CD Review
J.S. Bach: Coffee & Wedding Cantatas
- Composer
- J.S. Bach
- Artist
- Carolyn Sampson, Hiroya Sakurada, Stephan Schreckenberger; Bach Collegium Japan / Masaaki Suzuki
- Label
- BIS
- Catalogue
- BIS-CD-1411
- Reviewed by
- Sandy Matheson
Midway through his outstanding survey of Bach’s sacred cantatas, Masaaki Suzuki has now embarked on a complementary series of the secular cantatas, of which around twenty survive. The first volume includes the best-known of them, the Coffee Cantata, composed for performance at Zimmermann’s Coffee House, where Bach held weekly concerts. It’s a one-act comic opera in all but name, it would be perfectly suitable for staging. Perhaps because of its uncommon status within Bach’s output, “comic” and “Bach” are not words that regularly appear in the same sentence, it tends to be performed in a rather hammy way.
Suzuki and his excellent singers find a lightness of touch that feels just right for this charming piece. Carolyn Sampson, a welcome addition to Suzuki’s little repertory company of singers, spins Heute noch exquisitely, while Stephan Schreckenberger is attractively youthful-sounding as Liesgen’s coffee-hating father.
Suzuki avoids the usual coupling, the Peasant Cantata, in favour of O holder Tag, the so-called Wedding Cantata, in a graceful, pleasingly straightforward performance from Sampson. Suzuki’s one-to-a-part accompaniments are a treat, with some particularly fine playing from the flautist Liliko Maeda.
About the performers
Masaaki Suzuki founded Bach Collegium Japan in 1990, and by the time of this 2004 release the ensemble was roughly midway through the project it remains best known for internationally, a complete, chronological recording of Bach’s surviving church cantatas for BIS, begun in 1995 and not finished until February 2013, ultimately running to well over fifty volumes. This disc opening a parallel survey of the far smaller surviving body of secular cantatas sits alongside that larger undertaking rather than replacing it, giving Suzuki and his regular collaborators a chance to work in the very different comic and celebratory registers Bach’s church music rarely calls for. Soprano Carolyn Sampson, singled out above, became one of the most recorded voices in Suzuki’s regular ensemble across both the sacred and secular projects, building an international solo career in Baroque and early Classical repertoire well beyond her work with Bach Collegium Japan.
A note on this page
Originally published by Sandy Matheson, recovered from mmmusic's own archive and reproduced here as the critic wrote it.
Questions about this recording
What is the Coffee Cantata?
BWV211, a one-act comic secular cantata Bach composed for performance at Zimmermann's Coffee House in Leipzig, where he held weekly concerts, one of around twenty surviving secular cantatas, a much smaller body of work than his sacred cantatas.
What's paired with it on this disc?
The Wedding Cantata, BWV210 ("O holder Tag, erwünschte Zeit"), rather than the more usual coupling of the Peasant Cantata.
Where does this disc sit in Suzuki's Bach recordings?
It opens a complementary survey of Bach's secular cantatas, begun partway through his much larger, long-running project recording Bach's surviving sacred cantatas for BIS.
Is this recording still available to buy?
Yes, BIS's catalogue number BIS-CD-1411 remains findable through classical retailers. We don't run an in-house shop, so we link out to Amazon and Discogs below.
What label and catalogue number is this on?
This is BIS's own CD release, catalogue number BIS-CD-1411, part of the label's long-running Suzuki/Bach Collegium Japan series of Baroque cantata recordings, filed under Baroque and choral repertoire.
