Joycean Aesthetics, Ethnic Memory and Mythopoetic Imagination in the Music of Frank Corcoran
(continued)
Following a protracted engagement with the doctrines of official Catholicism, Corcoran ultimately rejected a life within the church: ‘even then, early on, I was disobedient – non serviam – I cannot, will not, see the voice of God in the stupid, deeply wrong, anti-luminary voice of a superior.’ However, for Corcoran this rejection of the church was not a rejection of the spiritual: ‘I was chasing God. In fact, I’ve been chasing God and the gods all my life.’ Quasi una Missa therefore also represents Corcoran’s attempts to bypass official Catholicism so that he can make a direct short-circuit to the ‘voice of God’. We don’t have to make a connection between texts by Bishop Berkeley incorporated into the work relating to the death of a son and the tragic death of Corcoran’s own son to understand that Quasi una Missa is a deeply personal statement. The work is a culmination of the composer’s spiritual quest spanning a lifetime.
However, the locus of this meditation is highly significant. In ‘chasing the ghost of Brendan’s mast’,[18] Corcoran is seeking a specific type of Christianity. In the constant questioning of what god is or is not—‘Deus est: God is, God is not, God is beyond being’—is a kind of apophatic theology, which underscores Corcoran’s long and troubled relationship to official Catholicism and the damage done to faith in the wake of profound personal tragedy.
This explains why he rejects the present-day church shaped by Augustinian strictures in lieu of a medieval Gaelic, pre-Roman Christianity that speaks to him more directly. Quasi una Missa is also then an attempt to recalibrate Irish Christianity as a spiritual phenomenon free from institutional constraint and hypocrisy. It is an endeavor to recuperate the mystical and the ecstatic as reflected in early Christianity’s absorption of pagan ritual as seminal components of a new vibrant mythology:
you had the meeting of Christianity – a not-yet-fully-Roman Christianity, a native Christianity – and a strong native druidic culture. So you had this explosive mix, an explosive one hundred years of Irish shamanic saints: the big ones that came after Patrick like Brendan, heading to America; Kevin of Glendalough; other huge world figures like Columba and Columbanus. A lot of this history went into my later work, Quasi una missa.
This is why locus is such a central feature in so many of Corcoran’s works. An ancient Irish mysticism is conflated with the impoverishment of colonial Gaelic Ireland (as witnessed through keening and port a’bhéil) and Corcoran’s current, personal investigation of the godhead. By bringing these aspects into close temporal and spatial relationship, works such Quasi una Missa and Music for the Book of Kells are acts of redemptive imagination that seek to compensate for the de-spiritualisation inflicted upon Ireland first by Roman Catholicism, then by English colonialism and then by Roman Catholicism again.
Music as Social Realism
However, Corcoran’s use of overt references to socio-cultural practices within a rural Irish context also gives to works such as Quasi una Missa a political agency. Because it is neither sanitised nor caricatured, Corcoran’s sonic recuperation of primal rural life has a deep ring of authenticity to it; though highly descriptive, it does not fall into programmatic traps. The work is a ritualistic meditation upon God, but exercised within the figurative contexts of ethnic Irish music, keening, bodhrán playing, port a’bhéil and sean-nós singing and dancing. While these elements may bring the listener into rural homesteads, Corcoran never makes the fatal mistake of Orientalising the ethnic environment or idealising rural existence.[19] He is far too cognisant of Ireland’s historical disenfranchisement under protracted colonial rule and the socio-cultural and economic depravity of post-Independence, theocratic governance to enter into the practice of shallow idealisation.
This is a significant point, as the exaltation of rural life has been a central feature of both the Literary Revival and the propagandistic language of the emergent nation state. While sipping wine in country estates and Rathgar living rooms, Revivalists such a Synge, AE and Yeats came very close to Orientalist practices in their deification of Irish peasantry. When Corcoran evokes rural life it is more akin to some of the poetic evocations of Patrick Kavanagh, who was acutely sensitive to the class differentials at the core of Revivalist mentalité. Kavanagh’s retort to Synge’s stage-Irish caricatures, Yeats’s vision of essentialised serfdom and, for that matter, de Valera’s ‘peasant paradise’-ideology is found in the uncensored realism of The Great Hunger and the brutal anger of ‘Stony Grey Soil’.
