Frank Corcoran

This old moon is best

Born out of her young thighs

Bejaysus ! We´re mad !

All are keen to know
Whence our goddesses, their moods?
Birch, Kypros Bitches !

And their sea is deep / Piss-wine-dark and snot , that dawn / Who blinded Homer?

Sing, Retsina Song / Air On De G – String , ” mar eadh” / Well then: Death in life …

Lonely Limassol / Soon enough will bark, fart, stretch / You have things to do

Lawrence Durrell tried
To love himself. – Great whinny /
Godesses snigger

Yet Catal Hüyür
Predates your Gods, Seamuses,
By a thousand years

I dreamed my True Love
Lay dying. Apollo and
Jew soul, Christ , healed her

Since our Great Goethe / The Lemons´ Song is Germans´ / Fear Greeks ! – And Greek GIFTS !

Now sleep, Limassol / Which man / woman ´s dream will splice / Weary tomorrow ?

Once apon a time / Irish Patrick surfed to Greece / Weep, ye daffodills !

Being, becoming / A Kypros mind stopped the film / Tomorrow, let´s bathe !

Now it´s November / Turks stink, sweat under The Line / Bring them soap, peace, kiss

” Take you home again ? ”
Celtic Kathleen lacks this light
This foam, their old myths

Wailing, then waning
Athena on wet Kypros
Torrid, hot next year

We had rehearesd together , the National Symphony Orchestra and GREAT Christopher Warren-Green , Conductor / and GREAT violin genius , soloist Alan Smale , and GRAND Irish National Symphony… An instrumental choir, acually , sung and blathered , screamed music; your musician´s protector and union ) .

I weep on. Warren-Green / Christopher swathed my Violin Concerto lines in BEAUTIFUL nappies. My GREAT soloist, Alan Smale, bowed and played as if from another , godlike, universe. Molaim. Most BEAUTIFUL garden-shifters.

Friday night in Dublin at their National Concert Hall, I sat and wept with the symphonic resin of Alan Smale´s great searching / his AND THEIR sighing / soaring / shouting / ploughing / etching The Great Corcoran metaphor in my Violin Concerto´s central ” Go Mall “. Christopher Warre-Shaping of the GREAT Irish N.S.O. was a peerlessly LOVING orchestral accompaniment. A great and musical/poetical/political event.

Forty years ago I composed for choir / excellent , GREAT voices

Down from my composer´s October shelf I take an Old Irish poem; it is, I suppose, ” Quasi Un Haiku ” :

“NI FHETAR” ” NOBODY ( QUITE ) KNOWS! ”

” Ní fhetar / Cia lassa fífea Etan /

Ro-fetar Etan bán /

Nochon fhífeá a hoenaráin! ” =

“Who knows /
Who Etan will sleep with ? /
But I know fair Etan /
She will not sleep alone. ”

What is the woman´s position here ? The ( sniggering young ) man´s ?
What I set was Frank O´Connor´s ( ” KINGS, LORDS AND COMMONS ” ) still brilliant if un poco genteel:

“All are keen to know / Who´ll sleep with blond Aideen ! / All Aideen herself will own / Is that she will not sleep alone “.

Is this text sensational ? Loins an´all ? Yes. Is my women ´n men´s
moilin´´n remoilin´ choral version ? Yes.
( I forgive Frank O´Connor obviously his ” Etan” = ” Aideen ” ; Frank went for the wide open ” E´” and ” I ” ( which Old Irish also,of course, can provide ) .

” All are keen to know
Who´ll sleep with blond Aideen…
All Aideen herself will own
Is that she will not sleep alone… ”

My composer´s “seeing” ear had cottoned to O´Connor´s ” a” // ” ee ” oscillation in the first half of our ” Etan / Aideen ” translation. Then, O´Connor´s and my choral vowels: ” Aw / ee / e / o // A / i / ee / o // ”

Forty years ago , it was , yes, this blessed, beannacht, tonight that I composed my splendidly youthful, heroic ” MEDIEVAL IRISH EPIGRAMMES” for S.A.T.B. Choir . Dr. Hans W. Rosen and the R.T.E.Singers premiered them, also it . Splendid Eric Sweeny also programmed them splendidly and Eric sent them to the 1979 International Composers´Rostrum in Paris.
So far, so Brahmsian. Now, forty years later , I´d love a whack at the original Old Irish and thus a naked, pithy, humble Beowulfian modern equivalent of the female-us male bodies dilemma.

http://www.sengoidelc.com/category/1/4

END OF GOLDEN OCTOBER HAIKU:

It pisses moonlight

Through rotten rafters ruined

The wind moans my end

So how would you set this little pearl, eh ? And for what ? Tenor ? Seldom ( I am risking writhing “Tenorlieder” ) enough ! Bass even rarer… Okay, soprano ? Piano or orchestra or wind quintet to
accompany ? How ? How many times must each line return? Might repeat? Ascending screech or descending keen to conclude ? All in all a mini-cantata for solo voice ? How would I set it ? And for what purpose ? Which performance , performers, venue, price, occasion ?

These are the little questions to hone the composing brain. Prepare headache . Kick-start the battery, ars componendi. Now at the dying fall.

This recording of my work – it can be listened and downloaded by following this link: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2630336/07%20Track%207%20-%20Two%20Unholy%20Haikus%2C%20Frank%20Corcoran.wav

Christopher Warren-Green, Music Director

Currently in his third season as Music Director of the Charlotte Symphony, Christopher Warren-Green returns to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conducts the world premiere of Frank Corcoran’s Violin Concerto with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra Dublin. He also returns to the St Louis Symphony, and following his acclaimed debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in December 2011, he was immediately reinvited for the 2012/13 season. Other highlights this season include performances with the Orchestre National de Belgique and his Italian debut with Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali. Warren-Green continues to serve as Music Director of the London Chamber Orchestra, while residing in Charlotte, NC with his family.

2. Konzert
Frank Corcoran (*1944) Concertini of Ice (1993) UA
D. de la Motte (*1928) Signale, für Akk, E-Gitarre, Schlgzg (1976)
Joep Straesser (*1934) Points of Contact I, für Blockflöte und Schlagzeug (1987)
Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) Two Interlinked French Melodies (1929)
Per Norgard (*1932) Quintett op. 1 (1985)

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 und Indiana. Seit 1983 ist Frank Corcoran Mitglied der Irischen AdK.
Balthasars Traum 1980
Sweeney’s Vision 1997
Sweeney’s letztes Gedicht, Sweeney’s Farewell 1997/98
Tradurre – Tradire 2004