Frank Corcoran

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.

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/

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

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….. )

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.

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.