Like Kavanagh, Corcoran’s Quasi una Missa does not replace an authentic rural experience with a reified image of Ireland, which is a creative stance that may very well be unique in Irish art composition. When integrating ethnic material into their work, Irish composers have largely tended to rejuvenate it within their own aesthetic languages in acts of positive retrieval that reify and aesthetisise the raw material. Few composers employ traditional Irish music as a form of documentary realism, which both retains the ‘aura’ of that material and draws attention to the decimation it has undergone historically.[20]
Most Irish composers seek to extricate the ethnic sources from their colonised contexts. Indeed, just as the Orientalists did with Eastern music, some even treat the material as exotic and magical: one Irish composer’s reference to the ‘ecstasy (both luscious and dark)’ of sean-nós songs comes dangerously close to this.[21]
In stark contrast, Corcoran retains the indigenous state of ethnic sources and practices within his own de-aestheticized aesthetics; and he is empathetically concerned with the state of Gaelic culture both economically and spiritually. In this context, the Joycean fragmentation and assemblage of language and music can be viewed as an attempt to piece together again the sundered elements of a decimated society—language, song, dance, community, spirituality—dismantled by extensive English colonial oppression and prohibitive Catholic edict. Thus, works such as Quasi una Missa, Music for the Book of Kells, Nine Medieval Irish Epigrams, and all the works in the ‘Mad Sweeney’[22] sequence are essentially acts of recuperation, sonic gatherings of the elements of a lost cultural past and ghostly laments for a desecrated and scarred civilisation.
Coda
In using the myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue after him. They will not be imitators, any more than the scientist who uses the discoveries of an Einstein in pursuing his own, independent, further investigations. It is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.[23]
This quote by T.S. Eliot provides the nature and context of the close relationship between Corcoran’s musical aesthetics and Joyce’s linguistic techniques that I have been outlining—deconstruction and assemblage as ‘sundering’ and ‘reconciliation’, the sonus-logos-melos nexus, etymological mining and a deep-seated need to provide new, renovated mythopoeic works that might give ‘a shape’ and ‘a significance’ to contemporary Irish history. While Joyce concentrated on creating a mythology from inner consciousness—what Kavanagh called Joyce’s ‘history of the soul’, Corcoran’s myths are concerned with locus and ritual.[24] They both exult, however, in the complexity of a postmodern multi-narrativity that problematises essentialised readings of the collective Irish spirit. Corcoran acknowledges Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness subjectivity and simultaneous temporalities in his ‘macro-counterpoint’, diversi tempi and the superimposition of sound-image mixes from different eras. Their complex, multi-layered attributes provide new paths and outlets that belie the ‘futility and anarchy’ of contemporary life in general and Irish life in particular.
Furthermore, as creative artists they are both automythologists: while Joyce portrays himself through Dedalus, Corcoran’s cameo appearances in his own work come in the form of the outsider Mad Sweeney. With both artists, through creative depth and an inspired engagement with the social, cultural, political and spiritual elements within Irish history, automythology becomes communal myth. Corcoran pursues Joyce’s deep reach into the Irish psyche through his intensely imaginative enquiry into core elements of early Irish mysticism. In so doing, he achieves for that distant Irish past and rural locus what Joyce did for early 20th-century metropolitan Dublin—an authentic re-imagining of time and place that is powerfully mythical and politically astute. Because Corcoran’s music has indeed ‘dealt adequately with our past’ it stands as a rich and invaluable expression of our present.
Footnotes
[1] This is the word that appears in the opening stages of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake; it purportedly represents the symbolic thunderclap associated with the fall of Adam and Eve; see James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (New York: Penguin, 1976), 3.
[2] Frank Corcoran, “Back to the Page: Celebrating the Text,” Contemporary Music Centre Website, http://cmc.ie/articles/article845.html.
[3] Corcoran refers to his layering of distinct musical textures (as opposed to individual melodic lines) to create broader soundscapes as ‘macro-counterpoint’. See John Page, “A post-war ‘Irish’ symphony: Frank Corcoran’s Symphony No. 2,” in Irish Music in the Twentieth Century, Gareth Cox and Axel Klein, eds., (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003), 134-149.
[4] James Joyce, Ulysses (New York: Everyman, 1992), 291.
[5] Pierre Boulez, “Sonate, que me veux-tu?,” in Orientations, Pierre Boulez (London: Faber and Faber, 1986), 143-154.
