PBO Serves Up an Extended “Coffee Break”

Richard Egarr on the poster design for last night’s program (photograph by Dennis Bolt, from the PBO event page)

Last night in Herbst Theatre Richard Egarr returned to lead the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO) in his new capacity as Music Director Designate. The program was devoted entirely to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach with the coy title The Well-Caffeinated Clavier. On the surface level the title seemed to refer to the secular cantata featured on the program, BWV 211 Schweigt, still, plaudert nicht (loosely translated as “shut up and listen”), best known as the “coffee” cantata. However, there is a good chance that the three instrumental selections were all performed at Gottfried Zimmermann’s coffee house, where weekly concerts were given by the Collegium Musicum to which Bach belonged (and sometime directed). These consisted of two solo harpsichord concertos, BWV 1058 in G minor (more familiar as the BWV 1041 violin concerto in A minor) and BWV 1052 in D minor, and the BWV 1068 (third) orchestral suite in D major. Egarr conducted all selections from the harpsichord, taking the solo parts in the two concertos.

BWV 211 is a comic narrative about Lieschen (soprano Nola Richardson) with a passion for drinking coffee, much to the consternation of her father Schlendrian (bass Cody Quattlebaum). (“Schlendrian” can be translated as “stick in the mud.”) The argument between the two of them is framed with opening and closing recitatives for a tenor voice (James Reese); and the final resolution is sung as a vocal trio. The performance was given minimal staging that included costumes and props (mostly coffee mugs). All three vocalists had no trouble establishing character, and Quattlebaum’s bluster recalled his performance of Smirnov in William Walton’s opera “The Bear” in a Merola Opera Program performance in the summer of 2017.

Egarr’s solo keyboard work was as impressive as it had been on his last visit to PBO almost two years ago, when he prepared a program devoted entirely to the music of Arcangelo Corelli. Even when he is playing from fully-notated parts, he brings a lively spontaneity to his execution, very much in the spirit of hard bop jamming with a bit of Rowlf the Dog (“resident pianist” at the Muppet Theatre) thrown in for good measure. In the BWV 1068 suite Egarr divided his time between continuo and “full body” conducting, delivering one of the liveliest (caffeinated?) accounts of this well-known score that could be imagined.