Photo by David Finlayson
Anthony McGill
Anthony McGill
Frankly Music is playing its autumn concerts at Youth Arts Hall at Milwaukee Youth Arts Center, home of Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra and First Stage. The largish, wooden-floored room promises more warmth than it delivers for chamber music. The sound is fairly dry and unforgiving.
Last week a near capacity audience (masked and distanced to a degree) heard a program headlined by guest Anthony McGill, principal clarinet at the New York Philharmonic. He is the first African American principal player in the history of that orchestra. McGill played a virtual program on the Frankly Music series last season. This was a delicious chance to hear his energetic elegance and playful wit as a player, with an always even tone and spin on a phrase.
The program featured music from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. American composer James Lee III’s Ad Anah? (roughly translated as How Long?) was composed as a reaction to the murder of George Floyd. A lyrical lament, the piano part is a twist on impressionism, in a mournful and thoughtful mood. Another American, Adolphus Hailstork, was represented in Three Smiles for Tracey, which ended in an attractive, jokey personality piece.
Leonard Bernstein’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano is standard fare. The first movement was taken at an unusually brisk tempo. McGill threw in some stylish touches on small ornaments in the finale.
Carl Maria von Weber was probably the second great clarinet composer. (Mozart was the first.) His Grand Duo Concertante, Op. 48, is full of virtuoso displays of fast scales and arpeggios, exploring the full range of the instrument. I noticed that the highest clarinet notes of the evening were in this music from the early 19th century, which one normally expects from more contemporary compositions. Jeannie Yu bravely and successfully tackled the monster of a piano part.
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Weber’s Clarinet Quintet in B-flat Major, Op. 34, is more of the brilliant writing for the solo instrument, accompanied by string quartet. The string parts often are written as if section parts in an orchestra, but deceptively challenging. Violinists Frank Almond and Paul Hauer were joined by violist Linda Numagami and cellist Adrien Zitoun.
One of the hallmarks of Frankly Music continues to be Frank Almond’s wide network of contacts, bringing in a variety of top-notch artists. How else would we be able to hear an artist of McGill’s caliber?
