Bach's Coffee Cantata
Simon Heighes compares recordings of Bach's Coffee Cantata and chooses his favourite.
Simon Heighes compares recordings of Bach's Coffee Cantata and chooses his favourite.
Among Bach's secular cantatas, perhaps the most famous and frequently recorded is Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht – the Coffee Cantata – BWV 211.
Probably composed in 1734 for a performance at Leipzig's Zimmermann Coffee House with the student group collegium musicum, the comic cantata satirises the Saxon obsession with coffee, depicting a family dispute between father and daughter, Schlendrian and Liesgen, at odds about the benefits of the hot drink.
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