Frank Corcoran

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(Francis Borgia) Frank Corcoran (born May 1, 1944 in Borrisokane , County Tipperary ) is an Irish composer .

biography

Corcoran studied composition in Dublin , Maynooth (1961–4), Rome (1967–9) and in Berlin (1969–71), where he was a student of Boris Blacher . From 1971 to 1979 he worked as school music inspector for the Irish Ministry of Education. He then received a scholarship from the DAAD's Berlin artist program (1980–1). He taught composition in Berlin (1981) and Stuttgart (1982) before he was professor for composition theory and music theory at the University of Music and Theater in Hamburg from 1983 to 2008 . Corcoran was also visiting professor and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee (USA, 1989/90) and visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Harvard University, Princeton University, Boston College, New York University and Indiana University.

Frank Corcoran has been a founding member of the Irish Aosdána Artists' Academy since 1983 and has received numerous awards for his work.

Corcoran lives in Germany and Italy.

Making music

Corcoran's compositional output includes four symphonies , chamber music , vocal music and tape pieces. In the late 1970s he developed his compositional approach with the "macro-counterpoint". Based on similar aleatoric concepts by Witold Lutosławski and György Ligeti, for example, it is about the contrapuntal treatment of sound layers and less about vertical interval relationships as in classical counterpoint . The first composition in which this technique was used was the piano trio from 1978. Here each of the three instruments forms an independent sound layer in which it moves in individual tempos, time signatures and number of bars. The individual voices remain transparent and understandable. At certain points in the score, the musicians are asked to wait briefly until everyone has played their part and then start again together.

The composer's strong identification with his Irish homeland has resulted in numerous works influenced by Irish mythology and modern Irish literature. In a series of works between 1996 and 2003, he processed the legend of "Mad Sweeney" (old Irish "Buile Shuibhne"), an early medieval king from the north of the country who died as a result of a conflict with an Irish saint and a battle in the 7th century Century insane and is said to have lived like a bird in the treetops. Many other works during his entire creative period deal with Irish experiences in a variety of ways, such as the choral work Nine Medieval Irish Epigrams (1973) or the percussion piece Music for the Book of Kells (1990). Other works deal with texts and influences from Irish writers such as James Joyce , Samuel Beckett , Gabriel Rosenstock and Seamus Heaney .

In another group of works with titles that begin with the word "Quasi ...", he has been playing with interpretations of musical forms and expressions such as concertino, lamento, fugue, sarabanda, pizzicato since 1999. For him, these are both inspiration and creative raw material.

Awards

  • Feis Ceoil Prize, 1973
  • Varming Prize, 1974
  • Dublin Symphony Orchestra Prize, 1975
  • Studio Akustische Kunst, WDR Cologne, 1995 (for Joycepeak-Musik )
  • Bourges International Electro-acoustic Music Competition, 1999 (for Sweeney's Vision )
  • EMS Prize, Stockholm, 2002 (for Quasi una missa )
  • Sean Ó Riada Memorial Prize of the Cork International Choral Festival, 2011
  • First Prize Outright of the International Foundation for Choral Music, 2013 (for 8 haikus )

Selected Works

orchestra

  • Symphony No. 1 (1980)
  • Symphony No. 2 (1981)
  • Concerto for String Orchestra (1982)
  • Symphony No. 3 (1994)
  • Microcosm (1994)
  • Symphony No. 4 (1996)
  • Quasi un canto (2002)
  • Quasi un concertino (2003)
  • Quasi una visione (2004)
  • Quasi una fuga (2005)
  • Variations on Myself (2011), chamber orchestra
  • Cello Concerto (2014)

