Frank Corcoran

Frank CORCORAN (b. 1944)

Rhapsodic Celli

Cello Concerto [32:31]

Rhapsodietta Joyceana [3:31]

Rhapsodic Bowing for 8 Celli [8:42]

Duetti Irlandesi for Cello and Piano [23:43]

Martin Johnson (cello)
Fergal Caulfield (piano)
RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra Cello Octet
RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra/Gavin Maloney

rec. 2016, National Concert Hall, Dublin (concerto), RTÉ Studio 1, Dublin (others)

RTÉ LYRIC FM CD154 [68:17]

This is a valuable addition to RTÉ’s series of recordings of the Irish tradition in classical music, a series which gives the opportunity to hear music from a nation often overlooked by listeners.

It needs to be said at once that the music of Frank Corcoran is rarely easy, or, in the colloquial sense, particularly rhapsodic. He does have a distinctive voice and, in some ways places himself in the Irish tradition, especially, on this release, in Duetti Irlandesi for Cello and Piano. A valuable feature of the CD is the cross-section of his music provided, from solo works up to the full orchestra of the concerto. The linking feature is the cello, but otherwise, the pieces are dissimilar. The sound world put me in mind of Elliott Carter, though the voice is not identical, and distinctly Corcoran’s own.

As a composer, Corcoran has worked in various media, including electric-acoustic, but many of his works refer to Irish literature and traditions. Despite this, his teaching has been international, notably in the USA (including Harvard, Princeton and Boston) and Germany.
In the 1980s he was professor of composition in Hamburg, and his first symphony (Symphonies of Symphonies of Wind Instruments) was premiered by Lothar Zagrosek in Vienna in 1981.

The Cello Concerto is perhaps the most substantial work here, and it is a considerable piece.
The opening movement acts as a gritty introduction to the remainder—it has a stern, rather agonised character.
The cantabilissimo slow movement is characterful, with an element of slow song made up of scraps of melodic material. It has an instant attractiveness.
The scherzo is described by the composer as “easily the most violent music I have ever written”. Orchestral strings are silent: the propulsion—it drives hard, very hard—comes from massed percussion and howling brass.
The final movement recalls the first, reconciling, or not quite, fragments of the others, and recalling the opening of the whole concerto.

James Joyce, of course, also used this circularity in Finnegan’s Wake (as would Flann O’Brien in The Third Policeman), so it is perhaps apposite that the next work on the CD is Rhapsodietta Joyceana.
The composer describes Joyce as “the greatest Irish composer”, noting the effects of reading Joyce aloud. The piece is not large but it works as a tribute to the spirit of Joyce.

Rhapsodic Bowing for 8 Celli written specifically for the cellos of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra is an interesting piece which requires virtuosity.
As Corcoran says: “There is … not only rhapsodic bowing but also rhapsodic plonking and plinking, pizzicati and (col legno) striking”, but matters are resolved into a strong and ultimately tender ending bases on Bach’s C Major Suite for Cello.

The composer claims descent from Floirint Ó Corcorain, a master harpist of the 15th Century.
Corcoran has long been fascinated by the traditional pieces. Yet he describes himself as appalled by settings of traditional melodies by composers such as Beethoven, Haydn, Britten and Harty, and attempts, in the rethinking here, to recapture the original spirit of eight traditional melodies.
Many are associated with Corcoran’s home county of Tipperary. The pieces are melodic, touchingly beautiful, and suited to the melancholic tones of the cello. The original airs are treated with affection and respect for their character. There is an absence of aggressive modernism, but real affection.
These eight pieces deserve frequent performance. Most familiar to many will be the final tune Róisín Dubh. It was so significant in Seán Ó Riada’s score for Míse Eire, and has much political resonance.

Playing by Martin Johnson and his partners is excellent, notes (by the composer) are informative.

This is a worthwhile and fascinating addition to the RTÉ series.

Michael Wilkinson

February 9th, 2012 by Frank Corcoran

Certainly I had to study Berg , Beethoven and Max Bruch and them all; how to make my new Concerto sing and soar, how thin out the accompanying orchestra (eg. I use no tuba, little enough brass, sparing percussion ) to let the violin get lift-off at the opening of my Movement 1.

The Slow Movement then wrote itself, the solo line singing its three ( sad ? – Are they sad ? ) verses before the Cadenza and my final wisps of string.

In the fast semiquavers of the last 3. Movement, I composed the lightness of being. So it´s: Fast / Slow / Fast approximately, this well-tried formula of this exciting violin concerto genre.

The writing is deliberately pared down. eg. it´s metred, gridded music all through , no complex polyrhythms or controlled aleatory at all , here is clear melodic line plus accompaniment .

My work is taut, lean, lyrical, leppin´, a true concerto that looks back and looks forward.
It learns from Mozart in the last movement´s fast passage-work.
There´s something, – of course there is, of Mendelssohn, Brahms and all the rest in the opening movement´s orchestral tutti pitted against the weak-strong strength of the solo line.

