Bach, J.S.: Cantatas, Bwv 211-212

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Cat No: 8550641

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 4891030506411

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BACH, J.S.

Description
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Coffee Cantata), BWV 211 Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet (Peasant Cantata), BWV 212The career of Johann Sebastian Bach, the most illustrious of aprolific musical family, falls neatly into three unequal parts. Born in 1685 in Eisenach,from the age of ten Bach lived and studied music with his elder brother in Ohrdruf, alterthe death of both his parents. After a series of appointments as organist and briefly as acourt musician, he became, in 1708, court organist and chamber musician to Duke WilhelmErnst of Weimar, the elder of the two brothers who jointly ruled the duchy. In 1714 he waspromoted to the position of Konzertmeister to the Duke, but in 1717, after a brief periodof imprisonment for his temerity in seeking to leave the Duke's service, he abandonedWeimar to become Court Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cothen, a position heheld until 1723. From then until his death in 1750 he lived in Leipzig, where he wasThomaskantor, with responsibility for the music of the five principal city churches, in1729 assuming direction of the university collegium musicum, founded by Telemann in 1702. At Weimar Bach had been principally employed as an organist,and his compositions of the period include a considerable amount written for theinstrument on which he was recognised as a virtuoso performer. At Cothen, where Pietisttraditions dominated the court, he had no church duties, and was responsible rather forcourt music. The period brought the composition of a number of instrumental works. Thefinal 27 years of Bach's life brought a variety of preoccupations, and while his officialemployment necessitated the provision of church music, he was able to provide music forthe university collegium musicum and to write or re-arrange a number of important worksfor the keyboard. The Coffee Cantataand the Peasant Cantata both suggest thekind of dramatic work Bach might have written had he been employed, like Telemann, inHamburg, where there was a tradition of opera. The first of these was written in Leipzigin 1734 or 1735, using a text by Picander, the pseudonym of Christian Friedrich Henrici,the author of texts for many of Bach's church cantatas. Henrici was a versatile writer andpoet. He had settled in Leipzig in 1720 and seven years later joined the localadministration as an official of the post office. He continued his career, whichculminated in 1740 with the positions of Assessment and liquor Tax Collector and WineInspector. The Coffee Cantata was presumablywritten for performance at one of the Friday evening meetings of the University collegiummusicum at Zimmerman's coffee-house in the Catherinenstrasse.The fashion for drinking coffee had spread through Europe inthe second half of the seventeenth century. The nature and medicinal properties of thedrink had earlier been observed, not always with approval, by visitors to Turkey, but itis said that Coffee and the croissant owed their later popularity
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