Chamber music

  • Wind quintet No. 2 (1978)
  • Piano trio (1978), violin, cello, piano
  • Shadows of Gilgamesh (1988), flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, trumpet, trombone, percussion, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass
  • Music for the Book of Kells (1990), 5 percussionists, piano
  • Four Concertini of Ice (1993), flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, violin, cello, double bass, percussion
  • Trauerfelder (1995), 4 percussionists
  • Wind quintet No. 3 (1999)
  • Sweeney's Smithereens (2000), flute, piccolo, clarinet / bass-clarinet, drums, piano, violin, double bass
  • Quasi un amore (2002), flute, guitar
  • Quasi una sarabanda (2008), clarinet, bassoon, horn, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass
  • Clarinet Quintet (2011)
  • Rhapsodic Bowing (2012), 8 cellos
  • Nine Looks at Pierrot (2013), flute / piccolo, clarinet / bass-clarinet, violin, cello, piano
  • Quasi una storia (2014), 8 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos, double bass
  • 8 Irish Duets for Cello and Piano (2015)
  • Piano trio (2016), viola, cello, piano
  • String Quartet (2016)

Solo works

  • Organ Sonata (1973)
  • The Quare Hawk (1974), flute
  • Hernia (1977), double bass
  • Changes (1979), piano
  • Variations on 'Caleno costure me' (1982), harpsichord
  • Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet (1987)
  • Three Pieces for Guitar (1990)
  • Ice-Etchings No. 2 (1996), cello
  • Sweeney's Total Rondo (2002), piano
  • Variations on 'A Mháirín de Barra' (2004), viola
  • Nine Pratoleva Pearls (2008), piano
  • A Dark Song (2011), bass clarinet
  • In the Deep Heart's Core (2011), harp
  • Snapshot (2012), cello
  • Seven Miniatures for Solo Violin (2013)

Vocal works

  • Nine Medieval Irish Epigrams (1973), mixed choir
  • Ceol to Aifrinn (1980) (fair)
  • Gilgamesh (1990), 7 solos, mixed choir, orchestra
  • Nine Aspects of a Poem (1989; rev. 2003), mixed choir, violin
  • Carraig aonair (1976), soprano, alto, piano
  • Kiesel (1980), soprano, 2 violins, viola
  • Cúig amhráin de chuid Gabriel Rosenstock (1980), soprano, violin, cello, piano
  • Dán Aimhirgín (1989), soprano, viola, bass clarinet, piano
  • Mad Sweeney / Buile Suibhne (1998), flute / piccolo / alto flute, oboe, clarinet / bass-clarinet, horn, percussion, violin, viola, cello, double bass, speaker
  • Quasi una melodia (2001), soprano, tenor saxophone, viola, marimba, piano
  • Quasi un pizzicato (2004), flute, harp, piano, percussion, speaker
  • The Light Gleams (2006), soprano, bass clarinet, violin, cello
  • Four Orchestral Prayers (2006), mezzo, orchestra
  • Five Lieder (2010), tenor, piano
  • Songs of Terror and Love (2011), bass, flute / piccolo / alto flute, clarinet / bass-clarinet, piano, violin / viola, cello
  • Eight Haikus (2012), mixed choir
  • My Alto Rhapsodies (2014), alto, orchestra
  • An Irish Christmas Carol (2014), mixed choir

Electro-acoustic music

  • Balthazar's Dream (1980)
  • Farewell Symphonies (1982), with speaker & orchestra
  • Sweeney's Vision (1997)
  • Quasi una missa (1999)
  • Tradurre - Tradire (2005)

