Frank Corcoran

FUENF HAIKUS

Frank Corcoran ( 2014 )

Five dogs or seven Fuenf Hunde, sieben,
Snarl in the cold April air Bellen im kalten April:
Barking: ” Kill the Spring !” “Toetet den Fruehling !”

Who goes here ? – Summer! Wer ist’s ? – Der Sommer.
My pen moves on white paper…. Stift schreibt auf weissem Papier.
Soft horns . Clarinets. Klarinettenmusik

Bits if sticky sleep. Der Schlaf noch klebend
( My eye tries to see itself ) Das Aug will sich selbst anglotzen
Morning-birds chitter. Morgenvoegel, zwitschert.

Suppose God is light ? Ob Gott doch Licht sei ?
A mountain’s shadow purple ? Ist der Bergschatten purpur ?
” Ciunas, a h-anaim !” Sei still, o Seele!

Whisper “Tramonto ” – ” that sunset” “Sonnenuntergang”
Tiptoes through this , my window. Wispernd durch mein Fenster
– Well, is this , then, death ? Ist dies dann der Tod ?

A COLD DECEMBER IN HAMBURG , MUSING :

The trouble is the flute –

I’ve heard too many Flatterzunges of the ” avant WHAT ” of those sixties, Gazzeloni and other giants excellent

blowers of just WHAT for young

Stockhausen ( awful ! ) and breathy young Boulez ( wasn’t much better on the quick-ear ) and other fluted

others.

My ” IT SOARED A BIRD” re-entered terrain I’d swore I’d never again .

So each of my 3 short movements must be unashamedly different, over-theatrical, yet keep the sigh in a tiny

interval, the memory of an archetype, a suggestion of sweet or sour.

No neo – anything ; my mighty flute phrases striding, my ( as usual ) orchestrally thought pianoforte.

Mov. 1 with its modest
Irish tin-whistle of my early Tipperary fifties and its Debussyan ” Tres Mod’er’e ”
.
My Alto Flute in Mov. 2 sobs and swings and startles with its still
fresh chromatic notes and appoggiaturas , its lows and highs.

In Mov.3 I ( once again ) have to conquer the Standard Bartokian Model with fast, driving, repeated
piano chords, the piccolo unleashed, high and cruel, its highest registers conquered.

“IT SOARED A BIRD” for Flutes ( including Tinwhistle ) and Piano.
No bad self-discipline at all, a few sleeplessnesses.

Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin

10–13 April 2019

Dublin Sound Lab is pleased to announce the Music Current 2019 festival programme is now online –

www.musiccurrent.ie

Considered as the ‘Fringe’ of Irish new music festivals, MUSIC CURRENT is a platform for the newest contemporary music, hosting five concerts over four days.

ow in its fourth year, the festival programme has a decidedly theatrical flavour

The festival opens with a double-bill programme: SWEENEY LIVES !

featuring three major ‘radiophonic’ work by Irish electronic music pioneer, FRANK CORCORAN , plus a trio of

composer/performers from German collective Stock11, one of the most thought provoking music groups performing

today.

Dear God ,

– Anglosaxon , Celtic, Old-Turkish , okay,

Language buckles and bends as I pray : ” May Ulrich Leyendecker now rest – with Thee – at YOUR right shoulder

. his troubled life and his great

compositional vision and instrumental surge ( Oh YES ! )

existing now and ” Now ” for ever . With You, God ( – Capital letters , Si ! ) ”

Your old ( a ) theistic servant in the ( composers ) vineyard of the Lord…. ”

23 June 2018

– Trinity College Chapel, Dublin

Orla Flanagan, conductor

2018 marks the 21st anniversary of Mornington Singers. We celebrated this milestone and our twenty-one year history with a concert featuring some of our favourite music from over the years, and were delighted to have a number of our former members join us in an encore.

William Byrd: Sing joyfully

Colin Mawby: Alleluia, Christus resurrexit

Rhona Clarke: Regina coeli

Frank Corcoran: Caoine

NDR – Klassik PRISMA MUSIK

Sendungen in 2014 und 2015:

25.01.2014 I 20:00 – 22:00 Uhr
Kleine Schule des musikalischen Hörens
Frank Corcoran hört das Violinkonzert von Johannes Brahms

21.06.2014 I 20:00 – 22:00 Uhr
Kleine Schule des musikalischen Hörens:
Frank Corcoran hört „Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche“ von Richard Strauss

20.09.2014 I 20:00 – 22:00 Uhr
Kleine Schule des musikalischen Hörens:
Frank Corcoran hört die 9. Sinfonie von Antonín Dvoøák

01.11.2014 I 20:00 – 22:00 Uhr
Schuberts „Winterreise”
Eine Sendung von Frank Corcoran und Gerhard Müller

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04.04.2015 I 20:00 – 22:00 Uhr
Kleine Schule des musikalischen Hörens
Frank Corcoran hört Mozarts Jupiter-Sinfonie

JANUARY 1 9 2010

National Concert Hall. Dublin . 13.00

“Horizons” Concert with the National Symphony Orchestra , Naomi O´Connell soprano, Conductor : Colman Pearce.

