St. Paul Chamber Orchestra keeps Haydn's 'Clock' ticking delightfully

Fun? Can you really have fun at a concert full of music from the baroque era, with a dash of the late 1700s? Surely, that must be serious and potentially dry music to experience on a cold winter weekend.

But there I was at St. Paul's Ordway Concert Hall Friday morning, having a blast. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra was making an exhilarating spree of works by George Frideric Handel, Henry Purcell and William Lawes, topping it off with a full-throated celebration of Joseph Haydn's frolicsome spirit. While there were moving moments, this was a performance of unmitigated delight.

For that, you can largely thank Richard Egarr. The SPCO artistic partner is an internationally renowned master of music from the baroque period who recently left his post as head of England's Academy of Ancient Music. Egarr is an ebulliently enthusiastic advocate for the era, clearly out to convince you to love the music as much as he does.

And surely some in the Ordway audience must have been successfully evangelized. For Egarr's lively between-works banter made sure that no one was left at sea, spicing his intros with references to cat food and "Monty Python."

Yet the key element to the audience's engagement was that the SPCO was playing baroque music better than I've heard them do in several seasons. Exchanges of phrases within the orchestra sounded like witty repartee, emotion-soaked solos sang out, and movements built on dances truly danced.

The theme of the program was London, a city Englishman Egarr knows well. All of the music was premiered there, starting with the first of Handel's Concerti Grossi. With Egarr leading from the harpsichord — undulating and bouncing on the bench — it proved a boisterous beginning. Guest oboist Liam Boisset set a high bar for energy on his solos, concertmaster Steven Copes matched his vigor on violin, and bassoonists Peter Kolkay and Laurie Merz delivered a raucously rumbling duet.

Egarr chose to cap off the concerto with a slice of "Solomon," leading the most breathtakingly brisk take on the "Entrance of the Queen of Sheba" I've ever encountered.

Then it was back to the 1600s for music of Purcell and Lawes. Two Purcell Fantasias shone forth vibrantly, while Lawes' Royal Consort Sett No. 9 was truly a revelation, lovely and layered with a touch of a melancholy tug, concluding in a Sarabande of a pace akin to speed metal.

Remaining in London but flying about a century and a half into the future, Egarr and the SPCO concluded the concert with one of Haydn's final symphonies, his 101st, nicknamed "The Clock" for its tick-tocky slow movement. At 31 players, it was the largest orchestra onstage at an SPCO concert since the onslaught of COVID-19. And what a sound it made, a musical shout of exultation.

Freed from the bonds of the harpsichord bench, Egarr was a joy to watch, his animated body language helping shape the dynamics, his playfulness ideal for the life-of-the-party Haydn. I haven't seen SPCO musicians having this much fun with a conductor since Nicholas McGegan's tenure as an artistic partner ended in 2009. Their glee proved infectious.

Rob Hubbard is a Twin Cities classical music writer. Reach him at wordhub@yahoo.com.

St. Paul Chamber Orchestra

With: Conductor and harpsichordist Richard Egarr.

What: Works by George Frideric Handel, Henry Purcell, William Lawes and Joseph Haydn.

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Where: Ordway Concert Hall, 345 Washington St., St. Paul.

Tickets: $12-$50 (students and children free), available at 651-291-1144 or thespco.org.