Frank Corcoran

>> Frank Corcoran on his new STRING QUARTET :
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>> After Bartok , Ligeti and Lutoslawski how can I write something hot and strange ?
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>> ( On May 1. I will be SEVENTY FIVE . My new quartet aims for tension, unity. How ?
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>> Easy.
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>> Difficult. )
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>> Everything must flow from
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>> the opening bar of Mov. 1. , ” Allegro irascibile ma nobile ” .
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>> Bar One’s motiv yells for an electric tautness from each instrument. Each uses from my Frank Corcoran Scale the same 4 notes ( G A flat C sharp and D ) .
>> My Leitmotiv provides the building-blocks for the first movement ;
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>> – each phrase, instrumental colour and tonal region, all my motivs ,
>> these musical protests or denials, – all come out of that Bar One .
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>> So my architectural ideal here is just that of the great string quartets , Stravinsky’s Three Pieces , Webern , Schoenberg ,Alban Berg
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>> Movement Two is a play of pizzicati and arco celebration of the melodies which I weave out of the Frank Corcoran 7 -Note
Scale.
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>> Movement Three is marked “Allegro Barbaro ” and ” feroce e ruvidissimo ” .
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>> The throbbing dyads of all four instruments intersect and interlock , descend or ascend,they saw ( a Saudi bone-saw ? ) the torture.
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High voltage. Kinetic art. Take your pick. Guantanamo or Gethsemane .
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