In order to dispel people's prejudice against drinking coffee, Bach wrote a musical specially for coffee.

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In Leipzig, Germany, in the early 18th century, there was such a father-daughter quarrel.

Father: "you naughty child, presumptuous girl, how to get you to quit coffee!"

Daughter: "Father, please don't be so hard on me." If I can't drink three cups of coffee every day, I will lose my vitality like a lamb to be slaughtered. "

Daughter: "what a sweet coffee, sweeter than a lover's kiss, more intoxicating than wine." If someone wants to entertain me, buy me a cup of coffee! "

Father: "if you don't quit coffee, you can no longer wear beautiful clothes or go out to play. You will even lose a husband who loves you." Do you want to marry or drink coffee?

Finally, the daughter gave in and promised her father that she would stop drinking coffee in order to find the one who loved her. But the smart daughter has already made up her mind to find a husband who loves her so that she can drink coffee at will.

In order to drink coffee, the daughter almost agreed to many unreasonable demands of her father. This is part of the dialogue between father and daughter in Bach's premier musical comedy, The Coffee Cantata BWV Candata.

Duke University Bach Chorale of Duke University recently gave a 20-minute performance on Fullsteam Brewery in Durham, North Carolina, reviving the musical Coffee cantata, bringing people's minds back to 18th-century Germany, when coffee was banned. Choral director Brian Schmidt said: "We know that Bach loves his family and music, and we know that he likes beer, brandy and coffee."

Why are people so afraid of drinking coffee? Why can't young people drink coffee?

It turns out that drinking coffee has been popular in many German cities since the end of the 17th century, especially in Leipzig, where people have regarded drinking coffee as a trend and fashion, and the degree of obsession with coffee can be expressed by madness. So the young men and women went to the cafe to buy a cup of coffee to savor it, and the cafe became the busiest social place at that time. This is originally a good thing, but it has aroused the dissatisfaction of the government. In order to curb this phenomenon, they raise the price of coffee and limit young people's access to coffee. In addition, since women often patronize cafes, various bans have been issued to publicize that girls who drink coffee are crazy and unreasonable without tutoring. Frederick the Great also expressed dissatisfaction with the rise of coffee and ordered the whole people to stop drinking coffee in order to protect Germany's beer economy.

But any ban was of no avail, and women fought back to defend their right to drink coffee through various struggles. They love coffee. They just want a cup of coffee. Therefore, in 1732, Bach created a musical comedy Coffee Cantata for the Music Society of Leipzig on the theme of coffee.

Photo Source: visual China

What is "Cantata"? Cantata is a vocal suite including solo, duet and chorus, which generally contains more than one movement with orchestral accompaniment, which is somewhat similar to the Chinese chorus accompaniment. A typical cantata often begins with a prelude or chorus and ends with a chorus interlaced with a narrative with accompaniment, an aria for solo or duet, and a chorus of different sizes.

Bach himself was very fond of coffee, when he taught in Leipzig and was the conductor of the student orchestra. There are many cafes around the school, which provide not only coffee but also music. Bach seems to have found his own world. Therefore, he often leads the orchestra to play in the cafe, and the premiere of Coffee cantata is also in a cafe and is warmly welcomed by people who love coffee and music.

The lyricist was written by Christian Frederick Henriki, who worked with Bach on many of the Cantata works, and he was famous for his religious and satirical poems published under the pseudonym of Picander. But in the last part of the work, Bach filled in the words himself in order to make the theme more prominent, make more people accept coffee and reflect on the irrationality of the ban. "just as cats treat mice as a delicacy, girls become defenders of coffee. Mothers drink coffee and grandmothers drink coffee. Why can't daughters drink coffee?"

It can be said that it is the birth of the secular Coffee cantata that uncovers the real coffee culture in Germany.

Today's young people will choose to relax and date in the cafe.

Photo Source: visual China

Nowadays, it is common for us to have a cup of coffee in our hands, and the place for the date is perfect in a cafe. Coffee has been integrated into everyone's life. We no longer think that it is a shame for a girl to drink coffee, a sign that there is no tutoring. But what we now think of as ordinary things may have been unreasonable in the past. Fortunately, all the people are trying to break through the shackles and defeat those feudal ideas with music and language.

What you may not expect is that there is such a powerful force behind a piece of music.