VARIATIONS ON MYSELF Frank Corcoran
( Premiere in New York City 12. March 2013 . North South Chamber Orchestra, conductor: Max Lifchitz )
Why my title of this one-movement work for 5 wind and 5 strings ? Who is ” myself” ? And how ” variations” ?
Because of my building-blocks. I got 6 tones out of which everything, but everything, in this work is built; ; – out of the 6 tone-names contained in my name. ” Francis Corcoran” offered me the little tone-row F R Cis ( which is , of course, German for ” C Sharp” ) Es ( ditto for “E Flat ” ) C and A . These ( and their complementary tones and the usual operations on these – you can HEAR them with your ears as they do the musical thinking … ) are the building-blocks of the new work . Out of them and their intervals grows everything. Thus: a modest enough Tipperary Six Tone Theory, variations on my very name, my very ounds, my very self. So it´s variations of melody and harmony and rhythm and colour. Of course this kind of trickery with tones has a long and distinguished history in Western art-music. Mr. Bach was fascinated by ” his ” 4 tones , ” B A C H” and then Schumann tried his hand at ” Es C H ” ; Shostakovich wasn´t above popping his musical motive into certain scores ; you even had Italian Renaissance polyphonic masters composing for their Ferrara supper with the theme ”
HERCULES DUX FERRARIAE” : and so on.
However I decided to base my entire work on my very own theme. You could say it´s six note music.
Often the overlapping lines played by the five wood-winds have their floating, dreamy quality ( each instrument has its own independent tempo )
whereas the five strings play metrically measured music which acts like a grid through which the wind-music flows. I am not above making a nod to a certain Bayreuth composer whose “Tristan” music is celebrated ( perhaps over-celebrated ? ) in this year of 2013. This kind of musical allusion , often parody, is also well-known in our Western tradition. There is in my tone-picture a central, whipped up – climax of great tension . Then comes the ” Endmusik” where , over low held string chords, horn, then bassoon, then clarinet, oboe and finally flute in highest register bow out. So do I. Music is metaphor. Wind-music and string-music. Yes, variations on ” Myself”. Good idea.