Michael McHale’s musical life began like one of the classic stories of musical prodigies. His dad bought an electronic keyboard to encourage his sister to take an interest in the piano. But he was much more excited by it than she was and, within a few months, had taught himself to play sonatas by Mozart.
McHale has nothing but praise for his early teachers, Tom Davison and Donal McCrisken, in Belfast, and John O’Conor and Réamonn Keary, in Dublin, and also for his great mentor, his fellow Belfastman Barry Douglas.
When it came to career choices, McHale couldn’t make up his mind between instrumental and academic training, and chose to study music at Cambridge University. He’s never regretted that decision, not only because of the all-round education it gave him but also because his decision to become a performer was then a mature choice, “rather than just falling into it because I was good at it”.
He did a two-year postgraduate degree at the Royal Academy of Music under Christopher Elton, and, as he puts it, “I’ve been practising away ever since”. He’s now 40, with 30 albums under his belt and a busy international schedule that includes, this weekend, a performance at the National Concert Hall in Dublin with the British clarinettist Michael Collins and the Wigmore Soloists ensemble.
Douglas gave McHale “a massive leg-up when I did his Clandeboye Festival. There was a young-musician competition which I was lucky enough to win. The year after, Barry invited me to play the Mozart Concerto for two pianos with him in Belfast and Dublin with his orchestra, Camerata Ireland, and then again, also with another concerto, with him and the Hallé orchestra, in Manchester, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3.” This was all while he was still a student.
The success “helped give me the belief to keep going. And Barry also nominated me for the Terence Judd Award, which I managed to win, and that got me five concerts with the Hallé and lots of other exposure.”
He heaps praise on his teachers for their career help and advice. He says O’Conor was “very instructive”; “I remember him saying to me once that when he comes off the stage at the end he’s only earned half his fee. You know, post-concert receptions and all of these other things are very important. I feel lucky that I actually enjoy meeting new people, the receptions, sitting beside people at dinners and talking about their lives.”
One of his biggest breaks was forming his collaboration with Collins. “We’ve done so much together since, I think, right back in 2008, made a lot of recordings, given a lot of duo concerts, but also chamber music in other forms, and in the Wigmore Soloists, the new chamber ensemble founded in the Wigmore Hall. That’s always a joy.”
They have also collaborated as conductor and soloist. “I was interested to see how different that would be. It was a strange sensation, because it felt exactly the same. It was just making music. I’d look around at him, and his arms would be as if the clarinet was there. I just knew what he meant.”
McHale was also influenced by playing and touring with the flautist James Galway. It was, he says, “such a lesson, for his stagecraft. I just remember the total command he had. He was as comfortable on the stage as he was in the restaurant afterwards. I found that freeing and inspiring.”
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He’s a suave diplomat when I ask about performers who have influenced him, mulling over the strengths and weaknesses of different performers in different repertoire. But he finally yields the names Martha Argerich and, with more lingering emphasis, Murray Perahia.
What about a favourite among the pieces he will play with Collins and the Wigmore Soloists at the National Concert Hall, Brahms’s Clarinet Sonata, Op 120 No 2, Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet, Op 44, and his own arrangement of some songs by Clara Schumann? He eliminates the songs, as they’re partly his work. “The sonata and quartet are both in E flat, both joyful pieces. I’d be happy with either. Is that too diplomatic?” Yes, it is. “I’ll choose the Brahms, because I’ll be playing with Michael.”
Michael McHale plays with the Wigmore Soloists at the National Concert Hall, Dublin 2, on Sunday, May 21st, and gives recitals at Triskel arts centre, in Cork, on Friday, May 19th; Saturday, May 27th; and Friday, June 9th
