Frank Corcoran

FRANK CORCORAN THE HOT COMPOSER IN SEPTEMBER 2017

Black milk of the dawn

September is cooling off

Wrap round your tatters

AN IRISH CHRISTMAS CAROL FRANK CORCORAN

is just that : This fine, arching melody from 17th. c. “Baroque” Ireland

with its sarabande rhythm suggests an instrumental piece of the time for harp or pipes .

It perfectly matches the lovely Christmas text in Irish by Archbishop Aodh Mac Aingil ( died 1626 ) .

My English

translation tries to grasp the folklike quality of the original.

The Italian violinist virtuoso Luigi De Filippi (from the Voces Intimae piano trio) gives the English premiere of Frank Corcoran’s Seven Miniatures for Solo Violin.

Programme includes:

Works by Isaye, Bach
Corcoran Seven Miniatures for solo violin (premiere)
Venue
Woodville Theatre
Gravesend
Kent
United Kingdom
Venue Contact Info
Woodville Theatre

more

9 LOOKS AT ” Pierrot “.

FRANK CORCORAN

These are nine short looks at the character of ” Pierrot ” with the help of all the 5 or more

instruments which Schoenberg used in his expressionistic masterpiece .

However my

miniature Charakterstuecke are in no way Schoenbergian – if anything , they achieve

the Bergian ” in parvis multa” ! – these little picture of Pierrot’s soul or utterances develop the few tones

of

Look 1. Look 2then with its Piccolo already thinks forward to the “lusingando” of Look 4.

Look 3 ‘s short scramble ends with the solo high flute tremolando.

Look 6 makes all

serious – can Pierrot also be maestoso ? Look 7 with its Bass Clarinet and Piano

shadows resonates with low colours, sombre.

In Look 8 the Piano explodes.

The final Look 9 is the longest of these ” Look”s and extends all

the ideas till its lengthening second half – with its deeply resonating piano bass –

announces the catastrophic.

FRANK CORCORAN

FRANK CORCORAN HAIKU :

The eye murderous,
The cawing crow interested ….
Silently waiting

Here are links to some interviews,

and I’ve attached a photo.

Text interviews:

http://cmc.ie/articles/article828.html

http://cmc.ie/articles/article827.html

Video interview:

RHAPSODIC BOWING for 8 Celli Frank Corcoran

There is here not only rhapsodic bowing but also rhapsodic plonking and plinking, pizzicati and ( col legno ) striking with wood and all the myriad colour possibilities of one cello or of
eight. – Quasi a chest of viols for today.

I wrote this short essay in string choirs and cello colours for the Cello Section of the N.S.O. it is one mighty movement. Of eight minutes. The chthonic opening wooden

thumps soon give way to arco lines and melodies,high rapture, rhapsodies ascending and descending. Moving medlodies bisect each othe , they quiver and announce, until all

gives way to the great sarabande rhythm of Bach’s

C – Major Solo Cello Suite .

After the second Bach shadow the rhapsodic bowing becomes 8-voiced rapture.

Before the high
arpeggioed harmonics take over completely in the end section, comes the repeated and mighty ” passacaglia ” bass as the work streams to its tender end.

Ancient Greek : ” RHAPSOIDEIN” = ” To stitch together songs.”

Frank Corcoran

geb. 1944 in Tipperary Irland.
Studierte in Dublin (alte Sprachen, Philosophie), Rom (Theologie , Gregorianik und Renaissance-Musik) und Berlin (Meisterschüler von Boris Blacher). 1971-79 Music Inspector beim Irischen Erziehungsministerium.

1980 Stipendiat des Berliner Künstlerprogramms .
1981 Gastprofessor an der HdK Berlin.
1982 Professor in Stuttgart, seit 1983 an der Hamburger Musikhochschule.
1989-90 Fulbright-Professor in den USA und Gastdozent in CalArts, Harvard, Wisconsin, Boston, New York, Indiana usw.

Seit 1983 ist Frank Corcoran Mitglied der Irischen AdK.

Balthasars Traum 1980

Sweeney’s Vision 1997 ( 1999 Bourges Testival Premier Prix )

Quasi Una Missa ( It won the Swedish E.M.S. Prize 2000 )

Sweeney’s letztes Gedicht, Sweeney’s Farewell 1997/98

Tradurre – Tradire 2004 ( Commissioned by Deutschlandfunk )

Alles van Frank Corcoran

Klassiek

Ochtendeditie
di 20 feb 2018 07:00 uur

Nieuwe CD-uitgaven met werken van Corcoran, De Haan, Arnold & Britten.
Hedendaags
Sonoor
zo 30 jul 2017 18:00 uur

Rhapsodic Celli. Muziek van Frank Corcoran.
Hedendaags
Sonoor
zo 9 jul 2017 18:00 uur

Rhapsodic Celli. Muziek van Frank Corcoran.
Hedendaags | Eigentijdse muziek
Bijdetijds
zo 17 jan 2016 17:00 uur

Portret van de Ierse componist Frank Corcoran ( 1944- ).
Hedendaags | Eigentijdse muziek
Bijdetijds

zo 19 apr 2015 17:00 uur
Muziek van Frank Corcoran en Witold Lutoslawski.
Hedendaags
Aktueel

vr 1 feb 2013 16:00 uur
Nieuwe cd’s met Nieuwe Muziek. Vandaag o.a. de Nederlandse radio première…
Crosslinks
Sonoor
ma 25 apr 2011 23:00 uur

Muziek van Frank Corcoran, Gavin Bryars, Martijn Padding en Zhou Long.

Ireland stands unique among the nations of the world in having a musical instrument, the harp, as its national emblem. Irish musicians of all hues are widely celebrated.
Riverdance has been an international phenomenon for two decades.
Flautist James Galway and the rock band U2 are known all over the world.
Singer Sinéad O’Connor is famous enough for her behaviour on US chat shows to create international headlines. And traditional music is even more widely dispersed than the phenomenon of the Irish pub.

Composing the Island, the September 2016 festival of 27 concerts over 19 days, was a pretty hefty event by any measure. And it was not even designed to celebrate the full history of composition in Ireland, just the works of the last hundred years. There has been nothing quite like it before. Anywhere. Ever.

Yet the tradition of music it salutes has long had in Ireland a Cinderella-like position, an invisibility that can sometimes seem like the airbrushing or photoshopping into non-existence of a major art form.

‘I’m a Composer’—‘You’re a What?’

was the title which FRANK CORCORAN gave an essay he contributed to THE CRANE BAG back in 1982.

It was his way of explaining that Irish people simply didn’t see being a composer as a serious or full-time occupation.