QUASI UN PRELUDIO for Solo Violin Frank Corcoran
I seem to divide my time nowdays between Hamburg , Dublin an Italy. I am in love with Viterbo of the Popes in Northern Lazio.
In the great heat of my sun-dappled garden last year I finished” 4 Orchestral Songs” ( Premiere N.S.O. Dublin 2010 ) , ” 9 Pratoleva Pearls ” for Solo Piano and “Quasi Un Preludio” fo Solo Piano. A good harvest.
The “Quasi” of the title positions this little miniature solo among my earlie “Quasi” series of the late nineties ( after I´d finished the ” Mad Sweeney” series ) , eg. “Quasi Un Canto” for Large Orchestra”, ” Quasi Un Pizzicato” for Wireworks Ensemble, Hamburg , the electro-acoustic “Quasi Una Missa” for West German Radio ( it won the Swedish EMS Prize in 2002 ) , “Quasi Un Concerto” for the Cantus Ensemble Zagreb, “Quasi Una Fuga” ( commissoned by the Irish Chamber Orchestra who premiered it in Limerick Cathedral as part of the 2007 Shannon Festival ) etc. , culminating in the recent Octet, “Quasi Una Sarabanda” for the Swiss Ensemle, “Antipodes” , premiered in Berne, Basel and Zürich in June 2009.
– So is this ” Quasi Un Preludio” for violin solo a prelude or a pearl from Pratoleva ? – less a Webernian miniature, more a compressed argument for the total stringiness of the soaring violin solo .
A chromatic argument , yes. Very world- and very Irish music, as this hardly two minutes of musical argument mutates into that
passionate Connamara sean-nós caoine of the Irish Famine , ” Sail ´Og Rua”.
FRANK CORCORAN : born 1944 in Tipperary, Ireland. Studied ancient languages, philosophy, theology , music in Dublin, Rome and Berlin ( composition with Boris Blacher ) .
1980 Composer Fellowship with the Berlin Artists´Programme. Since 1983 Professor in Hamburg. Many distinctions and commissions. 1989 – 90 Fulbright Professor in the U.S.A. and Guest Professor at Princeton, Harvard, Indiana, New York, CalArts, etc.
Works performed and broadcast in Europe, the Americas, Australia and Asia. Member of Aosdana, the Irish Academy of the Arts.
Recent works include: Clarinet Concerto ( commission 2009 ) Violin Concerto ( 2010 ), 4 Orchestral Lieder ( National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland 2010 ) , Quasi Una Sarabanda ( Berne 2008 ), Quasi Una Fuga for String Orchestra ( 2007 ), Quasi Un Concerto ( Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra 2005 ) , Quasi Un Caoine ( N.S.O.2005 ), ” Mad Sweeney ” for Large Ensemble and Speaker ( Boston Musica Viva 2005 ) , electro-acoustic ” Tradurre – Tradire ” ( Deutschland Radio Berlin 2004 ) “Sweeney´s Vision” ( commissioned by W.D.R. 1997; Bourges Festival 1999 Premier Prix ) etc.