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Frank CorcoranIrish Composer |
It was valuable. My membership of the International City of Trieste Competition Jury in the nineties, also the Valentino Bucchi Jury in Rome of the eighties; also the Zagreb Biennale and World Music Days Jury.
We did try to be just , objective, to award excellence. I did learn. Oh yes.
It must be nearly forty year now since I began an alternative activity of making programmes for the radio. Mostly music programmes. I have worked for RTE, NDR, WDR, BREMEN, BAVARIAN RADIO, LYRIC FM, HESSISCHER RUNDFUNK, the various BERLIN RADIOs, RAI in Rome…. and more; and I greatly enjoyed this kind of composition also. I remember in particular a few very special programmes which I produced ; for Hamburg it was Alban Berg’s 3 Orchestral Pieces, for Frankfurt there was a big radiophonic analysis of ” Sacre “, for Cologne I analysed Webern and Ligeti, for the Bavarians Irish ” sean n’os ” ; for Lyric Fm there was “Bach Came Through Borrisokane.” Great broadcaster’s fun.
To: the Editor,
IRISH TIMES Nov. \6 2014
Dear Editor,
I really could weep for the Irish Times and the Royal Irish Academy’s post-colonialist ” panel of experts ” and their pale Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks. ”
M’or Mo N’aire ” indeed for your experts’ expert ignorance of contemporary Irish art-music . Over twenty years ago now the Irish Times portraited me as an
Irish composer abroad
with not a chance of being understood at home as, well, an Irish artist working in sound , tone, silence( in a situation where an Irish symphony, sonata, chorus, opera, concerto is accepted as on a pa rwith an Irish book, painting, sculpture, play, poem, building. )…..
For your experts with their 100 Irish Artworks nothing seems to have changed . An Irish ” cumad’oir ceoil” has no place in their 100 post-colonial artworks. –
In 1981 my “SYMPHONIES OF SYMPHONIES OF WIND” was premiered in Vienna with the ORFSO under Lothar Zagrosek. Silence at home. ( Why ? Because the Irish “post- colonial” canon of what are and are not Irish arts has no perception at all of Irish composers and Irish composed music as part of the Irish intellectual tradition. ). My ” JOYCEPEAK MUSIK ” won the German Studio Akustische Prize in 1996. Yawns at home.. My “SWEENEY’S VISION
” won the 1999 French Bourges Festival Premier Prix. West German Radio commissioned ” QUASI UNA MISSA” which won the 2002 Swedish EMS
Prize. A post-colonial narration of Ireland and Irish musical composition indeed ? What can not be just can not be, it seems. Last year my choral “EIGHT HAIKUS” won the International Federation forChoral Music First Prize Outright . Here I am not blowing my own trumpet . What about the distinguished work of distinguished Irish composers, younger and older ?
Your panel’s Modern Ireland In 100 Artworks shows post-colonial blinkers; it is blind to composed music on the Irish island . This is a woeful bias, a disgracefully lazy, unexamined definition of the Irish arts.
Yours etc.
Frank Corcoran , Irish Composer, Member of Aosdana.
Frank Corcoran featured in
Benjamin Dwyer : DIFFERENT VOICES Wolke Verlag 2014
February 15 2015 New York City Premier of Frank Corcoran’s new QUASI UNA STORIA for String Orchestra ( North South Consonance / Max Lifchitz )
March 13 2015 Dublin National Concert Hall RTE Premiere of Frank Corcoran’s CELLO CONCERTO ( N.S.O., Cond. Kenneth Montgomery, Soioist: Martin Johnson )
Certainly cold. Certainly passionate as the dawn. New work. Stern stuff, the lonely activity at the forge. Forge instrumental line, fuse these lines together; expression is and is thus formed . Glue and stick . Paint the howl, the ecstasy, the surge and the passing and passage of self-reflexivity and time as me and my pixels, tones and God bless. Cold certainly. More to come.Batten down, this winter , settle in, your kettle singing on the hob in a more complex world with James P. Graham’s strangely mysterious film, ” Losing Sea Henge” and with Frank Corcoran’s strange soundscape to ease that fine-grained film’s passage into that carpet of that woven time, film thus also reaching towards music’s natural flow, sluice, ebb; be dense and be thin and be milky and wavy and mazy and as amazing as the dawn.
