Program Notes:

The musical relationship of a composer and clarinetist goes back to the time of Mozart when he was taken with the playing of Anton Stadler which expanded the young composer’s temperament by exploring the new instrument’s color and range. Nearly a century later Johannes Brahms also found his muse with Richard Mühlfeld by creating works that further expanded the emotive depth of the instrument in his late compositions that continue to fascinate musicians and audiences with its autumnal ambiance

William Thomas McKinley found his muse in Richard Stoltzman when they were classmates at Yale University, and from 1967 until his passing in 2015, McKinley produced numerous compositions for his friend, ranging from small chamber works that also included voice, to several concertos and concertante works with orchestra or jazz band.

The second of his four concertos for clarinet and orchestra, McKinley’s polystylistic expressions embodying his love of jazz as well as his tempered use of a rich post-tonal language combined with the structural dexterity of neo- classicism dictates the tenor of this work. In three movements, the 7rst (Allegro con dramatico e tempestoso) opens with a ripping 7gure from the violins against a background of percussion that dominates the texture that alternates terse brilliance with blues-like lyricism where the melodic content is deconstructed and recon7gured combining classical sonata form with the feel of modern jazz improvisation and note-cell patterns.

A solo bassoon opens the second movement (Andantino ‘bluesy’) as the clarinet follows with a moving theme, its mood paying homage to the second movement of Beethoven’s seventh symphony with a dark musical accent that evokes the nocturnal aspects suggested by 7lm noir as McKinley keeps the mood subdued with pointillistic instrumental colors encompassing the metamorphosis of the thematic material. This movement segues without interruption into the third movement, a wild and kinetic scherzo-like waltz where the soloist is caught up in the abandon of the orchestra, at times riding over it but also 7nding the melodic line swallowed in the proceedings before McKinley takes the 7nal moments in an contrapuntally elaborate coda that is both dynamically tumultuous and emotionally impassioned.

Dedicated to three virtuoso clarinetists (Stoltzman, Larry Combs and Michele Zukovsky), the concerto was premiered on 2 June 1990 in Norwalk, Connecticut, with Richard Stoltzman and the Fair7eld Chamber Orchestra conducted by Thomas Crawford.

--Kevin Scott (©2024)