A word about Chien. At the end of a group
of Scriabin pieces transcribed for clarinet
and piano, McGill granted her the American
Philosophical Society stage alone, in the
Nocturne for Left Hand (Op. 9, No. 2).
Here, as in her work with McGill, she found
a gorgeous array of colors, assigning one
personality to those gestures meant to sound
like the classic left-hand bass variety, and
another to the right. In the other Scriabin
works, and in fact, for the entire recital,
McGill and Chien maintained a lockstep
precision and unity with each other that
approached clairvoyance.
McGill, a Curtis Institute graduate who is
now a principal clarinetist with the
Metropolitan Opera orchestra, could not have
assembled a more satisfying program:
Debussy, Scriabin, Messiaen, and Poulenc,
and then Schumann, Berg, and Weber. Each
spoke well to a different corner of his
personality (even if we must admit to being
partial to the Franco-Russian group).
McGill's soft-tonguing technique and plush
sound further sensualized the warm breezes
of Debussy's Premičre rhapsodie.
Echoes of Ravel were heard in the "Abîme
des oiseaux " ("Abyss of Birds"),
the clarinet-alone movement that formed the
core around which Messiaen wrote his
Quartet for the End of Time. It's brave
to perform this movement by itself, music
written while the composer was imprisoned in
a German World War II camp. At times, McGill
was able to make the clarinet sound as if it
were echoing within its own walls, a rather
poignant connotation.
Poulenc's Clarinet Sonata was an
antidote of lightness, though to consider
only its mirth would be a slight. This late
work is a distillation of his output; it
tinkers with some of the same harmonic
patterns in the Flute Sonata, while
shreds of The Story of Babar the
Elephant and other works emerge.
The piece covers, in stylish form, a great
gamut of human emotions: childlike
tenderness, hilarity, and unexpected gashes
of deep sorrow. It's only at the end of the
second movement that you realize, through
McGill's breathing and bending of tone, that
what you've heard is the most human of
musical feats, the song.