The Slow Movement is certainly a ” Lied Ohne Worte”, pure amhrán.
It has to be.
So what´s my whole ( shortish, packed, compact ) orchestral work ? – Un poco “music about music” ? Maybe.

As in several recent works ( eg. my 2011 CLARINET QUINTET or the 2008 ” 9 ASPECTS OF AN IRISH POEM” for Large Choir and Solo Violin ) my building-blocks are a simple 7 – note row or scale : G A flat C sharp D E flat F sharp and A. That´s it.
With these seven tones I construct a mighty sounding edifice, in these three movements a concerto ( in full flight) of fiddling fun and violinistic seriousness and art´s sorrow and fast, furious, last orchestral thoughts. “Quasi Un Concerto “? – No, the real thing, but a concerto of our time, my seven tones re-living a century of violin concerti without being in the least neo-tonal or neo-this and that.
I´ll call it also: ” The One And The Many” ; “Four Strings Against The Rest”;
or we should subtitle its three supple, subtle movements perhaps: ” Announce The Event” , ” Sighing Song” and “Lightness Is All”.

Frank Corcoran HAMBURG – BLANKENESE-Text !

Januar 27 2018 BLANKENESE KONZERT

BILDER HOEREN – TOENE SEHEN

Heinz Gellrich ( Maler ) und Frank Corcoran ( Komponist )

Die Synaesthesie hat bei beiden, Malern wie Komponisten ,in Europa, wenigstens seit Mussorgsky ´s “Bilder einer Ausstellung”, eine hervorgehobene Bedeutung.

Farben und Töne sind häufig näher beieinander ,als wir erwarten.

Man denkt an Klee und Kandinsky auf der einen Seite und Skriabin und Messiaen auf der anderen.

Titel wie “Der gelbe Klang” (Kandinsky 1909) oder “Couleurs De la Cit’e C’eleste (Messiaen 1949), erzählen ihre eigene Geschichte.

2014 hörte der Hamburger Maler Heinz Gellrich die 2.te Symphonie des irischen Komponisten Frank Corcoran.Während vieler Monate im Jahr 2015 malte er das zentrale Bild, das später zum “Corcoran Tryptichon” erweitert werden sollte.
Er “übersetzte” tiefe, ozeanische Töne und Linien und Rhytmen des ersten Satzes der Symphonie in seine eigene abstrakte Komposition,mit eigener Textur, Dichtigkeit und Bewegung.

In diesem Konzert präsentieren die beiden Künstler ihre zwei Kunstformen mit ihren beiden Werken.

Corinna Meyer-Esche(sopran) und Jennifer Hymer (Klavier) illustrieren musikalisch.

PROGRAMM:

Begruessung

Frank Corcoran : Vokalise fuer Heinz Gellrich

Heinz Gellrich TRYPTICHON Beleuchtung / Frank Corcoran 2. Symphonie Satz 1.

Frank Corcoran FIVE HAIKUS ( Corinna Meyer-Esche , Sopran und Jennifer
Hymer, Pianoforte )

Johannes Brahms DEUTSCHE VOLKSLIEDER ” ”

Biog. Heinz Gellrich Biog. Frank Corcoran

FRANK CORCORAN PORTRAIT on BAVARIAN RADIO 2 ( WISSEN ) . At 9.05

Die Sendung heißt

” Silbensang und Poesie” ;

und wird am 13. Juni um 9.05 in Bayern 2 ausgestrahlt; sie ist danach noch als Podcast zu hören.

Frank Corcoran’s

July and August Italian Concerts

I have posted this story.

New works by Frank Corcoran performed in Italy this summer

IS ACHER ANGAITH INNOCHT BITTER IS THE WIND TONIGHT

IS acher ingáith innocht ·
fufuasna fairggæ find?olt
ni ágor réimm mora minn ·
dond láechraid lainn ua lothlind.

Bitter is the wind to-night:
it tosses the ocean’s white hair:
I fear not the coursing of a clear sea
by the fierce heroes from Lothlend.

STILL LIFE WITH GUITAR

Emma Coulthard, flute – Michael McCartney, guitar

The National Museum of Wales, Cardiff

Sunday, 17 March 2013, 1 p.m.

In celebration of the shared Celtic heritage of Wales and Ireland, Still Life with Guitar would like to invite you to

an exciting free concert of new music for flute and guitar, including works by Welsh composers Mervyn Burtch and

Peter Reynolds, plus, for the first time in Britain, works by Irish composers Frank Corcoran, Martin O’Leary and John

Buckley.

Corcoran, Frank(b Borrisokane, Tipperary,1 May 1944).

Irish composer.

