Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Be still, stop chattering), BWV 211 , also known as the Coffee Cantata , is a secular cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach . He composed it probably between 1732 and 1735. Although classified as a cantata, it is essentially a miniature comic opera . In a satirical commentary, the cantata amusingly tells of an addiction to (or rather dependence on) coffee .
6-539: Bach regularly directed a musical ensemble based at Zimmermann's coffee house called a collegium musicum , founded by Georg Philipp Telemann in 1702. The libretto suggests that some people in eighteenth-century Germany viewed coffee drinking as a bad habit. However, the work is likely to have been first performed at the coffee house in Leipzig. The cantata's libretto (written by Christian Friedrich Henrici , known as Picander), features lines like "If I couldn't, three times
12-523: A day, be allowed to drink my little cup of coffee, in my anguish I will turn into a shriveled-up roast goat". Bach wrote no operas: the cantata was written for concert performance, but is frequently performed today fully staged with costumes. The work is scored for three vocal soloists in the roles The orchestra consists of flauto traverso , two violins obbligato , viola , cembalo and basso continuo . Zimmermann%27s coffee house The Café Zimmermann , or Zimmermannsches Kaffeehaus ,
18-539: A summer venue. From 1720 the café hosted the Collegium Musicum founded by Georg Philipp Telemann as a law student in 1702. It was later directed by Johann Sebastian Bach between 1729 and 1741, with a break between 1737 and 1739, while his former student Carl Gotthelf Gerlach stood in for Bach. The concerts directed by Bach lasted about two hours and consisted of German and Italian opera, chamber music, secular cantatas, and works for orchestra. Zimmermann charged
24-515: The city walls, near the East Gate. The four-and-a-half-story Baroque building was constructed by Doering around 1715. It consisted of two adjoining rooms, one approximately 8 by 10 metres (26 ft × 33 ft), the other approximately 5.5 by 10 metres (18 ft × 33 ft). It was destroyed during an Allied air raid on Leipzig in December 1943 . Zimmermann also ran a coffee garden as
30-543: Was located at 14 Katharinenstrasse , then the most elegant street of Leipzig, connecting the Brühl to the market place. The name of the street had been taken from the old St. Catherine's Chapel which had been demolished in 1544. In Telemann's and Bach's day, only the name of the street remained. During the summer months, Zimmermann also ran an outdoor coffee garden in the Grimmaischer Steinweg [ de ] outside
36-622: Was the coffeehouse of Gottfried Zimmermann in Leipzig which formed the backdrop to the first performances of many of Bach's secular cantatas , e.g. the Coffee Cantata ( Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht ), and instrumental works. In 1723, the year Bach moved to Leipzig, it was the largest and best-appointed Kaffeehaus of Leipzig and a centre for the middle classes and gentlemen. While women were forbidden from frequenting coffeehouses, they could attend public concerts at Zimmermann's. The coffeehouse
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