Cantata No. 211: Schweigt Stille, Plaudert Nicht (BWV 211) (Coffee Cantata) (Vocal Score)

J S Bach Cantata No. 211: Schweigt Stille, Plaudert Nicht (BWV 211) (Coffee Cantata) (Vocal Score)

Urtext of the “New Bach Edition”

Straightforward and easy-to-play piano reduction

The Coffee Cantata (BA 10211) and the Peasant Cantata (BA 10212) both with librettos by Picander, are among the best-known and most frequently performed of Bach’s secular cantatas.

Written in or around 1733, the Coffee Cantata deals humorously with the importance of the newly fashionable beverage.  This is demonstrated in the soprano aria “Ah, how sweet the coffee tastes, lovelier than a thousand kisses, milder than Muscatel”.

The Peasant Cantata of 1742, Bach’s last datable cantata, is a musical description of folk life.

It was composed as a tribute to Picander’s superior, Carl Heinrich von Dieskau, who had inherited the family estate in 1742.

Both cantatas reveal Bach’s mastery in their unusual subject-matter, formal design, and musical workmanship. Now they appear in separate editions based on the “New Bach Edition” with straightforward and easy-to-play piano reductions by Andreas Köhs.