Bach’s Coffeehouse • Saturday, May 4, 2019 – 7:30pm, UCSC Recital Hall
Though coffee’s popularity in Europe was only a few decades old in the 1730s, it had already become a focal point for an egalitarian, intellectual, and arts-minded subculture. Zimmerman’s coffee house in Leipzig provided a venue where J.S. Bach could let down his — curly wig — and present works of music for fun, performed by his Collegium Musicum, free of charge to the buzzing patrons.
The Coffee Cantata tells the story of a coffee loving daughter, Liesgen, and her disapproving father. His name,“Schlendrian,” is a German word meaning a sluggish, unmotivated, ineffective person.
Sheila Willey
Bach brilliantly sets Schlendrian’s admonitions and laments with the comic ploddingness of a decaf morning, contrasted delightfully with the zippy melodies of Liesgen’s love song to her favorite energy drink.
Santa Cruz’s own Sheila Willey sings the part of Liesgen, while flutist Lars Johannesson, a favorite of the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, provides zingy countermelodies.
Also on the program are two trio sonatas and a ciacona by Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, a wunderkind most known by the variations that take his name. J.S. Bach wrote the intricate, challenging, and ingeniously conceived Goldberg Variations to be performed by his then 14-year-old student Goldberg.
Before his untimely death at the age of 29, Goldberg himself wrote masterful, adventurous music in current styles, a selection of which the Santa Cruz Baroque festival are delighted to present in their “Bach’s Coffeehouse” concert.
•••
Cast: Sheila Willey, Soprano as Lieschen, a young coffee-addict • Jonathon Smucker, Tenor as the Narrator • Ben Brady, Bass-Baritone as Herr Schlendrian, the vengeful father • Lars Johannesson, Baroque Flute, with The Festival Baroque Strings • Linda Burman-Hall, Director and Harpsichord.
•••
For more information: http://scbaroque.org