Sound Out presenter Ian McGlynn introduces a new work from Tipperary-born composer Frank Corcoran.
"The very fact that I'm becoming 75 is ineluctable fact... I’ve no time left for easy solutions, for solving problems that don't interest me at all. I have to go back to find whatever is original Corcoran." - Frank Corcoran.
Frank Corcoran believes in composing music of the Irish dream or landscape, as opposed to ideological or programmatic music. Born in Tipperary in 1944, he studied in Dublin, Maynooth, Rome and Berlin, but roamed Ireland during the 1970s as a music inspector for the Department of Education.
Watch: Frank Corcoran talking with Tristan Rosenstock
In 1980 he took up a composer fellowship at the Berlin Künstlerprogramm, went on to become professor of composition and theory in the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Hamburg and was visiting professor and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and guest lecturer at Princeton, Harvard and Boston College.
He's received numerous prestigious awards over the years for works including his Joycepeak Music, Sweeney’s Vision and Quasi Una Missa. Currently living between Hamburg and Italy, he marked his 75th birthday in 2019 with a new work; String Quartet no. 4 "for my 75th Birthday".
The world premiere took place at the 2019 New Music Dublin Festival performed by the Contempo Quartet, and Corcoran acknowledges a debt to Stravinsky, Webern, Berg, Schoenberg and late Beethoven. And much like Bach before him, Corcoran composed the piece using a leitmotif based on his own name, the 'Corcoran notes' – G, A flat, C sharp and D.
The first movement is marked 'Allegro irascibile ma nobile', angry but noble. The second movement plays with naughty pizzicato quintuplets, while the third movement is marked ‘Allegro Barbaro’, but also ‘Feroce e ruvidissimo’. Rough, barbarian and fierce!
He summed up the piece as "High voltage, kinetic energy! Art from Guantanamo - or Gethsemane - take your pick!" But decide for yourself, and hear the world premiere broadcast of Frank Corcoran’s String Quartet No.4 and his Nine Looks at Pierrot with the Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble on Sound Out.
For further listening, explore some of Frank Corcoran's works, including the RTÉ lyric fm release Rhapsodic Celli.
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Ian McGlynn presents Sound Out, a weekly digest of the best Irish and international new music and new releases, every Friday evening at 9 pm on RTÉ lyric fm, repeated Sunday at 9 pm - listen back here.
