Frank Corcoran

Weep.

Certainly a Happy and a New year . All our myth. May we co-dream, conjoin.

Once upon a time there was marketing. At the ( imminent )  Golden Horn  I will certainly pray in Turkey .In Turkish.  Wish. For:

2015  serenity and a  for me to NOT let slip through all my urges , perhaps, to fwuck the fwuckers in a new music field, ploughing the Irish championships’ musical forms,  highest ploughed excellence in my CELLO CONCERTO ( March 13.  2015.  Mighty orchestra, my  N S O / with mighty Martin Johnson / and mighty Kenneth Montgomery , our mighty conductor )    .

But then a steady, magical  composing for 13 strings in New York City ( NorthSoundOrchestra – mighty Max Lifchitz ) for my  ” QUASI UNA STORIA ”  for String Orchestra :  February 15 2015. In mighty Manhatten .

Sunday afternoon at 15.00  of a cold February  15.  Music history born ? Yes ,cwertainly; Irish music history born.

Last week I learned  that my father uttered – his last night on this our earth –  (  and, of course , my composer’s ear was sadly not there – full fifteen years now have scampered past my stupid ears   ) :

” The old order changeth , yielding place to the new….  ”    was ( now fast dying ) Dad’s Tenneyson’s sonorous Arthurian gasp. What did mystill  sonorous Dad mean ? He, the Old Catholic Irish I.R.A. son,  reasoned or he reckoned as he writhed , rode, became beridden of this, his mortal coil   ?  –  Mischievous to the end, eh, my Cold Father ?  Or indeed about to pronounce your own , your-plus-God’s willed self-extinction ? And thus about to see and thereby be blinded by God ?

I am lost, love-lorned, Father faughed , parricidous now a-peeking at my 2015 and at my Winterreise.

2014 brought a goodly harvest with the new MY ALTO RHAPSODIES  ( Contralto and Orchestra ) ,  a lively flurry of choral works, the THREE PIECES FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO, my autumn  3 PIXELS FOR OBOE QUARTET, other and others          . 2015 will bring 2 important Corcoran premieres  1.  February 15  in New York   QUASI UNA STORIA for String Orchestra ( North South , dir. Max Lifchitz )  and  then          2.  March 13 in Dublin ,  CELLO CONCERTO  ( N.S.O. / Kenneth Montgomery and mighty soloist Martin Johnson  ).

Hard, honest work . How compose extended forms ( – it’s hard enough to writhe one minute of music ; to lick together five minutes is an eternity ) . Hard, too, to separate the work of creation from that of dissemination. Best not even try ? Vital not to lose the way for the dormant musical imagination, to be ready to pounce on an idea, any motiv, a formal concept, an instrumental combination or mass of colours, densities, knorls and knots, a dramatic idea. May the New Year crackle, burst birthing. Bring courage. Dare keep going in a world of cosmic indifference and against the tide of sonic rubbish. Dirty.

Preparing for just exactly what ?  Misty carols and mystical cooking , a strong red bottle, little children, late capitalism’s late collapse, the epiphany in the ordinary ( we hope ) and something to save the banal or the trivial or both. Full belly or vacuous mind, mountains of food for thought. The angels did sing. Pentatonically, Celtic-Chinese, I presume. In my new AN IRISH CAROL we expand from one voice to soaring four, from the simple to the full-throated roar and back again. Simple. But I thought of it first.

Art in the small. Nor was the “Irish” world of Aingeal MacCraith , 1640-ish, any less ” baroque”  than Bernini’s Rome , Borromini’s unfortunate sword, his Christmas dinner. “Dun”  =  “Palazzo” , certainly, so also ” the dusky heart”, therfore  “yearnings”, therefore  ” intimations of immortality”, all that and more at this wintersolstice.

20.12.2014           Christ Church Cathedral Dublin.  20.00

The Mornington Singers , Conductor Orla Flanagan, premiere

Frank  Corcoran’s    AN  IRISH  CAROL  (  2014  )

4. April 2015                                       NDR KULTUR       “Prisma  Musik  ”

Frank Corcoran’s big radiophonic analysis / juxtaposition /  of Mozart’s Symphony Nr. 29 and Mozart’s ” Jupiter ”  . SeaNua also with mighy Mozart.

What do these two great orchestral works share ? Not share ? –  But also their themes ?  What about that 4-note cell ?  His ” C D F E  ”  motiv through all four movements of the ” Jupiter ”  ? But also in the earlier, delightful Nr. 29, eh ?

Hmmm. Yes, this scopological age. All want to watch. Look. See. Heigh ho! Film is the thing then, the peek, the DVD, the glotz and peep, Tom…. Seeing  through the mirages in poor Plato’s Cave is beleiving . Why is this? Appearance; mirage. Not really epiphany.

Hmmm. We apparently have lost the appetite for and any ability to listen. To follow a musical argument of even minimal complexity beyond a few seconds, therefore onlyaural tit-bits or scraps.

Hmmm. The scopological versus the listening in to sound , the ( jumpy ) eye versus the ( concentrated ) ear. Is that it ? Or: ” Eye hath not seen nor ear heard…  ” . Pity.

C.M.C’s  ” The Light Gleams ”  Frank Corcoran Film is on Vimeo

https://vimeo.com92873206

Working now on Dvorak’s CELLO CONCERTO – a mighty work ; it ( –  plus Lutoslawsky’s ) lurks  behind my own  Concerto  ( Premiere March 13 2015 with the N S O / Kenneth Montgomery / Soloist:  Martin Johnson  ) . Its ” big ” ATTITUDE ( of the orchestra and the solo instrument )  ; its aura (  Yes,Czech – though I have no thought of working neo-Slavic or neo-Celtic tricks into mine….  )  and its power. Courage . The big slam. Lutoslawsky’s work also towers, a giant act of instrumental courage , the composer’s  belief that tones matter, that his music as sounding architecture must soar and shout against cosmic indifference;  against societal, medial  indifference.