Featured composer : Frank Corcoran

( Composer´s Pre-Concert Talk at 12.30 SHARP ! )

Frank Corcoran: FOUR PRAYERS for Mezzosoprano and Orchestra . ( World-premiere )

In these four orchestral lieder, the orchestra, accompaning the singer, “sets” and sings and carries and colours the texts and, yes, prays them.
( Music has from the beginning had its role in the Eleusinian mysteries and, much earlier, in Old Babylon and Egypt ) .

Lied One fuses John Scotus Eriugena´s staggering God – text, ” Deus est. Non est. Superest.”
– ” God is. God is not. God is beyond ” IS” ” ) with the Irish saying, “Aithníonn súil liath saol liath” ( ” It is a grey eye which sees the world as grey”. ) .
Strings and wood-winds sing with the soprano-line; percussion washes it.

Lied Two treats Henry Lyte´s traditional Victorian hymn, ” Abide with me “. ( It was this melody which the band played over and over as the great ship “Titanic” sank to its icy Atlantic grave…. ) . What once might have been saccharine has become steel. Its intervals buckle and are chromatically crushed until, at the end, brake-drums and brass are also shrieking the singer´s “Abide!”

Lied Three sets an amazing, anonymous two-liner which I found over the Neo-Classical lintel of a Hamburg 18th. c. villa.
I use the German : ” Wir bauen hier so feste / Und sind doch fremde Gäste! Und wo wir sollen ewig sein /
bauen wir so wenig ein!”
– in my English it goes : ” We´re building here so free / Our jolly building-spree ! But where we should endure , there we´re so unsure!” with the Pauline: ” We´ve here no lasting city ! We build and build like mad – a pity ! ” which become a breathless, sardonic and bitter vocal Scherzo.

Lied Four composes Meister Eckhart´s ecstatic God – text . With its prelude , interludes and postlude of massed , muted brass it aims for the final rapt ” Ewig, ” ( – “Eternal” ) with deep pulsing harp, celesta and crotales.

Frank Corcoran. QUASI UNA FUGA . World-premiere of this revised version ( 2009 ) for full orchestra .

This is in no way a neo-Baroque or neo-Bach one-movement work.
It is and it is not a fugue for 56 strings.
It is ” quasi” a fugue; the ascending “soggetto” is there, also its accompanying counter-subject . All is counterpoint ; everything is built out of the interval of the second . Fragments and smidiríní of the “theme” ( really a major-minor 12-tone scale, nothing more…. ) are heard in hundreds of bits and pieces until at the end it all morphs
into the Early Celtic chant, ” Ibunt Sancti”.
Was this the hymn which St. Brendan The Navigator and his twelve merry monks sang before having dinner on the broad back of an Atlantic whale somewhere up there near Greenland, around the year 550 or so …. ?

NOVELETTE for Full Orchestra . Witold Lutoslawski ( 1978 -79 )

Fifteen times the mighty opening chord yells, announcing the five short movements of this orchestral narrative. The Polish master calls them simply ” Announcement, First Event, Second Event, Third Event” and the accumulative ” Conclusion”. His orchestral palette is , as always full of the most beautiful and refined instrumental colours.

( Composer´s Notes )

Yes, art can be defined.
but watch the context, the cultural and historical period.
Art or arts ? Which art ?
See also Horace, the Roman poet.
See also craft ( as in 19th. c. ” Arts and crafts” ) . etc.

Clear the decks.

Where we do the defining is also important. eg. Take Ireland and, say, the contemporary art of composed music.
Why do I insist that in Ireland still today there is hardly a concept, a definition, or the possibility of defining composed musical works – composed by Irish composers – as art, indeed as Irish art, an art on a level with eg. Irish poetry, film, painting etc.

What are the causes of this blindness, this prejudice, this exclusion of this definition ?

Is it lazy thinking? Could it be lack of experiencing New Irish Music, is that it ?
Mull this over.

There have in the past been many definitions of art, of musical composition.
It´s also worth reflecting a moment on some of the things we still today could define composing as:
it is sicut fumus, like smoke, ethereal.
It is a temporal art, indeed THE time-art par excellence.
Time-bending, stretching, sculpting, stitching, overlapping, deluding, defying, conquering.

( See G. Rosenstock´s ” Buailim bob ar bhás! ” )

Composing is hope, utopian, mythic, fighting the good fight.
If “cinis aequat omnia”, still a Frank Corcoran composition will yell and shout and erect its own resistance

to John Montague´s ”
Sea of history / Upon which we all turn / Turn and thrash / And disappear… ”

Music keens, protests, praises a fightin´ transcendence beyond the grave.

Certainly, music can be defined.
Art can be defined.
Irish contemporary music fights for its place in defining Ireland, Irish art, Irish artists.
Still.

FRANK CORCORAN

North/South Consonance

MIDWINTER FEST

On Sunday afternoon February 15, the North/South Chamber Orchestra

under the direction of Max Lifchitz will

introduce New York audiences to five recent works by composers from Ireland and the US.

