Frank Corcoran

Water in my jar
Becomes January ice
Snap! Thud! The jar breaks !

In the cold New Year
The water jug froze so thick
That it exploded

Icicles hang from
My cold January jug
It´s now cracked across

He´ll earn more than a few lines from my composer´s wrist.ing Watch out this magic Lutoslawsky Week Writhing . Lutoslawsky did it. – Waited. ” Heard” his ” Polish ” composer´s orchestral rhythms, imagined / frozen instrumental snatches and commentaries and arguments and dialogues etc. , the world´s musical sighs, great preparations for great orchestral tuttis ( Well, yes, the Second Symphony smacks the world´s gob; and that Third is supreme. His, at his mortal , cancer – end
Fourth Symphony is quite new. – Is it born again! ? Certainly ! Heard anew. )

He was, Lutoslawsky . He reinvented the wheel. Of melody and of harmony and, above all , of course , with his orchestral rhythm. His rhythms, ” aleatoric ” .
A lovely man, fear an-uasal, I trembled and yet shook his hand at that mythic 1977 Warszawska Jesien. Molaim!
My Irish composer´s body still gets a depth-charge from his Second Symphony ( – It´s basically a fortissimo Prepare – Charge ! ! ! , I was just back from Boris Blacher in West Berlin and it was the old RTE Studios in Henry Street… , I don´t any more know, ” LIVRES ” , its outrageous form, is even stronger, even more anti – Deutsch , more ” anti-Brahms ” ( – he whom I love … See my Feb. 9. 2013 big NDR Klassik ” FRANK CORCORAN´S great radiophonic analysis of Brahms 2. plus , then, Frank Corcoran´s
2012 Violin Concerto , Irish N S O / Alan Smale , conducted by Christopher Warren-Green ) . Why? e.g. – Many times have I programmed Lutoslawsky´s frozen-sad / mourn – caoine MUSIQUE FUNEBRE ( – only his severe strings, grave canons as great as Stravinsky´s ) with my Corcoran orchestral caoines. The beginning of his THIRD SYMPHONY and that opening ( and his WOW ! ) close of his FOURTH SYMPHONY give me back now all my hope, my Irish composer´s
strength. MY hope: In symphonic form. In the great Polish composer´s colour-imagination. Molaim Lutoslawsky. Caoinim Lutoslawsky ! Weep !

HAIKUS IN FROZEN HAMBURG
( After Basho and Gabriel Rosenstock )

Water in my jar
Becomes January ice
Snap! Thud! The jar breaks !

In that cold New Year
The water jug just froze thick
Then it exploded

Icicles hang from
My cold January jug
It´s just cracked across

Yes, the clichees are true, awfully so : – eg. about the Limes, ” I Romani never swam in the Elbe ” etc.
In 2013 I must – I will, in this ( too, too ) cozy corner explore : Hamburg And Music / Why Lutoslawski´s 100 th. Birthday Is As Swill To Swine …
An ecological necessity.
No Hamburger has compositional ” passion”, musical curiosity. Dead from the waist down. ( – Just before publishing this , I´ve e-mailed Johannes Brahms from Altona ! )
The usual ” Pepper-sack” Argument is trotted out – it suffices not.

e.g.
Who has ever proved that the Genom Hanseaticum is a priori anti-music ?
Why ( if it does happen to be so ) ?

I´ll take Hamburg , the 1770 s, pre-Napoleon, their Churches´ Leaders´ Musical Shenannigans ?
Etc. etc., then we´ll have to take Hamburg before / within/ after its Nazi Tollabawns ? And yet . N.B.

This is relevant to my initial question: why is your Hamburg lost to New Music ?
Hmmm. Must mull. Many variables.
The Roots Of Intellectual Laziness, such comic themes. Perennially fresh.

N D R Kultur 09.02.2013
PRISMA MUSIK : 22.05 – 24.00

Frank Corcoran: VIOLINKONZERT

Alan Smale / RTE National Symphony Orchestra
Leitung: Christopher Warren – Green ( ca. 21´. )

For bright – cold / searing -hot summer heat / 2013, and its autumnal decline-curve and its, my wintry discontent, yes, a metaphor for a composer´s
WHAT ? Therefore I´ll :
1. Seek out the multipliers ( – players , situations, carpe the chance, the conductor ! ) swiftly, a composer´s silence.
2. Supposing now tthat in 2013 here are not any – what then ?

3. Well then, in this slowly emerging, birthing New Year 2013, supposing I do not confuse , NEVER conflate my composing with
my planning of performances, of my composer´s image, such hype.

4. Remain nimble, I mean nimble fingers and nimble tonal considerations eg. about the high hat or how many piccolos in the first movement ?

5. Bann all blues, those blue notes , but especially those biochemically produced.

6. Don´t forget The Larger Picture. Ever.

7. If possible, laugh. If ( – temporarily, we hope for 2013 ) not possible, then at least whicker, snicker, try the wry grin. ( – Corcoran Corollary: It can be bitter, the composer´s slog in the delightful world of 2013 ? Are you insane, Frank Corcoran !?

8. Remember our, my lonely heroes ( – yes, my heroes in poverty, with syphilis, suffering no recognition, poor, bleeding composers receiving God´s whacks and cattle-prods , eg. death of a child , groin-kicks breath-taking, break your coccyx, your spine, your very 2013 HOPE ! ! ) – eg. of the ilk of:
– Webern at the end, – young syphilis-postuled Schubert, – old shaky tremolo-whisky hand Sibelius, such greats, such giants. There are more.
Coraggio ! Hauld on ! Halt fest! Bí Cúramach !
I give you 2013.

9. From such giants my 2013 shall learn, will rise, should all-encompass, has to blow all paeans , the body electric, the full orchestral tutti, all-encompassing, Si !, GIGANTIC AND GARGANTUAN – SOUNDING Ath-Bhliain = NEW YEAR 2013. ( ? resounding success ! – RESOUND ! )

10. Forget never great Lutoslawsky´s ( quasi last ? ) interview with that canny Canadian radio :
” Is it not incredibly wonderful that we composers daily can enter and leave and enter once again our composer´s alternative universe of sounding visions and aspirations and soul´s dreams infinite ? ”

JANUARY HAIKU

A swan´s white plumage
Lost in the eternal snow.
How now it´s swan-song ?
( Próinsias Mac an Bhais ´O )

” There´ll be no whitewash in the White House!”
( Richard Nixon )

an ghaoth
ina tost –
cailleadh teanga anseo

the wind
hushed –
a language died here ( G. Rosenstock )

Its nouns and verbs slid
Under. History´s ocean
For a moment stilled. ( Frank Corcoran )

( = Irish for : ” A New Year ? Well, yes and no… ” )
I got past the Monstrous Midnight Din , callow youths and alcoholized louts lobbing fireworks or apocalyptically exploding bottles at the only pair of eyes I happen to possess. Good Lite Fun. Great unwashed myth !
Yes, 2012 is ( was ) both abstraction and reality ( i.e. I “composed” it myself … ) . The Alan Smale / National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland / Christopher Warren-Green Dublin premiere of my VIOLIN CONCERTO was the most important cultural thing which happened on the Irish Island.
Ditto for my New Year 2013 ( the empty page falls open; fill the ink-well, please and spare not the quill ) . The March 12 premiere of my new VARIATIONS ON MYSELF for
Chamber Orchestra will be important. Why?