[6] Frank Corcoran, “Music is a Four-Letter Word,” Journal of Music in Ireland, March/April, 2001, 19.
[7] Ibid., 18.
[8] Pierre Boulez, “Sonate, que me veux-tu?,” in Orientations, Pierre Boulez (London: Faber and Faber, 1986), 154.
[9] Even in a work such as Symphony No. 2, whose two movements—‘Soli’ and ‘Tutti’—are organised deliberately to allow the latter’s ‘controlled social “Tutti” space’ to impose order on the former’s ‘primitive substance’, the primal nature of the music is never successfully contained by architectural conceits. The order created is of a potential nature rather than an enduring one. See John Page, “A post-war ‘Irish’ symphony: Frank Corcoran’s Symphony No. 2,” in Irish Music in the Twentieth Century, Gareth Cox and Axel Klein, eds., (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003), 134-149.
[10] Theodor Adorno, “Music, Language, and Composition,” in Adorno: Essays on Music, ed. Richard Lepperd, trans. Susan H. Gillespie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 117.
[11] Interview with Benjamin Dwyer conducted on 14 and 15 July 2013 at Pratoleva, Viterbo, Italy. Unless otherwise stated, all other quotes by Corcoran will come from this interview.
[12] Frank Corcoran, “Music is a Four-Letter Word,” Journal of Music in Ireland, March/April, 2001, 18. While this comment relates specifically to Three Pieces for Orchestra: Pictures from My Exhibition, I think that the paradox applies to much of Corcoran’s instrumental output.
[13] John Page, “A post-war ‘Irish’ symphony: Frank Corcoran’s Symphony No. 2,” in Irish Music in the Twentieth Century, Gareth Cox and Axel Klein, eds., (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003), 142.
[14] Some of John Buckley's early works such as Oileáin (1979) and Boireann (1983) achieve something similar at those moments when the music unconsciously frees itself from the external influence of Messiaen.
[15] Jonathan Grimes, “Interview with Frank Corcoran: Looking Back and Looking Forward,” New Music News, 2004, 9.
[16] Literally ‘mouth music’, port a’bhéil is a traditional form of song native to the Gaelic speaking areas of Ireland and Scotland. Also known as lilting, it originated where communities were repressed or desperately poor. It was often sung as a memory aid or alternative to instrumental music. Highly rhythmic and melodic, port a’bhéil uses non-verbal vocalizations extensively.
[17] Gospel of John, 1:1.
[18] Patrick Kavanagh, “Memory of Brother Michael,” in Collected Poems (London: Penguin, 2004), 118.
[19] See Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 1995).
[20] See Walter Benjamin, trans. J.A. Underwood, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (London: Penguin, 2008). Roger Doyle’s Under the Green Time (1995) for uilleann pipes and tape stands apart in its successful setting of traditional ethnic materials within the context of a quasi-industrial soundscape.
[21] Donnacha Dennehy, Grá agus Bás (Nonesuch: 7559-79772-7).
[22] Buile Suibhne (Mad Sweeney) is the story of the insane pagan king of Dál nAraidi, which may reach as far back as the 11th century. However, the story appears in manuscripts dating from between 1671–1674. Combining poetry and prose, it is thought that Buile Suibhne was first written and disseminated between the 13th and 15th centuries. Corcoran has been repeatedly drawn to ‘Mad Sweeney’ in compositions such as Buile Suibhne (1996), Sweeney’s Vision (1997), Sweeney’s Farewell (1998), Sweeney's Wind-Cries (1999), and Sweeney’s Smithereens (2000).
[23] A. Nicholas Fargnoli and Michael P. Gillespie, James Joyce: The Essential Reference to His Life and Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 64.
[24] Patrick Kavanagh, Kavanagh’s Weekly, 28 June 1952; cited in Antoinette Quinn, Patrick Kavanagh: Born-again Romantic (Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 1991), 311.
Frank Corcoran was born in Tipperary and studied in Dublin, Maynooth, Rome and Berlin (with Boris Blacher). He was the first Irish composer to have his ‘Symphony No. 1’ (1980) premiered in Vienna.
