Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht

Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht ("Be still, stop chattering") (aka The Coffee Cantata) (BWV 211) is a secular cantata written by Johann Sebastian Bach between 1732 and 1734. Although classified as a cantata, it is essentially a miniature comic opera.

In a satirical commentary, the cantata amusingly tells of an addiction to coffee, a pressing social problem in eighteenth century Leipzig, where this work was premiered.

The cantata's libretto (written by Christian Friedrich Henrici) features lines such as "If I can't drink my bowl of coffee three times daily, then in my torment, I will shrivel up like a piece of roast goat"—a sentiment that would likely have been appreciated by the patrons of Zimmerman's Coffee House in Leipzig, where Bach's Collegium Musicum, founded by Georg Philipp Telemann in 1702, would have originally performed the work.

Bach wrote no operas: the cantata was written for concert performance^[1], but is frequently performed today fully staged with costumes.

Roles

Movements

Recordings

• J.S. Bach: Complete Cantatas Vol. 4 - Anne Grimm, Paul Agnew, Klaus Mertens, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, Ton Koopman conductor. Label: Antoine Marchand

References

External links

• Cantatas, BWV 211-220: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project.
• Complete Libretto Text on Wikisource