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Confident McGill rises above a cast of stars

By Richard Scheinin
Mercury News

Clarinetist Anthony McGill was surrounded by superb musicians, a cast of stars, as the Music@Menlo chamber music festival ended Friday. But -- there's really no other way to say it -- McGill, all of 27, sounded better than any of them: more confident, more fluid, more responsive.

Your eyes and ears kept going to McGill, all through the program at Menlo School 's Stent Family Hall in Atherton. During the second movement of Mozart's sublime Clarinet Quintet in A Major, violinist Jorja Fleezanis would offer up a perfectly beautiful bit of aria-like melody -- only to be answered by McGill with some ridiculously silk-soft, otherworldly, flutter-cooing response, moving straight up through his instrument's registers. It was awesome.

McGill, co-principal clarinet in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, has been part of Menlo since the festival began in 2003. He was already a terrific player back then, but has grown so much. We're all lucky to watch his arrival as an important artist. He is a team player and leader: expressive, pure-toned, melodious and fleet, liquidly sculpting every phrase.

During the Mozart, McGill's notes kept popping up through their genial surroundings, like fresh shoots in a field. During Messiaen's mystical ``Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (Quartet for the End of Time),'' written in 1940-41 when the composer was an inmate in a German prisoner-of-war camp, McGill's notes sounded like distant radio signals.

This was especially true in the third movement of this gripping work, inspired by the book of Revelation. ``Abyss of the birds'' is the title of the third movement: ``The abyss is time, with its sadness and tediums,'' the composer, whose Catholicism inspired much of his writing, once explained. ``The birds are the opposite of time; they are our desire for light, for stars.''

McGill's notes would begin almost inaudibly, then steadily grow to unnerving blasts. Or he would attack a note with a crisp whack; immediately, it would disappear, as if it had dropped off a cliff. It was music from another dimension. The bird calls were quietly jubilant -- clear, wide leaps about the instrument.

Good musicians are never happy with the way they play. Still, you have to wonder what McGill finds to complain about when he sets down his clarinet. His level of nitpicking must be inspired.

It wouldn't be fair to ignore the other players who performed Friday. Pianist Gilbert Kalish was the Messiaen's bedrock. Much of the boiling power of this almost too-raw performance of a profoundly nuanced work emanated from his granite rhythms.

In the fifth movement, ``Praise to the Eternity of Jesus,'' cellist Colin Carr summoned a heart song, each note taking a slow, slow trip across the length of the bow. The steadiness required to hold a single bow-stroke for such duration is more than a challenge; Messiaen might better have written for a theremin or some other electronic instrument, than for strings.

The challenge was at times too much for Fleezanis, who seemed nervous navigating the finale's slow, searing ascension. Yet in the end, the group's performance was memorable, full of integrity.

The concert began with pianist Claude Frank's performance of J.S. Bach's Fantasy and Fugue in A minor, BWV 904. Midway through, this revered musician, whose career stretches decades, briefly lost his way amid Bach's hall of mirrors. But mostly, he played with soulful directness and lucidity; the Fugue's voices kept arriving like breezes, through open doors.

Bringing a life of music-making to Bach, Frank was the perfect bookend to McGill and his amazing promise.

Contact Richard Scheinin at rscheinin@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5069.