Coffee, Cantatas and Bach

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abu ghosh, Andres Mustonen, Barrocade

 

 

A Saturday morning all-Bach concert in the neighbouring village of Abu Ghosh was an occasion not to be missed, especially as it coincided with a special birthday. And what an occasion it was! It marked the conclusion of the Barrocade ensemble’s concert season, featured Finnish violinist and conductor Andres Mustonen, and the programme included Bach’s Cantata no. 140, Brandenburg concerto no. 5 and his concerto for oboe d’amore. A rich programme indeed, and one that ended on a particularly attractive note – a performance of Bach’s Coffee Cantata

 

The history of the spread of coffee in Europe in the seventeenth century is the subject of legend. According to some reports an Ethiopian farmer noted the lively behavior of his goats after they had chewed the berries of a certain bush. From there the coffee drink spread throughout the Arab world, was traded by the Ottomans with Venice, and entered Europe via that route.

 

According to another account, when the invading Ottoman army was routed by the troops of the Holy Roman Empire at the siege of Vienna in 1683, the Turks left large quantities of tents, pack animals, grain and gold as well as sacks filled with green coffee beans. When the booty was distributed it transpired that no one wanted the beans, which were unknown in Vienna at the time. A Polish resident of Vienna by the name of Kolschitsky who had lived in Istanbul and served as an interpreter, offered to take the sacks. He knew how to prepare coffee, and later established the first coffee house in Vienna, from where the institution spread to the rest of Europe.

 

Coffee houses became meeting places and the scene of social gatherings, the forerunner of the men’s club; women were banned from them in England and France, while in Germany they were permitted to enter. In Bach’s time in Leipzig (1723 until his death in 1750) the Zimmerman Café was well known as a meeting place for musicians, it housed the Collegium Musicum, an ensemble that was established there in 1702 by Telemann, and it was there that Bach’s Coffee Cantata was first performed.

 

We all know Bach as a serious, prolific and God-fearing composer, and the cantatas he composed for performance in the framework of the weekly church service are a mainstay of the musical repertoire, not to mention his many other orchestral, chamber and choral compositions.

 

We also know that Bach had a large family, and it would seem that – perhaps inevitably – he also had a sense of humour. At any rate, the Coffee Cantata begins with the narrator telling the audience (in German) to ‘Shut up, and stop chattering,’ which probably reflects what was happening in the coffee house at the time.

 

The two main characters in what is essentially a mini-opera, the father, Schlendrian (literally, ‘Stick in the Mud’) and Lieschen, his daughter, are in disagreement because the father objects to his daughter’s habit of drinking coffee. The two engage in an entertaining musical duel – the father trying every ruse he can think of to stop his daughter drinking coffee and the daughter happily accepting every restriction he seeks to impose in order to be able to continue indulging in the habit. In the performance we attended the singers donned period costume and acted their roles, using props such as coffee cups of various shapes and sizes. However, when the father threatens to prevent his daughter from marrying she finally agrees to stop drinking coffee and urges him to find her a husband, though secretly resolving that whoever he may be he will have to allow her to drink coffee.

 

At this point, much to the audience’s amusement, the father started to point to one or another member of the audience, indicating that they might be a suitable match. But Lieschen has a plan of her own and it turns out that her choice has fallen on the personable young tenor-narrator. The cantata ends with all three singing joyfully about the delights of coffee, a beverage that is enjoyed even by mothers and grandmothers. The message seems to be ‘if you can’t beat them, join them,’ and that is possibly a lesson that Bach himself had to learn in his long and productive life.

 

(In honour of Yigal’s 75^th birthday)

 

 

St. Matthew in Jerusalem

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Andres Mustonen, Bach, Estonian National Male Choir, Girls' Choir Ellerhein

 

 

 

 

 

A performance of Bach’s monumental St. Matthew Passion is always an event to be treasured. Its musical complexity and religious significance as well as the fact that it calls for a double choir, an organ and an enormous orchestra means that it is rarely performed in Israel.

So it was with eager anticipation that we attended last week’s performance of the work in Jerusalem’s Henry Crown auditorium. Every seat was taken, and the stage was packed to the rafters with all the present, past and future members of the orchestra who could be mustered. Row upon row of the members of two choirs from Estonia, the Estonian National Male Choir and the Girls’ Choir Ellerhein, stood ready behind the orchestra, the women attractively attired in long cherry-pink dresses with black wraps on top. Conductor Andres Mustonen, also from Estonia, had his work cut out to control, direct and inspire the over two hundred performers, and this he did with boundless energy and understanding.

No sooner had the first chords rung out and the choirs begun to sing than we knew that we were in for a very special performance. Rarely have I heard such a large choir (almost one hundred strong) produce a sound that was both powerful, expressive and controlled. Since the Passion is sung in German I cannot claim to have understood every word, but the overall effect was sublime.

Since the performance requires ten soloists, and there was not enough room for all of them on the stage at the same time, soloists came to the front of the stage, sang their part and then retired to a place at the back of the stage, or even backstage in some cases. When the first soloist seemed to be meandering onto the stage, wearing a light-coloured suit and holding a tablet or ipad, I must admit I was somewhat taken aback, and wondered if something had gone wrong. But this, it turned out, was the tenor who sang the role of the Evangelist, the narrator of the piece who recites the words of the Gospel in occasional recitatives (a kind of sing-song). The other soloists came and went in a more dignified way, most of the men wearing dark suits and the women in lovely dresses, as is customary on such occasions. Some voices were better than others, but the overall effect was one of reverence for the great music of Bach and the sad tale of Jesus’ crucifixion. Whether it was historically accurate or not did not seem to matter at this point, as the music was the message, and each time the choir gave voice in a chorus or chorale the effect was electric.

I have heard the Passion performed in English and have been moved to tears by the depth of emotion conveyed in the realisation by the apostle Peter that, as prophesied, he has indeed denied Christ three times. I have heard performances in Israel where the conductor, out of consideration for his Jewish audience, has omitted the fortissimo chorus ‘Crucify him!’ and the passage sung by the Jews accepting all future guilt for Jesus’ death. It is known that in mediaeval Europe mobs would be incited by performances of the Passion (not necessarily Bach’s, as re-enactments of the last days of Jesus’ life were traditionally performed at Easter-time in towns and villages all over the Continent) to rampage through Jewish quarters and attack Jewish individuals and institutions. Fortunately, this is no longer the case today.

Far be it from me to condemn those who refuse to attend performances of church music because of religious or historical reasons. All I can say is that I pity anyone who knowingly deprives him- or herself of an experience that stands at the pinnacle of human culture and art.