1.  West Berlin 1981.

After my  Berliner Kuenstler Programm 1980  (  “Symphonies Of Symphonies Of Wind ”  =  my  first symphony  )  ; the  Symphony Nr. 2 ,  ( I counterpoint :   ” SOLI ” and ” TUTTI ” ) ,  I became a guest professor at the  Hochschule der Musik where , a few very short years earlier  Boris Blacher had taught me :  a sense of musical  responsibility ; beware all new-born music Fascists;  for Gawd’s sake keep a door open  for:

form in music , hearable shape  .

2. Stuttgart  1982  : Oh Hoelderlin ! Sweet airs and wines above that boiling  Kesseltal ”  !  Beware the post-war terror and infallible ” we only, ahem, know  – contemporary composition, choirs and tin.-whistles  and quintets and bagpipes, it all !”

3. Hamburg 1983 till  quasi yesterday. Coming from the South, I had just  tripped across the Hamburg  Musikhochschule’s  main portal ( No. There was no one to greet me , to welcome me, I felt instantly  a  local-Hamburg  tollabawns’  ignorance of any saving grace known to Western man . They had justly perfected what ?  The snarl. The rictus. Clear your  Hanseatic Liberal Throat indeed ….  )  . Here was musicality , creativity, plasticity, humanity, normality….   not understood. I gasped. I reeled. I screeched : ” This can not be true ! ”

TO  BE  CONTINUED

I quote some horrors and some beauts.

1. “What you see is what you hear ”   ( HEAR HEAR HOYKES !   )

2. ” A way of spoken ( ! )  Language and music which  is not oppressing ( ! ) Others  ( ? ! )  ”

3.  “So that the music and the words can be equivalently ( ! )  incorporated …. to include ( ? ) the perspective ( ! ) of the audience  in a creative way ( OUCH ! ! ! )  ”

4.Heiner Goebbels ( ! ) :  “I was never interested in the music only ;  I was Always interested in the musical PROCESS. ”          (   …     ?     )

I am sitting between two flying stools, kindly and awe-filled North Atlantic storms a mere  11.500 metres under my aeroplane seat and a night sleep back from New York to all too airy Hamburg -but soon will be my March flight to Dublin, the Cello Concerto’s  premiere.
(  Corcoran’s newly premiered NYC work for 13 Strings , ” QUASI UNA STORIA” , was quite different only  one movement, fifty shades of burnished brown and Guarnieri polish, this lone composer’s colour nuances all bowed and plucked . )
The Dublin ( Yes, March 13 2015   ) concerto pits violent sound- masses ( Certainly I  remember Dvorak and Lutoslawsky )  ,   our cello’s High Line against ( too ? ) vast orchestral forces.  In the violent Scherzo   timpani ( – all five ) try to overcome  the soloist’s High Song.
So how shall solo cello sing and shout or scream or whisper,  woo me positively, hymn me, its creator ?
I built four dolmens in sound. Four orchestral movements.  Then the orchestra ;  well, how  screech / sing / sigh / sob / proclaim ,dreaman incantation ? The High Romantic Concerto since Paganin is a muster, well-thrashed. Very well. Struggle on, agon, sacred syllable, motif, phrase, quasi quotations, all the building stones of my Corcoran Scale Seven.

Edition Ferrimontana      (  EF 3885 )  :

Frank Corcoran’s  new S A T B  publication:

FOUR  LAST  WORDS  FROM  THE  CROSS”      ( 2015. ca. 4′ .  )

1. Eli,Eli, Lama Shabachthani ?   2.  Sitio  .  3.  Tetelestai.  4.  Father, into Thy hands….

Frankfurt Radio         Frank Corcoran Composer Portrait :

Hr2 – Kultur     March 5 2015.       21.30  –  22.30

” Aus dem Tintenfass des Himmels  /  Trinken Baeume  /  Sich satt    “.

( today whacked; after my NDR – Kultur ” Prisma ” radio recording for that focal, stunning April 4 2015  programme.  Hear who can. Hear or listen who must   )

Take the sheer erotic power of his ( highly ” economic”  )   oboes ‘ entry in Symphony Nr. 29  ( A Major )   – opening Allegro, bar 13. Bitter. Tonic.  His two horns in A  in bars 22 to 23. Certainly.  Magna in parvis.

No, I mean more – yearning in erotic brass , wood.

4. April 2015   NDR – Kultur  .  Prisma Musik  :

Frank Corcoran  ” hears ”  Mozart’s Symphony Nr. 29 and his ” Jupiter ”  .  After 22.05 p.m. then,

Frank Corcoran’s     FOURTH SYMPHONY  in one movement. 1996  ( Irish National Symphony Orchestra  /  Colman Pearce )    Marco Polo recording.

Just in the door, dog tired after producing for NDR – KLASSIK Prisma Musik   my radiophonic thoughts for April 4. coming :

Mozart’s Symphony Nr. 29  AND  his ” Jupiter”  , his early and late / youthful and last masterpiece  /   his two symphonies under one hat ( – Oliver Sacks has terminal cancer )  .

These two symphonies share a four tone cell ?  How ?

As ” high” art, they are at least ( but are they ? ) on a par with The Doors ? With The Rolling Balls ? The Insects ?  Well, prove this :  improvised music has mountains. Art-music also.

Prisma Musik

Samstag, 01. November 2014, 20:00 bis 22:00 Uhr

Der 1794 in Dessau geborene Dichter Wilhelm Müller war seinen Zeitgenossen vor allem als “Griechen-Müller” und Vertreter des literarischen Philhellenismus ein Begriff; heute kennt man ihn, wenn überhaupt, noch als Autor jener Gedichte, die Franz Schubert in seinen Zyklen “Die schöne Müllerin” und “Die Winterreise” vertonte.

Bild vergrößern

Franz Schubert, dargestellt in einem Aquarell von Wilhelm August Rieder, 1825.

Fünf Jahre vor Schuberts Tod erschien das erste Dutzend der Gedichte zur Winterreise im Urania Taschenbuch auf das Jahr 1823, die restlichen kamen wenig später in die Öffentlichkeit, unter anderem in den hinterlassenen Papieren eines “reisenden Waldhornisten”.

Eine Sendung von Frank Corcoran und Gerhard Müller

We got lift off. High cold up at 11.500 metres Lufthansa height , giving me a composer’s special view of the birth and sounding and death of composed tones. Landing at J.F.K., I then got a high-wire, tightly controlled, very electric first performance by North South Consonance of my newest work for 13 strings , “Quasi Una Storia”. High octane.

Max Lifchitz was my conductor. Yes to Henry Purcell’s chest of viols and Bach’s string-colours and great 20th. c. masters’ stringy compositions for violas and deep celli or bass and sheeny violins , grave, moving, swiftly flowing music, its lines and blocks exploring itself, its plucks and bowings.

Mr. Corcoran, his delighte. In the white cold of the still city.