op. 85
Steven Isserlis, Violoncello
Philharmonia Orchestra London
Leitung: Paavo Järvi
Klavierquintett a-Moll op. 84
Pihtipudas Kvintetti

Frank Corcoran:
Cellokonzert

Martin Johnson, Violoncello

RTE National Symphony Orchestra

Leitung: Gavin Maloney

2015 WAS A GOOD YEAR

MY FILM REELING BACKWARDS 2015 ….

back to ….

RHAPSODIETTA JOYCEANA Solo Cello

8 IRISH DUETS Cello and Piano

PICCOLO QUARTETTO FILHARMONICO Bass, Cello, Viola and Violin

3 PIECES Violin and Piano

LOSING SEAHENGE Film by James P. Graham

CELLO CONCERTO ( NSO / Martin Johnson )

QUASI UNA STORIA 13 Strings ( New York )

FOUR LAST WORDS FROM THE CROSS S A T B

AN IRISH XMAS CAROL S A T B

MY ALTO RHAPSODIES ( Contralto and Orchestra )

A DARK SONG Bass Clarinet

VARIATIONS ON MYSELF ( 5 Strings and 5 Wind. NYC North South )

5 TENORLIEDER Tenor and Piano

9 LOOKS AT “PIERROT” V / Cello / Pno / Fl / Clar

7 MINIATURES Solo Violin ( Gravesend. Luigi Di Filippi, Vln. )

3 PIECES Piano and Violin

QUASI UN GRAN DUO Cello and Harp

IN THE DEEP HEART’S CORE ( Harp Solo )

4 PIECES 2 Clarinets

8 HAIKUS SS AA TT BB

CONCERTO for Violin and Orchestra

SONGS OF TERROR AND LOVE Barytone plus Ensemble

MEDIEVAL IRISH EPIGRAMMES SATB

TWO UNHOLY HAIKUS SATB

SEVEN CUBIST MINIATURES Guitar, Viola and Flute

QUINTET for Clarinet and String Quartet ( RTE Recording )

QUASI UNA SARABANDA String Quintet, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon

( Plus many radio broadcasts, portraits, “Different Voices” study , Festschrift

Frank Corcoran etc….. )

MY WGXR FRANK CORCORAN PORTRAIT ( New York 2017 )

VIOLIN CONCERTO

Slow Mov. ( 2012. Irish Nat. Symphony Orch., Christopher Warren-Green , Soloist

Alan Smale . RTE rec. )

SWEENEY’S VISION 1997 WDR commission, won the 1999 Bourges Festival premier Prix

TRAUERFELDER for 4 Percussion ( 1995 Hamburg Culture Senator

commissioned for 50 years of Auschwitz liberation ) .

CELLO CONCERTO
Scherzo Mov. ( 2015 Irish N.S.O, Kenneth Montgomery, Soloist : Martin Johnson .

QUASI UNA FUGA
for 18 Strings ( 2007 Irish Chamber Orchestra / Anthony Marwood. Limerick

Cathedral . Shannon Festival.)

New Music from Ireland
A concert of Irish composers’ music in Cardiff takes place this St Patrick’s Day featuring Emma Coulthard, Benjamin Dwyer, and Jenn Kirby performing works by Frank Corcoran, Fergus Johnston, John Buckley, John McLachlan and Benjamin Dwyer. The event is presented in partnership with CMC.

More on the event here.

MORE THINKING ABOUT MY MUSICAL THINKING….

PIANO TRIO .
It was thirty bleeding years ago, my break-through year.
I wrote that opening page for piano solo with bleeding fingers; it had to re-invent rhythm, to fight against 0ur Western tyranny of the period. I succeeded. T
hen comes the cello with its own tempo , gestures and persona. The violin is a different actor again. I had invented – for me – macrocounterpoint, no longer note against note, but layer or musical flow against layer or flow.
( I don´t necessarily ” like” the sound of the classical piano trio, the two strings having to compromise with the tempered tuning of their a powerful piano – only with this hard-won freedom of MY layered approach could I , I felt, accept the sonorities of this deeply compromised mini-orchestra ). Out of the boiling miasma erupted bits of that Brahms theme. Yet, before it takes over too powerfully, it´s gone again- quasi una visione . This early work of mine I love for its poised layers and polytemporal richness of sonorities and gestures and lines.

QUASI UNA MISSA , after ” Balthazar´s Dream ( Berlin 1980 ) and
the Bourgs Festival Premier Prix-winning ” Sweeney´s Vision” ( West German Radio commission of 1997 ) , was my third electro-acoustic composition ( Commissioned by West German Radio 1999.
It won the 2002 Swedish E.M.S. Prize ) . Like all my ” quasi- ” works of the late nineties and since, it is a composition of this composer who is musically no longer innocent; I know – sadly – too much world-music, too much music of our Western polyphonic tradition.
I wanted to use – for my four movements – ( – but they´re only ” Quasi” KYRIE, GLORIA – CREDO , SANCTUS, AGNUS DEI ! ) as my building-blocks two thousand years of Irish God-utterances from our Irish island ,
bits of texts from the Celtic god, Aimhirgín, up through Eriugena and Mac Giolla Bride and Berkeley to Beckett and Joyce and God-only-knows what else,
an Irish stew of Irish theology, a musical archaeology of 2000 years of religious tradition.
My ” KYRIE” ( – abbreviated commas, please ! ) is my homage to Palestrina and to our Western chanted counterpoint, as my sacred syllables fugue towards a magic ” Amen!” St. Patrick beats with bony wrist St. Patrick´s Bell.
Quasi- GLORIA has the Wake´s Thunder-word and Glendalough bird-song ( – yes, authentic recordings !
Here , fetishism is all ! ) and a total theophantic eruption, Bronze Age Irish horns from the National Museum, halo and awe.
My Quasi- SANCTUS cooks a heady mix of 20th. c. God-statements plus 7th. c. St. Columbanus´s Latin ” Heia! ” – Chorus ,
his monks rowing backwards up the mighty Rhine from Cologne ( beside whose great Gothic cathedral I mixed my music ) .
Quasi- AGNUS DEI sums up : Irish sorrow, joy, the nunc stans, lullaby and dance and Aran Island keening old women , port- a-bheil , in short my Irish Circus ( – Ciao ! John Cage ! No ! ! ! ) Quasi.

Thanks for checking for the Joycespeak CD, and also for sending those other suggestions. Each of these other works might be a little long for the programme we have in mind, in so far as they might dominate the other programme items by their shear weight and duration. I’ll double check with CMC about Joycespeak.