Frank Corcoran

Actually it was always “fun” , forming and shaping a radio-programme, a quickie or an epic longie , in whatever language. More for myself than any other I will recall some I made over thirtyfive odd years. “Stravinsky´s SACRE” was a big two hour job for Hessische Rundfunk in them very dark middle eighties. Jump to almost yesterday for a radio-beaut for Lyric Fm : ” Bach Came Through Borrisokane” where I proved the Leipzig Meister´s behind many a sean nós Slow Air ( – more anon on this shape-shifting act of musicology…. No answer from Irish Musikwissenschaftler, any. None. Why ? ) . For Norddeutscher Rundfunk´s ” PRISMA MUSIK ” these past few years I´ve been practising the gentle art of Radiophonic Analysis, an almost Hans Keller analysis of, say Beethoven´s Seventh , ( – was it his “Irish” ? – Really ? ) or Mozart´s c – minor Piano Concerto, or his heart-breaking g – minor String Quintet, and so on. I remember doing a lot of programmes – again those eighties – on traditional Irish music for the Bayerischer Rundfunk. Beginning of the nineties I recorded 6 programmes, ” La Musica dell´Isola Smeralda” for R.A.I. in Rome, including a few orchestral Corcoran works. Grand work for Bremen Radio also. W.D.R. commissioned all kinds of disparate programmes from me , from a large Irish radio-stew of political figures ( yes, I did interview Charlie Haughey for that, many other Irish voices , too ) entitled ” Die Grüne Insel – politische Stimmen ” on to themes closer to my heart like ” György Ligeti´s Frühe Chormusik” or ” Music As Religious Expression “, or “Webern´s Atonality”, or “Frank Corcoran – Self-Portrait” etc. Munich Radio commissioned my big ” Berkeley´s Philosophy ; Esse Est Percipi ! ” There was Sender freies Berlin and His Maestro´s Voice. Then in the mid-nineties they had my week-long NDR Afternoons presenting a grateful Hamburg public all the then recorded works of Charles Ives. I even made a self-portrait for the then German Democratic ( ! ) Republic´s Berlin Radio. To balance things, I then made another for the other crowd, R.I.A.S. Deutschland , too; I remember painting a large radiophonic canvas with my Fulbright Professor´s year 1989 – 1990 in the U.S. for DeutschlandFunk ( – in Cologne by the mighty Rhine where , a few years later, I could capture the wash and spume of that vast water in my “SWEENEY´S VISION” in 1997 ; two years later this won the premier Prix at the ( now in mortal danger from Sarkozy´s chop ) Bourges Festival. ) Back to Lyric Fm and ” James Joyce, the greatest Irish Composer ” and other jewels. With Tim Lehane on RTE Radio there was at least, I remember, ” Do You Call THAT Music !?” and my commentaries – performances of ” Frank Corcoran´s Irische Mikrokosmoi”. There was more, certainly . An archives is a grand thing. Must dig out old mss. old wounds bleed. old broadcasting joy. Ephemeralities ? Depends on your metaphysics – of sound, of time, of smoke, of artistic intent, of enjoyment plus comoposition and words and things and flights of radio-fancies . Yerra !
Oh , I will nearly not forget ” The Quiet Corner” a few sets of them, for RTE. Nor my Brahms Symphony for Hamburg ( which one ? ) . Nor Beethoven´s EROICA which is scheduled for broadcasting on, I think, March 20 coming. Plenty more. The radio liveth yet. The ear understands with it. Great etherial joy. Powerful time-stunts.