Sunday February 15, 2015 @ 3pm
Christ & St Stephen’s Church, 120 West 69th Street (between Broadway and Columbus)

New York

Details
Admission is free – no tickets required

Program

Frank Corcoran Quasi una storia (Nearly a Story)

Max Lifchitz Brightness Aloftfb

COMUNICATO STAMPA TEATRO MANCINELLI ORVIETO

> IL CONCERTO DI DUBLINO AL MANCINELLI

> Il Maestro Frank Corcoran e i Solisti della National Symphony Orchestra of
> Ireland protagonisti, il 14 luglio, dell’evento dedicato alla musica
> classica irlandese e italiana
>
> “Le sue note sono capaci d’evocare i paesaggi da sogno dell’Isola di
> Smeraldo, mondi arcaici che si sposano a magiche epopee”, così alcuni
> critici hanno descritto la musica del compositore irlandese Frank Corcoran.

> Dopo il successo dell’esibizione nel luglio dello scorso anno, il Maestro
> Corcoran torna al Ridotto del Teatro Mancinelli di Orvieto per presentare un
> particolare evento dedicato alla musica classica irlandese e italiana. In
> programma, sabato 14 luglio alle ore 21, il CONCERTO DI DUBLINO.

> Adele Govier (prima viola della National Simphony Orchestra di Dublino) e il
> pianista R.T.E. Fergal Caulfield presentano un programma misto per viola e
> pianoforte con opere italiane e irlandesi, tra cui Puccini, Esposito e la
> prima dell’opera del Maestro Corcoran dal titolo “Hot Dialogues” per viola e
> pianoforte.
Lo stesso Maestro Corcoran partecipa al concerto introducendo le
> opere e i musicisti, in questo appuntamento che si annuncia come imperdibile
> evento per gli amanti della musica classica.

> Questo il programma della serata:

> Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) “Nocturne” per Viola & Piano (1911)
> Frank Corcoran “Hot Dialogues” (2017 – 3 Movements) – prima esecuzione
> assoluta
> Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) “Foglio d’Album” (c.1910?)
> Chris Corcoran “Deep Blue Windows” (2018) per Viola e Pianoforte – prima
> esecuzione assoluta
> Luciano Berio “Wasserklavier” (1965) per Pianoforte Solo
> Petr Eben (1929-2007) Fantasia sopra “Rorate Coeli” (1982) per Pianoforte
> Solo
> Michele Esposito (1855-1929) “Tramonto ” per solo Piano, Op.61 No.3 (1912)
> George Enescu(1881-1955) “Konzertstueck” per Viola e Pianoforte (1906)

>
> Da molti anni il Maestro Corcoran organizza il Concerto di Dublino
> coinvolgendo alcuni dei suoi amici musicisti della National Symphony
> Orchestra di Dublino.
> Quest’anno, oltre al concerto in programma il 14 luglio al Mancinelli, viene
> presentato anche un secondo concerto a Bolsena, nel Piccolo Teatro Cavour,
> il 15 luglio alle ore 18.

> Una grande occasione, dunque, per ascoltare uno dei massimi compositori
> contemporanei che ha scelto la nostra terra per lavorare e trovare
> l’ispirazione necessaria per la composizione.

> Frank Corcoran è nato nel 1944 a Tipperary, in Irlanda. Ha studiato a
> Maynooth, Dublino, Roma e Berlino (con Boris Blacher). Insegna ad Amburgo
> dal 1983, ed è stato Fulbright Professor negli Stati Uniti nel 1989-1990. I
> suoi lavori sono stati eseguiti e trasmessi regolarmente in Europa, Stati
> Uniti, Australia e Asia. È stato premiato con numerosi riconoscimenti
> internazionali per la sua opera, tra i quali il Premier Prix del Bourges
> Festival nel 1999 con Sweeney’s Vision; l’EMS Prize a Stoccolma nel 2002 con
> Quasi Una Missa; il Cork International Festival nel 2012 con Two Unholy
> Haikus; e il First Prize dell’International Foundation for Choral Music con
> Eight Haikus.

> Tra le opere più recenti si segnala: Cello Concerto (2015, Dublino); Quasi
> Una Storia for String Orchestra (2015, New York); Eight Haikus (2013,
> Manila); Violin Concerto (2012, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland);
> Quasi una Sarabanda (2011, Basilea, Zurigo, Berna); Song of Terror and Love
> (2011, New York).

> Frank Corcoran è un membro dell’Accademia delle Arti di Irlanda. Vive e
> lavora nella campagna di Bagnoregio da circa 10 anni.

> La discografia completa è disponibile sul sito www.frankcorcoran.com

> Il Concerto di Dublino – Ridotto del Teatro Mancinelli sabato 14 luglio ore
> 21
> Ingresso euro 12 – Ridotto Soci TEMA euro 10

>
> I biglietti del concerto saranno venduti sabato 14 luglio, a partire dalle
> ore 19, al botteghino del Teatro Mancinelli di Orvieto.
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