“Du böses Kind … Ei! wie schmeckt der Coffee süße” from Bach’s Coffee Cantata

“Du böses Kind … Ei! wie schmeckt der Coffee süße”
From "Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht," BWV211 (Coffee Cantata)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Arianna Aerie, soprano
Jeffrey Ballard, tenor
Kevin Warner, bass
Early Music Missouri Chamber Ensemble
Audio courtesy Barry Hufker
Videography by Pat Weaver
Early Music Missouri concluded its 2023-2024 season with “At Court & Coffee House”: a concert featuring Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti 4 & 5 and his famed Coffee Cantata.
Identified as a secular cantata, “Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht,” BWV211 is actually a little chamber opera that probably premiered at Zimmermannsches Kaffeehaus, a popular haunt of Leipzig’s upper crust. Written in the early 1730s, Bach’s cantata takes a sly swipe at coffee house culture, railing about the drink’s addictive nature in a piece composed to be performed in an establishment dedicated to this same drink. Many secular cantatas of the period play up comic romantic conflicts between three characters, typically a woman and two men, but Bach’s “Coffee Cantata” focuses on a father and daughter (bass and soprano) bickering about her near addiction to coffee. The tenor serves as narrator, setting the scene with occasional side comments.
In recitatives, they bicker and scheme while in their respective arias, the father moans about children who ignore parent’s wishes while his daughter rhapsodizes first about coffee and then about a future husband. While she eventually agrees to give up coffee for a promised husband, the cantata ends in a trio that slyly confirms that children will always find ways around their parents’ rules and that coffee is just too good to give up.
This aria is Liesgen’s love-song-to her cup of coffee!
RECITATIVE (Soprano & Bass)
Schlendrian: Du böses Kind, du loses Mädchen, ach! wenn erlang ich meinen Zweck: tu mir den Coffee weg!
You naughty child, you careless girl, oh! that I might have my way: put down that coffee!
Liesgen: Herr Vater, seid doch nicht so scharf! Wenn ich des Tages nicht dreimal mein Schälchen Coffee trinken darf, so werd ich ja zu meiner Qual wie ein verdorrtes Ziegenbrätchen.
Father sir, don’t be so mean! If I’m not allowed three times every day, to drink my teensy cup of coffee, I would undoubtedly, to my dismay, just shrivel up like a hunk of old roast goat.
ARIA (Soprano)
Ei! wie schmeckt der Coffee süße,
lieblicher als tausend Küße,
milder als Muskatenwein.
Coffee, Coffee muß ich haben,
und wenn jemand mich will laben,
ach, so schenkt mir Coffee ein!
Ah! How sweet the coffee tastes,
finer than a thousand kisses,
sweeter than muscatel.
Coffee, coffee: I must have it,
and if anyone wants to perk me up,
ah, just pour me a coffee!