Bei Bachs zuhaus

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Johann Sebastian Bach:
Overture in b minor, BWV 1067
Arias from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach (1725):
Willst du dein Herz mir schenken, BWV 518 (Aria di Giovannini)
Bist du bei mir, BWV 508 (G. H. Stölzel)
So oft ich meine Tabakspfeife, BWV 515
Brandenburg concerto no. 5 in D major, BWV 1050
Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht, BWV 211 (“Coffee-cantata”)

Excerpts from “The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach” and other texts

Location: Helmut-List-Halle

Price: EUR 60 / 45 / 33 / 21 Order tickets

Bach lived in Leipzig for 27 years as “Thomaskantor” in the St. Thomas School. His apartment is said to have resembled “a dovecote”, a result of the many children, relatives, colleagues and students constantly passing through. Bach’s daughter Liesgen was devoted to coffee, his wife Magdalena wanted to enjoy at least a little luxury, and his sons “were inclined” to study at university. The maestro’s meagre earnings, however, were hardly sufficient for the excessive and expensive lifestyle one was expected to lead in the city of Leipzig and so he was forced to compose continuously, despite the confusion of sounds surrounding him, with multiple harpsichords resounding from the various floors and students singing and clamouring next door.

Bach as patriarch with worry lines and popular pieces from Bach’s Zimmermann’s Coffee House concerts performed by cellist Rudolf Leopold’s Wiener Originalklangensemble will be performed this evening. Bach’s “Coffee Cantata”, depicts Schlendrian, an alter ego of the maestro, as a father in a desperate duel with his daughter, Liesgen, over her upbringing. Dorothee Mields as Liesgen defies Anton Scharinger as father Bach.