Discography

  • Piano trio; The Quare Hawk ; String Quartet No. 1; Gestures of Sound and Silence , Mythologies , with Hesketh Trio, Madeleine Berkeley (Fl), Testore Quartet, Aisling Drury-Byrne (Vc), Frank Corcoran (Kl), Roger Doyle (Perc), on: Self Help 101 (LP, 1980 ).
  • Mikrokosmoi , with Irish Chamber Orchestra, Fionnuala Hunt (cond.), On: Black Box Music BBM 1013 (CD, 1998).
  • Symphonies No. 2, 3, and 4, with National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Colman Pearce (cond.), On: Marco Polo 8.225107 (CD, 1999).
  • Mad Sweeney ; Music for the Book of Kells ; Wind quintet; Sweeney's Vision , with Das Neue Werk NDR Ensemble, Percussion Modern, Stuttgart Wind Quintet, on: Black Box Music BBM 1026 (CD, 1999).
  • Mourning fields , with Modern Percussion, Joachim Winkler (cond.), On: University of Music and Theater Hamburg [without cat. No.] (CD, 2000).
  • Quasi una missa ; Piano trio; Balthasar's Dream ; Five Rosenstock songs ; Wind Quintet No. 3; Sweeney's Farewell , with Hesketh Trio, Sabine Sommerfeld (soprano), Hamburg Trio, Daedalus Quintet, on: col legno WWE 1CD 20214 (CD, 2003).
  • Sweeney's Smithereens ; Five fields of mourning ; Tradurre - Tradire ; Concert for String Orchestra; Five Songs Without Words , with Ensemble for New Music Munich & Dieter Cichewicz (cond.), Percussion Ensemble Munich & Dieter Cichewicz (cond.), Die Maulwerker & Electronik, Irish Chamber Orchestra & David Robertson (cond.), Das Neue Werk NDR Ensemble & Dieter Cichewicz (cond.), On: Composers Art Label cal-13017 (CD, 2003).
  • Quasi una visione ; Ice-Etchings No. 2 ; Quasi un concerto ; Quasi Variations on 'A Mhárín de Bharra' ; Quasi un pizzicato ; Quasi Aspects of an Irish Poem , with Ensemble Modern & Sian Edwards (cond.), David Stromberg (Vc), Cantus Kammerorchester & Beroslaw Sipus (cond.), Wireworks Ensemble & René Gulikers (cond.), National Chamber Choir & Celso Antunes (lead), Constantin Zanidache (Va), on: Composers Art Label cal-13021 (CD, 2006).
  • Cello concerto; Rhapsodietta Joyceana ; Rhapsodic bowing ; Duetti Irlandesi , with Martin Johnson (Vc), Fergal Caulfield (Kl), RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Gavin Maloney (cond.), On: RTÉ lyric fm CD 154 (CD, 2017).

literature

  • Annette Kreuziger-Herr: "Frank Corcoran", in: Composers of the Present , ed. v. Hanns-Werner Heister and Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer (Munich: Edition Text & Criticism, 1992 ff.), 5th subsequent delivery (July 1994)
  • Axel Klein : The Music of Ireland in the 20th Century (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1996)
  • John Page: "A Post-War 'Irish' Symphony: Frank Corcoran's Symphony No. 2", in: Irish Musical Studies Vol. 7: Irish Music in the Twentieth Century , ed. v. Gareth Cox and Axel Klein (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003), pp. 134-149.
  • Geza Stefan Lippek: Paths of the world. The musical work of the composer Francis Borgia Corcoran (Hamburg, 2003), unpublished master's degree from the Institute for Musicology at the University of Hamburg ( GVK ).
  • Hazel Farrell: "Corcoran, Frank", in: Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland , ed. v. Harry White and Barra Boydell (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013), pp. 243–245.
  • Benjamin Dwyer: "An Interview with Frank Corcoran", in: B. Dwyer: Different Voices. Irish Music and Music in Ireland (Hofheim: Wolke Verlag, 2014), pp. 94–111.
  • Hans-Dieter Grünefeld (Ed.): Old and New - Sean agus Núa: An Irish Composer Invents Himself. Frank Corcoran - Festschrift at Seventy (Lübeck: self-published, 2015), ISBN 978-3-00-050153-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Axel Klein : The Music of Ireland in the 20th Century (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1996), pp. 378-380.
  2. See http://aosdana.artscouncil.ie/Members/Music/Corcoran.aspx .
  3. Klein (1996), pp. 289-292; see. Literature.