Frank Corcoran on his new STRING QUARTET :
After Bartok , Ligeti and Lutoslawski how can I write something hot and strange ?
As I approach the age of seventy five, my new quartet’s 3 movements must aim for tautness, “there’s-not-much-time-left” stuff ;
– in plain English, everything must flow from
the opening bar of Mov. 1. , ” Allegro irascibile ma nobile ” .
Already in this opening is the electric tautness that I want from each instrument, each using the same 4 notes ( G . A flat . C sharp and D ) in different order .
My Leitmotiv
provides the building-blocks for the entire first movement ; – for each phrase and colouring and tonal region and
all my derived versions and expressed yells and screams,
all musical protests and denials, they all comes out of the opening sound explosion;
Yes, my architectural ideal here is as old as that of the great string quartets by the Viennese masters , but also
those of Webern , Schoenberg and Alban Berg.
“Ex parvis multa” was the old tag.
My composed unity IS audible ; it’s the thinking ear. The solo cello then announces the exhaustion of my 4-note
material as Movement One collapses.
Very slow Movement Two consists of the melodies which I weave out of my Frank Corcoran 7 -Note Scale ( – consisting
of G. A flat. C sharp. D. E flat. F sharp. A. – it built both the Violin Concerto and the Cello Concerto ), heard
first on the first violin, pizzicato. So melody plus accompaniments. That’s it.
Movement Three I have marked “Allegro Barbaro ” and ” feroce e ruvidissimo ” . The throbbing dyads on each of the four instruments shift and interlock , descend or ascend, sounding
great choirs of 4, 5, 6 and 7 voices.
This is no Irish minimalism but rather the most violent string music I have ever imagined.
The final chords are also all derived from the quartet’s opening. ( “In my end is my beginning”. ) No neo-Bartokisms
or Lutoslawskieries but neo-Corcoran.
High voltage. Kinetic art.