The flight towards the True North completed, the pilot’s compass pointing towards Hamburg as South yields to North and balmy clime to November’s kindly drizzle. Good impulses; this Pratoleva Year brought in a goodly harvest of : orchestral lieder, choral works, two strong chamber-works and more. I’ll be on about music and the Pole Star anon.
Unpack now and unwind the reel conncting Lazio up to the northern Hanseatic League and all the herrings and salty barrels and the monosyllabic heartiness . Mediterranean versus North Sea, age-old question, a two seas symphony.
Corcoran, Frank(b Borrisokane, Tipperary,1 May1944). Irish composer.He studied music at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth (1961–4), music, philosophyand theology in Rome (1964–7) at the Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra andthe Università del Laterano, and composition in Berlin with Blacher (1969–71).He has served as music inspector for the Irish Department of Education(1971–9), been a guest of the Berlin Artist’s Programme (1980–81) and hastaught at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, Stuttgart (1982–3) and theStaatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Hamburg (from 1983). Hewas elected to Aosdána, the Irish academy of creative artists, in 1983. He was a Fulbright visiting professor and Fulbright scholarin the U.S. in 1989-1990. His compositionshave won a number of prizes including the Studio Akustische Kunst First Prizein 1996 for Joycepeak Music, firstprize at the Bourges International Electro-acoustic Music Competition in 1999for Sweeny´s Vision, the EMS Prize,Stockholm in 2002 for Quasi Una Missaand the International Federation for Choral Music’s Second InternationalCompetition for Choral Composition for EightHaikus in 2013.Corcoran has developed a distinctand complex language of aleatory macro-counterpoint in which sound layers aresuperimposed polyphonically but retain independence through distinctivepolymetric, agogic and dynamic indications. This technique is evident from theearly Piano Trio (1978) to Ice Etchings no.1 and Mad Sweeney(both 1996). The later was the first of a series ofworks initially inspired by Seamus Heaney’s translation of the Irish epic.His many cultural interests are reflected in the texts of his vocal works; theopera Gilgamesh (1990), for example, is based on a Sumerian epic. The IrischeMikrokosmoi for piano (1993) are based on traditional Irish melodies andrhythms. From 1999 until 2009 to he worked on a seriesof works utilizing the descriptor ‘quasi.’ These ranged from orchestral workssuch as Quasi un canto and Quasi un Visione to solo instrumental works such asQuasi un Basso. Works(selectivelist)Op:Gilgamesh (G. Rosenstock and Corcoran), 1990 Orch:Carraig Aonair Suite, 1976; Chbr Sym., 1976; 3 Pieces ‘Pictures from MyExhibition’, 1976; Caoine [Lament], fl, str, 1979; Sym. no.1 ‘Syms. of Syms. ofWind Insts’, 1981; Sym. no.2, 1981; Conc., str, 1982; Farewell Syms.(Corcoran), spkr, orch, tape, 1982; Shadows of Gilgamesh, 1988; Cantus decalamitate hiberniorum in patria antiqua, 1991; 6 Irische Mikrokosmoi, str,1994; Sym. no.3, 1994; Sym. no.4, 1996; Quasi un canto,2002; Quasi un concertino, 2003; Quasi un vision, 2004; Quasi un fuga, 2005;Violin Concerto, 2011; Cello Concerto, 2012 Vocal(SATB, unless otherwise stated): Aifreann [Mass], unison vv, org, 1973; DánAimhirgín (old Irish), 1973; 9 Medieval Irish Epigrams, 1973; 2 Meditations (J.Barth), spkr, orch, 1973; More (J. Pupacic), 1976; Herr Jesu Christ (P. Eber),1978; 5 Liric de Chuid Rosenstock [5 Lyrics after Rosenstock], S, pf, trio,1980; Das Stundenbuch (R.M. Rilke), SATB, org, 1990; Mad Sweeney (S. Heaney),spkr, chbr orch, 1996; Quasi una melodia (Anon), S, asax, vib, mar, vn, va, pf, 2000; Beyond