This tag was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Angela Watters.
Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht BWV 211 / BC G 48
For Various Purposes, mid-1734
The cantata Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht BWV 211 (Be quiet, stop chattering), also known as the Coffee Cantata, is without doubt the most famous homage to that brown elixir of the gods—but hardly the earliest.1 That right of primogeniture belongs instead to the French composer Nicolas Bernier, who published a collection of cantates profanes (secular cantatas) shortly after 1700—and in Paris, of course—that included a cantata entitled Le caffé for soprano and violin or flute with basso continuo. By contrast, Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition, younger by a generation, remained unpublished, at least so far as the music was concerned.The text itself fared somewhat better. On May 5, 1732, one day after the beginning of the Jubilate or Easter trade fair, the Leipzig newspapers reported the appearance of the third volume of Picander’s Ernst-Schertzhafften und Satirischen Gedichten (Earnest-jocular and satyric poems). This is the continuation of the “collected works” by the erstwhile student, now awaiting his advancement in the postal service, the popular and successful occasional poet Christian Friedrich Henrici. Announced in early 1731 but not complete until a year later, this third collection of his poetry presented verses touching on all possible vicissitudes of human existence, as well as a long series of musical texts. Among these is a reprint of a Passion after the evangelist Mark, composed by Bach but lost; a complete annual cycle of church cantatas; and a few secular cantatas at the end. The last of these is a dialogue piece with four each of recitatives and arias beneath the unpretentious heading “Über den Caffe. CANTATA.” This text, beginning with “Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht” and ending with Lieschen’s aria “Heute noch, lieber Vater, tut es doch” (Even today, dear father, do it please), evidently inspired a whole array of composers in the second third of the eighteenth century. However, the uncertain and in part fragmentary transmission of these cantatas permits scarcely any conclusions as to their authors’ names or even why and how they originated.
Strictly speaking, the same is true of Picander’s libretto: the only available version of 1732 does not reveal whether it is a first edition or a simplified republication of a single print. In the latter case, one would suspect that the text had been set to music for the first time and performed publicly before 1732. However, this hypothetical composition would have had nothing to do with Bach’s Coffee Cantata. Instead, the Thomaskantor seems to have decided only in 1734 to give Picander’s verses the attention the poet had been hoping for. The reason, first and foremost, was the activity of the Collegium Musicum, whose leadership Bach had assumed in early 1729 and which performed weekly concerts: in the summer in Zimmerman’s coffee garden at the Grimma Gate and in the winter at Zimmerman’s coffeehouse in the Katherinenstraße.
Bach’s second-oldest son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, participated in writing out the performing parts, and on September 9, 1734, he left for the university in Frankfurt an der Oder. This excludes a date much later than that for a performance, and it suggests that it probably took place during the warmer months and probably outside. As he began work on the composition Bach kept to the letter of the printed text and simply named his work Cantata a Soprano e Baßo con stromenti diversi (Cantata for soprano and bass with various instruments). Later, his final title became Schlendrian mit seiner Tochter Ließgen—Dramma per musica (Schlendrian and his daughter, Lieschen— Dramma per musica). The choice of this designation, “dramma per musica,” was justified, since in Bach’s version—and only in this one—text and action undergo a significant expansion. Picander’s modest morality, according to which Lieschen must sacrifice her coffee obsession for the prospect of a husband, is turned on its head in Bach’s version. An interpolated recitative informs us that, regarding Lieschen’s hand in marriage, the only men with any hope of success are those willing to expressly guarantee her right in the marriage contract to drink coffee. To what extent this reversal, as well as the closing aria, focused on laissez-faire—“Die Katze läßt das Mausen nicht” (The cat doesn’t give up mousing)—might be ascribed to Bach’s account, thus establishing his abilities as a poet, must once again be left to the realm of speculation.
On the other hand, it is quite certain that Bach’s Coffee Cantata was performed outside Leipzig. An announcement appeared in the Wochentlichen Frankfurter Frag- und Anzeigungsnachrichten: “On Tuesday, April 7, a foreign musician will perform a concert in the shopping quarter among the grocers, in which, among other things, Schlendrian mit seiner Tochter Ließgen will be offered in a drama. Whoever chooses to listen can acquire tickets at thirty Kreutzer and the text at twelve Kreutzer in the store at St. Nicholas Church in Schrott-Hauß auf dem Römerberg. Beginning precisely at six o’clock in the evening. No one without tickets will be admitted.”2 The wording of the work’s title leaves no doubt that the piece in question is Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition. Whoever may be hiding behind the phrase “foreign musician” can no longer be determined due to the extensive destruction of Frankfurt archives in World War II. Also unanswerable is the question whether the audience in the hall of the Great Shopping Center with the address Neue Kräme 7 beside St. Paul’s Church may have included Goethe’s father.
Another riddle is a remark in a letter from the Berlin music theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, who wrote to an unidentified person on August 18, 1757, perhaps the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf: “I had promised you a French parody of the Coffee Cantata, but it turned out to be so truly terrible that I gave it back to the Mr. Frenchman. There, no long and short syllable had been attended to properly and so forth. It was awful.”3Marpurg knew Bach personally and treasured his works. It remains somewhat unclear whether Johann Sebastian Bach’s composition is meant by the expression “Coffee Cantata” and why a French text might have been added to it. It is possible that Marpurg was thinking of a work by his Berlin contemporary Johann Friedrich Agricola.
In any case, the designation “Coffee Cantata” is documented at the time. Christian Friedrich Penzel, a passionate admirer of Bach who studied at St. Thomas School from 1751 to 1756, copied out an anonymous composition on Picander’s “coffee” text as well as Bach’s cantata in early April 1754 to which he gave the title Coffee Cantata / Herr Schlendrian mit seiner Tochter Ließgen.
The universally comprehensible text, the adept diction, and the skillful musical characterization by the Thomaskantor all garnered the Coffee Cantata a certain popularity for some time in the eighteenth century. The Bach Renaissance of the nineteenth century embraced the piece rather quickly: it was published as early as the 1830s, long before such pinnacles as the Christmas Oratorio and the D-major Magnificat BWV 243.2. Then as now, its cryptic humor demands subtle highlighting on the part of the performers and undivided attention on the part of the audience. Nothing here will tolerate crude contours: neither Schlendrian’s blustery entrance, nor Lieschen’s yearning song of praise for sweet coffee, nor Schlendrian’s desperate brooding over the thickheadedness of young girls, nor Lieschen’s triumphant jubilation at the prospect of a quick wedding. For that reason, a staged performance seems superfluous. Everything that needs to be said is communicated by the text and, above all, by the music.
Footnotes
- Extensively discussed in Schulze (1985).↵
- “Dienstags den 7. April wird ein fremder Musicus im Kauffhauß unter den neuen Krähmen ein Concert aufführen, in welchem unter andern der Schlendrian mit seiner Tochter Ließgen in einen Dramate wird gemacht werden, wer Belieben hat solches mit anzuhören, der kann die Billets vor 30 Kreuzer und den Text vor 12 Kreuzer in dem Laden an der Nicolai Kirche im Schrot-Hauß auff dem Römerberg bekommen, und ohne Billet wird niemand eingelassen, der Anfang ist praecise um 6.Uhr; Abends.”—Trans.↵
- “Ich hatte Ihnen eine Französiche Parodie der Caffee Cantate versprochen;aber sie ist so herzlich schecht geraten, daß ich sie dem Herrn Franzosen zurückgegeben habe. Da war keine lange und kurze Sylbe in Acht genommen etcetera. Es war schlecht.”—Trans.↵