QUASI UNA STORIA for 13 Strings
In the nineties I composed a series of ” Quasi ” works for several different music- genres , eg. QUASI UNA FUGA, QUASI UN LAMENTO, QUASI UN CONCERTO, and so on.
It was thus clear that the composer today is no longer innocent; she knows too much music of the Western past written in the various forms. Thus ” Quasi Una Storia” is quasi telling a story about this composer’s self-consciousness in dealing with music for all my 13 strings.
Music – in common with the other arts ( if a little less so ) – has always striven to imitate, to tell a story, to narrate. But this need not result in merely telling a story about a storm ( see Beethoven’s “Pastoral ” ) , or about the composer’s love-lorn heart ( see Tchaikowsky’s ” Pathetique” ) or the hero’s derring – do ( see Strauss’ “Till Eulensgiegel ” ) etc.
The highest , most “abstract” music tells a story about its own musical nature ( see so many Mozart symphonies ) , about its very own tones and their vicissitudes within the musical work itself. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is a story ” about ” its first four well-known and – worn tones.
So my one movement ” QUASI UNA STORIA ” tells, sings and recounts, refers to its opening musical statement for the solo first violin; it soon appears also for solo cello and even for solo bass.
My “Quasi” Story pits constantly the one and the many , the soli and the tutti. It revels in the string colours of great compositions of the past which were composed fo rthe sonorous richness that a string orchestra posesses, from the sheen of a Henry Purcell or a Johann Sebastian Bach right up to great works of the 20 th. c. by a Bartok , a Ligeti or a Lutoslawsky . My opening building block expands its nervous tic idea untill all 13 strings are busy with their stringiness, their string thing. In the middle of my story about these string tones, the colour grows darker, then brighter again. ( As in so many recent Corcoran compositions, I use once again my Corcoran’s Seven Tones, my scale comprising of G A flat C sharp D E flat F sharp and A, my beloved ABC . )
At the end an impassioned plea on the double-bass brings back my story’s opening music. We have come the full cycle. My “Quasi” story is ended.
FRANK CORCORAN