You may be able to tap your head and rub your stomach at once, but can you play the harpsichord and conduct an orchestra at the same time? The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s artistic partner Richard Egarr shows off his multitasking skills as part of his latest engagement at the Ordway Concert Hall.
For the show, Egarr conducts the orchestra’s performances of music by George Frideric Handel and Ludwig van Beethoven. For Johann Sebastian Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 4, he both conducts and plays the harpsichord. The concert offers an audacious take on music by beloved composers.
Egarr conducts Handel’s “Water Music,” without referring to any music, seemingly knowing the music by heart. Perhaps that’s not surprising, as he once played “Water Music” for the late Queen Elizabeth II for her 60th Jubilee.
That jubilee performance took place on the River Thames, a callback to the music’s original performance, when King George I commissioned Handel to write a series of pieces for an outdoor excursion on the river. “I was on barge number 2,” Egarr recalled, noting it rained for much of the event in 2012.
While the SPCO’s performance took place in the shelter of the concert hall, elements of the music help set the scene for an outdoor setting. You can just imagine the horns calling out across the Thames in splendid, celebratory bursts, while the strings echo as if in conversation. An added timpani part, played by Steve Kimball, contributed an element of gravitas and drama.
For Bach’s Orchestral Suite, Egarr’s harpsichord playing — impressive in its own right — almost seems like an afterthought. Often playing with one hand and conducting with the other, Egarr’s attention is keenly focused on the musicians surrounding him and the music they create together. Even in the more complicated passages, it’s as if his body levitates. He slowly rises from sitting to standing as though summoned by the music itself.
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After intermission, Egarr returns to the stage without the harpsichord to conduct Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4.
Typically at classical music concerts, audiences don’t clap between movements; if they do, it’s considered a faux pas to applaud before the very end of a piece. Egarr cheekily disregards this convention, encouraging the audience to clap at the end of each movement, as if in defiance of tradition.
Beginning with shadowy layers in B-flat (which Egarr calls “the blackest key”), the music feels cinematic and brooding before picking up into a more lively gallop. The dramatic and aching second movement, according to Egarr, may have been a love letter to one of Beethoven’s romantic interests. But the real thrill comes at the end of the piece, when the orchestra sprints through a virtuosic whirl of emotion and melody at breakneck speed.
At times, the last movement goes so fast that the moments of pause or elongation feel like revelations. That’s the brilliance of Beethoven — and of Egarr’s interpretation of the composer. Extreme gestures come into particular focus when their contrasts reveal them.
If you go
Who: The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
What: Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony with Richard Egarr
When: 7 p.m. Sat. Ordway, 2 p.m. Sunday at Ted Mann Concert Hall.
Where: Saturday: The Ordway, 345 Washington St., St, Paul. Sunday: Ted Mann Concert Hall, 2128 Fourth Street S., Minneapolis.
Accessibility: Ordway: Elevators access all floors of Concert Hall, accessibility seating for all mobility devices (request when buying tickets); service animals welcome (inform ticket representative); listening units and large print available upon request. One single occupancy, accessible restroom in the Music Theater lobby. Ordway.org/visit/accessibility. Ted Mann Concert Hall: Access via south side power door entrance. Elevator and adapted restrooms available.
Capsule: Richard Egarr teams up with the SPCO for an audacious performance.
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