He studied music at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth (1961–4), music, philosophy and theology in Rome (1964–7) at the Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra and the 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 has taught at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, Stuttgart (1982–3)
and the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Hamburg (from 1983).

He was 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 compositions have won a number of prizes including
the Studio Akustische Kunst First Prize in 1996 for Joycepeak Music,
first prize at the Bourges International Electro-acoustic Music Competition in 1999 for Sweeny´s Vision,
the EMS Prize,Stockholm in 2002 for Quasi Una Missa and
the International Federation for Choral Music’s Second International Competition for Choral Composition for EightHaikus in 2013.
Cork Choral Festival Sean O Riada Prize in 2014.

Corcoran has developed a distinct and complex language of aleatory macro-counterpoint in which sound layers are superimposed polyphonically but retain independence through distinctive polymetric, agogic and dynamic indications. This technique is evident from the early 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; the opera Gilgamesh (1990), for example, is based on a Sumerian epic. The Irische Mikrokosmoi for piano (1993) are based on traditional Irish melodies and rhythms.

From 1999 until 2009 to he worked on a series of works utilizing the descriptor ‘quasi.’
These ranged from orchestral works such as Quasi un canto and Quasi un Visione to solo instrumental works such as Quasi un Basso.

Works (selective list )

Op: Gilgamesh , 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. o fWind Insts’, 1981;
Sym. no.2, 1981; Conc., str, 1982; Farewell Syms.(Corcoran), spkr, orch, tape, 1982;
Shadows of Gilgamesh, 1988; Cantus de calamitate 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, 2013

Vocal(SATB, unless otherwise stated):
Aifreann [Mass], unison vv, org, 1973;
Dán Aimhirgín (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;
Songs of Terror and Love (F. Corcoran & Jacopone Da Todi), B, fl+picc+afl,cl+bcl, pf, vn+va, vc, 2011;
Two Unholy Haikus (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 and Silence, 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 gan Fhocail [5 Songs without Words], ob, eng hn, trbn, perc, pf, str, 1984; Music for 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-Through Music, fl, vn, va, vc, pf, perc, 1993; 4 Miniatures, fl, vc, 1994; Rhapsodic Thinking, 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; Variations with 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; In the deep heart’s core, hp, 2011; A dark song, b cl, 2011

Tape:
Balthasar’s Dream, 1980; Joycespeak, 1995;
Sweeney’s Vision, 1997;
Sweeney’s Last Poem, 1998;
Quasi una missa,
1999
MSS in IRL-Dc

Principal publishers: Naxos Selfhelp,

Bibliography KdG (A. Kreutziger-Herr) A.Klein: Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim, 1996) J. Page: ‘A Post-War “Irish” Symphony: Frank Corcoran’s Symphony no. 2’ in Cox & Klein (eds) Irish Musical Studies 7:
Irish Music in the Twentieth Century(Dublin, 2002)Gareth Cox

NEW FESTSCHRIFT FRANK CORCORAN

A new book. “FRANK CORCORAN AT SEVENTY ” , on Frank Corcoran celebrating his recent 70th birthday has been

published

frank-corcoran-Umschlag Vorderseite festschrift

The ‘Festschrift’, Frank Corcoran at Seventy, is edited by Hans-Dieter Grünefeld and brings together a range of interviews, articles and reflections on Frank Corcoran and his music from several authors.

Also included in the book are some of the composer’s notes, memories and photos of his musical past, as well as paintings from Lazio, Italy by his wife Katharina Spitzer, an area where they spend several months there each year.

The book will be available to purchase direct from CMC shortly, priced €24.95. To order advance copies, please email info@cmc.ie.

There is certainly a lot of nonsense around ,

including our usual suspects

( Henry Grattan Flood, for example, is hardly usable. P. Henebry also. )
.
From Breand’an Breathnach I was lucky to inherit healthy scepticism ;

but also to approach Irish music much as an archaeologist would – his

FOLK MUSIC AND DANCES OF IRELAND has good stuff ( eg. on how recent the dances are- or on the genealogy of certain

Slow Airs )

A must , too, is Donal O’Sullivan FOLKSONGS OF THE IRISH

More recent collectors are also sounder – Tom Munnelly, Fintan Vallely, Swedish Professor of Folklore , Bo Almquist.
The odd introductions from the BBC collectors of the thirties to fifties , Seamus Ennis etc. ,
can be pearls.

Yes, a MUST is Breand’an ‘O Madag’ain’s pioneering work on the Old Irish Caoine

and its genealogy- going back to the Fenian “laoi”.

I myself published two important essays in The Journal of Music , was it 2000 and 2002 …

And a gob-smacking must is that beautiful reference in ” Agallamh na Seanorach ” ( “Tales Of The Ancients Of Ireland

where Oisin, quizzed by our St. Patrick, told of Finn McCumhal’s beloved little harper, Ceann Corach who

could play

” the music of all that is…. ”