He was a music inspector for the Department of Education in Ireland from 1971 to 1979. He was awarded a composer fellowship by the Berlin Künstlerprogramm in 1980, a guest professorship in West Berlin in 1981, and was professor of music in Stuttgart in 1982. Since 1983 he has been professor of composition and theory in the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Hamburg. During 1989-90 he was visiting professor and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and he has been a guest lecturer at Princeton University, CalArts, Harvard University, Boston College, New York University and Indiana University.
His works have been performed and broadcast in Europe, Asia, USA, Canada and South America. He has been commissioned by NDR, RTÉ, the Arts Council, U.W.M., Sender Freies Berlin, W.D.R., Deutschlandfunk, North South Consonance New York, Dublin Living Music Festival, Cantus Chamber Orchestra Zagreb, Dublin Festival of Twentieth Century Music, AXA International Piano Competition, Wireworks Hamburg, Slí Nua, RTÉ lyric fm, Now U Know Washington, New Music Boston, Carroll’s Summer Music, Book of Kells U.W.M., Crash Ensemble, Hamburg Ministry of Culture, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Stuttgart Bläserquintett, the Irish Chamber Orchestra and the National Chamber Choir of Ireland.
Awards include Studio Akustische Kunst First Prize 1996 for his ‘Joycepeak Music’ (1995), Premier Prix at the 1999 Bourges International Electro-acoustic Music Competition for his composition ‘Sweeney’s Vision’ (1997) and the 2002 Swedish EMS Prize for ‘Quasi Una Missa’ (1999). He was also awarded the 1972 Feis Ceoil Prize, the 1973 Varming Prize and the 1975 Dublin Symphony Orchestra Prize. More recently he won the Sean Ó Riada Award at the Cork International Choral Festival 2012 for his ‘Two Unholy Haikus’. His ‘Eight Haikus’ won first prize at the 2013 International Federation For Choral Music. CDs of his music have been released on the Black Box, Marco Polo, Col-Legno, Wergo, Composers’ Art, IMEB-Unesco, Zeitklang and Caprice labels. Frank Corcoran is a founding member of Aosdána, Ireland’s state-sponsored academy of creative artists.
Frank Corcoran biography © Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland)
Frank Corcoran photo by Tony Carragher
As a composer, guitarist and researcher, Benjamin Dwyer’s creative and critical work extends from a broad base in performance and artistic practice. He is an elected member of Aosdána, an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, London (ARAM) and Professor of Music at Middlesex University.
Dwyer's compositions are regularly performed internationally. He has been the featured composer at the Musica Nova Festival 2008 in São Paulo, the Bienalle of Contemporary Music of Riberão Preto 2009, the National Concert Hall's Composers' Choice and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra's Horizons series. In recent years, he has completed a number of large-scale works including Scenes from Crow and Umbilical, his re-working of the Oedipus myth written especially for Maya Homburger and Barry Guy. New commissioned works to be premiered this year include imagines obesae et aspectui ingratae… for violist Garth Knox.
Dwyer has given concerts worldwide, appearing as soloist with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Neubrandenburg Philharmonic Orchestra (Germany), the Santos Symphony Orchestra (Brazil), VOX21, the Vogler String Quartet (Germany) and the Callino String Quartet (UK). He is a recipient of the prestigious Villa-Lobos Centenary Medal and the McNamara Gold Medal for Excellence. His new CD (with the Callino Quartet), Irish Guitar Works, was released in 2012.
Dwyer’s book on Irish composer John Buckley, Constellations: The Life and Music of John Buckley, was published in 2011 (Carysfort Press). His chapter ‘Transformational Ostinati in György Ligeti's Sonatas for Solo Cello and Solo Viola’ appears in György Ligeti: Of Strange Sounds and Foreign Lands (Boydell & Brewer, 2011). Publications for 2014 include ‘Dios los cría—Barry Guy and Maya Homburger’ (for Music & Literature, New York); ‘Re-inventing Ireland: Frank Corcoran’s Myth Music’ and ‘An Interview with Frank Corcoran’ in Feschrift: Das Buch über Frank Corcoran zu seinem 70 (for Wolke Verlag, Germany).
This year Diatribe Records released Dwyer’s Scenes from Crow.
http://www.mdx.ac.uk/aboutus/staffdirectory/benjamin-dwyer.aspx
Special thanks to Caitríona Honohan of the Contemporary Music Centre.
Benjamin Dwyer photo by Brian Kavanagh