Frank Corcoran

Gnawing her body
The almost Christian lion
Colosseum meal

Biennale art:
Knead my bright woman´s body !
Gile na gile…

1990 Frank Corcoran Artist Fellow ( Composition ) at the
Virginia Artists´ Colony.
( The big black snake´s daily crawl from his tree-house ao the Centre´s kitchen
back-door. The death by suspicious drowning of Joe´s black brother )

2000 Frank Corcoran Artistic Director of the SLIGO MUSIC FESTIVAL
( In the William Butler Yeats town of Sligo, Sligeach, by Ireland´s North West
Atlantic Ocean – powerful, cruel pull and ebb and massive tides and waves,
mighty energy )
For Corcoran performances at this SLIGO FESTIVAL , see WORKS :

Look, we´ll take today poor Descartes´ much maligned COGITO. Now we´ll change its verb into the passive voice – from ” Cogito ergo sum” we´ll have

“Cogitor ergo sum ” = ” I exist because I am thought” or ” The only reason why I exist is that I am an object of somebody´s thinking! ” , – a not undodgy sentence, sadly not unknown in psychiatric institutions. Now suppose I substitute “Audio” ( ” I hear” ) in a similar sentence – ” Audio ergo sum” ( ” I am heard therefore I exist” ) and I then change it into its passive voice, thus getting: ” Audior ergo sum ” ( ” I am heard therefore I exist” ) . If the subject meant here is the musical work, then I´ll get an equally dodgy sentence : ” Audior ergo sum” = ” I, a piece of musical composition , am heard, therefore I exist” . Or: ” The reason why I exist is because i am being heard ( played, observed, listened to, recorded, performed orchestrally, applauded, booed off the stage and out the door , etc. etc. ” ) . This dodgy, toxic assumption is too often behind today´s composer, his reception, her perception and self-perception. ” Oh, well, because I am performed, I am! ” This has several corollaries, all equally poison: ” I am bloody good because I am ( being ) performed!” or , ahem : ” This work is no good because it´s not being performed… ” But this way lies madness. Beware The Musical COGITO. In all its forms.

Apparently there´s ” nothing up there “. Our dirty – melon, fourth quarter moon ( last October Harvest 2012 ) appeared to me at my peperino stone table – mostly magical , those nights – indifferent. That same moon was insisting.There´s definitely NOBODY up there who´ll wipe my tears, my freshly inked tones, who´ll weep for all my ´O Corcoráins and Ní Cathasaighs, my legion of dead shrouds, unloved, unwept, un bemoaned.
Apparently. That cosmos is VERY indifferent. ( – no e-mails back from We Know Who ! ) – and yet, what would She , how should She ? ” I´ll now and here take into My Infinite Goddess´s Lap all your woes, whimpers, whinges. That and the ” why you were born” question , I´ll not give you a goddess´s short change but a Cosmic Great Hug. ” ” Indifferent my moon, cosmos, night-sky. Sappho dead, too.

Bianco io

Sotto la luce bianca

Baccio la notte

CORRECTION :

The first of three Concertzender broadcasts of
Frank Corcoran´s VIOLIN CONCERTO is on:

Friday 1. February 2013

Dutch Radio Concertzender on February 8 and
10 and 12 . 2013. – three broadcasts
Frank Corcoran VIOLIN CONCERTO
( N.S.O. Dublin, Conductor Christopher Warren-Green, Soloist Alan Smale ) of Nov. 2. 2012

The dead composer
Cold, he hears a choir murder
His lovely phrases.

Don´t piss on the graves!
I entered the choir´s warm church
Fluffy snow falling

Leaping and sliding
The choir´s lines like woven threads
Outside it´s icy

In 1965 Witold Lutoslawsky wrote down the following passage which summarised his approach to the then avant-garde:

‘What is my attitude toward the avant-garde? First of all, I have a fellow-feeling for it. However, in spite of the basic role the avant-garde plays in the development of every art, I also see something sad about it. There is always a tinge of resignation in the stance of an avant-gardist, since it consists of expecting elements that are of no real importance in themselves to perform the function of a finished work of art. ”

Yes, woven words. Grave words.

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What desperate composer in these nights of snow and ice wouldn´t sell her grannie for a performance ? ( – ” My kingdom for an orchestral performance, a festival appearance, a two weeks´ tour with wild adulation ” kind-of-thing – )
Consider, my icy soul: LESSON ONE – ” My music isn´t bad, only badly played ” ( approximately Schoenberg ) . LESSON TWO – Baking and selling the cake are two distinct skills to be kept permanently separate. Otherwise…
LESSON THREE – consider the greats, sleeping in their snowed-over tumuli; consider the desperate desperation of a Hugo Wolf, an Anton Webern, a Berndt Alois Zimmermann or a Bela Bartók in New York City Hospital . There are others. LESSON FOUR – getting that commission guarantees nothing.
When will this snow stop ?