Frank Corcoran

Even the mahogany sheen of the lower strings and the silver glitter of the wind went into it. “My” mere seven tones, ” F R an Cis Es C orcor An” with all their melodic / harmonically spawned
forms unfolded Frank Corcoran´s ” VARIATIONS ON MYSELF ” in the unholy acoustic of conductor Max Lifchitz´s Church of Christ and St. Stephen on Manhattan´s 120th. Street.
It was a new Corcoran work for chamber orchestra, American . Strings´music, metred, but the winds´ lines then not synchronized, that is its rough plan ambling and arguing on to my Endmusik; – but there, over a low held chord ( I kept changing its colouring, of course I would ) the horn, bassoon, clarinet, oboe and finally flute fare well… The work is an ” argument” , a musical one. Boris Blacher, il miglior fabbro in far-off Berlin of my student days, liked to say that a ( good ) composition states at the outset its basic material. When it has exhausted not ( quite – or only – ) its listeners but its material, it finds a way to its final “cadence”.
Well, reflecting with the returning aeroplane´s tail-wind, I did that. Lovely music. Great sound. Combine, twist, run together and disentangle and knot and flow and die.