Beckett, S, vn, vc, b cl, 2006; Songsof Terror and Love (F. Corcoran & Jacopone Da Todi), B, fl+picc+afl,cl+bcl, pf, vn+va, vc, 2011; Two UnholyHaikus (G. Rosenstock, F. Corcoran), 2011; Eight Haikus (F. Corcoran),SSAATTBB, 2012 Chbr:Brass Qnt, 1973; Chbr Sonata, fl, vn, va, vc, perc, 1974; Gestures of Sound andSilence, vc, pf, 1976; Str Qt no.1, 1976; Pf Trio, 1978; Shorts, vn, vc, 1978;Wind Qnt, 1978; Str Qt no.2, 1979; Rhapsodies on a Windy Night, cl, vn, va, vc,db, perc, 1981; Lines and Configurations, b cl, mar, 1983; 5 Amhráin ganFhocail [5 Songs without Words], ob, eng hn, trbn, perc, pf, str, 1984; Musicfor the Book of Kells, 5 perc, pf, 1990; 4 Concertini of Ice, fl, ob, cl, hn,vn, vc, db, perc, 1992; Dream Song, fl, cl, bn, vc, gui, pf, 1992; See-ThroughMusic, fl, vn, va, vc, pf, perc, 1993; 4 Miniatures, fl, vc, 1994; RhapsodicThinking, 4 vn, 1994; Rhapsodic Delight, 2 vn, 1995; Trauerfelder, 4 perc,1995; Ice Etchings, wind nonet, 1996; Str Qt no.3,1997; Wind Qnt no. 3, 1999; Sweeney’sSmithereens, fl, pic, cl+bcl, perc, pf, vn, db, 2000; Quasi una Sarabanda, cl,bn, hn, 2 vn, va, vc, db, 2009; Clarinet Qnt, 2011Soloinst: Suite, vc, 1972; Sonata, org, 1973; The Quare Hawk, fl, 1974; Variationswith Air, a sax, 1976; Hernia, db, 1978; Changes, pf, 1979; Mythologies, perc,1979; Variations on Caleno Costure, hpd, 1982; 3 Pieces, cl, 1987; 3 Pieces,gui, 1990; Irische Mikrokosmoi, pf, 1993; Ice-Etchingsno. 2, vc, 1996; Sweeney’s Total Rondo, pf, 2002; Quasi un basso, db, 2005; Inthe deep heart’s core, hp, 2011; A dark song, b cl, 2011 Tape:Balthasar’s Dream, 1980; Joycespeak, 1995; Sweeney’s Vision, 1997; Sweeney’sLast Poem, 1998; Quasi una missa, 1999 MSS in IRL-Dc Principalpublishers: Naxos Selfhelp, BibliographyKdG (A. Kreutziger-Herr) A.Klein: Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim, 1996) J. Page: ‘A Post-War “Irish” Symphony: FrankCorcoran’s Symphony no. 2’ in Cox & Klein (eds) Irish Musical Studies 7: Irish Music in the Twentieth Century(Dublin, 2002)Gareth Cox
” I will move on to the next step. And it’ll be good ” ( Irish poet James Liddy , preparing for death ) .
Wintering out in Hamburg, many flying miles on up above. There’ll be a flurry of choral activity in my 2015. The CELLO CONCERTO premiere is in Dublin in March ; QUASI UNA STORIA for String Orchestra in New York in February. Also new 3 PIECES FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO. Also new 3 MOVEMENTS FOR OBOE QUARTET. Even a new IRISH CHRISTMAS CAROL ( Hayo – Verlag ) . And it’ll be good. New tales spun from these still quite sound entrails, musical form as its own sounding substance or ” content is shape , context, aura, composed audible structure “. Performance then gladdens. – Keep the mystery; keep the filmic. ( – No preaching allowed ) Aurora is busy dawning now, certainly, light like milk spilled for the cats outside mother’s cow-shed so many flying miles ago.
Annual batten down of these hatches ; quickly depart these lovely climes before the waiting Winter Solstice. Be quick ! Bi curamach ! Be still! Bi laidir !
Yes, a good strong Pratoleva harvest . Orchestral MY ALTO RHAPSODIES ( well, yes, once again my very own texts ) , a major Corcoran work, it will gain momentum and the needed Kathleen Ferrier contralto voice. This my summer also saw : 3 Pieces for Violin and Piano, 3 Pixels for Oboe and String Trio, a very plethora of choral works including AN IRISH CHRISTMAS CAROL and my self-crucifying FOUR LAST WORDS FROM THE CROSS, strong crafting , strong energy. We had then my CMC / Mark Linnane Frank Corcoran Film THE LIGHT GLEAMS. Seventieth Birthday Castle Shenannigans as high noon danced .
Bring all this harvest in. Hamburg awaits with bated ( not beaten ! ) breath, merchant’s sacks full of eccentric pepper.