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Routes du café
Hana Blažíková (soprano)
Reinoud van Mechelen (tenor)
Lisandro Abadie (bass)
Adrien Espinouze (Ney); Evgenios Voulgaris (Yayli Tanbur); Pierre Rigopoulos (percussions: zarb & daıre)
Ensemble Masques/Olivier Fortin
rec. 2017/18, Église Luthérienne du Bon-Secours, Paris. DDD.
Texts and translations included
Reviewed as press preview.
ALPHA 543 [71:39]

There are some recordings that get things so exactly right that it seems almost futile for anyone else to bother. That doesn’t mean that the mould cannot be broken: way back when I started collecting records, Karl Münchinger reigned supreme in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – his older mono recording on Ace of Clubs, with two newer stereo recordings following. Yet now we would hardly give Münchinger the time of day: Decca’s recent Eloquence reissue of a two multi-CD Münchinger sets¹ will be worth investigating, but much of them will seem more like a historical relic than the other Eloquence reissues of recordings with Thurston Dart who, at much the same time, prefigured historical performance practice. His Handel Water Music and other works is a good example of a recording which has stood the test of time. (4828531 – my review is pending as I write.)

The principal work on the new Alpha, Bach’s ‘Coffee’ Cantata, is available in a performance as much a classic as the Münchinger recordings seemed in their time. The new recording is up against formidable competition from Emma Kirkby, Rogers Covey-Crump, David Thomas, the Academy of Ancient Music and Christopher Hogwood (Decca Oiseau-Lyre E4176212, download only). Not only is that a superb performance, it’s coupled with an equally first-rate account of the ‘Peasant’ Cantata, BWV212. Unfortunately, it will be ruled out for some by being available only in multi-CD sets or as a download without texts, though these are easily available online.

Decca missed a huge opportunity by coupling not these but other recordings of BWV211 and 212 with an otherwise first-rate recording of sacred cantatas from Janet Baker and John Shirley-Quirk with the ASMF and Neville Marriner (Eloquence 4829722 – review – Spring 2019/3). But if they can lavish such care on Münchinger’s recordings, I remain hopeful that they will oblige with a single-CD Eloquence  reissue of Kirkby and Hogwood’s ‘Coffee’ Cantata.

Meanwhile the new recording, if not quite the equal of its older rival, is well worth obtaining even for the Bach alone. Hana Blažíková approaches Emma Kirkby for purity of voice and she is well supported by Lisandro Abadie as her grumpy old father, Herr Schlendrian (Mr Stick-in-the-mud) and Reinoud van Mechelen as the narrator. Better still, all concerned throw themselves into the fun of the piece. Both sides of the argument win when daughter Lieschen agrees to marry, thus ridding her father of her coffee-drinking addiction, but only if her husband lets her drink all the coffee that she wants. All of this was first performed in high probability at a Friday evening concert in Zimmermann’s coffee house, sadly destroyed by Allied bombing during WW2.

But the rest of the programme also merits your attention. Coffee drinking spread to Western Europe from Turkey. The romantic story of how Franz George Kolschitzky, who had lived among the Turks, introduced to Vienna the sacks of coffee which the invaders had left behind after the Siege of Vienna (1683) is believed to such an extent that they erected a statue to him in a street named after him, Kolschitzkygasse. It’s appropriate, then, that the Alpha recording begins with two pieces of Turkish music, with more exotic and entertaining music, on the flute, yayli tanbur, zarb and daire, interspersed between the European items.

The other item of chief interest is Nicolas Bernier’s cantata Le Caffé. If the Viennese story is correct, coffee actually reached Paris before Vienna, after the visit of Suleiman Aga in 1669. Alpha don’t give us a date for Le Caffé but the first four books of his Cantates françoises were published in 1703, thus considerably pre-dating the Bach (1735). Zimmermann’s Kaffeehaus in Leipzig had opened in 1715.

The Bernier is an enjoyable piece, if hardly a match for the Bach, and it receives an attractive performance. There are other (now download only) recordings which I haven’t heard, on ABC, Sinetone and MSR, but I can’t imagine that they outshine this performance. Johan van Veen evinced limited enthusiasm for the MSR – review – but Jonathan Woolf liked the ABC – review.

London, where the first coffee houses were established soon after the Restoration of 1660, gets a short look-in in the form of Locke’s four-part Fantasia. Like Marais’ even shorter Saillie du caffé, it receives a fine performance – indeed, the instrumentalists of Ensemble Masques, like the singers, are on their toes throughout.

Apart from omitting the date of the Bernier cantata, the Alpha booklet of notes is informative. My press preview was in mp3 only, but sounds fine. Normally I reserve any recordings which I can’t obtain in lossless sound for my Second Thoughts and Short Reviews round-ups, but I’ve made an exception here for a recording which I very much enjoyed. I can imagine playing this sometimes even in preference to the Kirkby and Hogwood BWV211, not just for the sake of the Bernier and the exotic Turkish interludes. But I still want Kirkby and Hogwood for the ‘Peasant’ Cantata, BWV212. Otherwise, the new recording is very worthwhile. I’m not always a fan of concept albums, but this one works well.

¹ The Baroque Legacy includes all three recordings of The Four Seasons (4840160, 8 CDs, around £34). The Classical Legacy, music by Haydn and Mozart is on 4840170 (8 CDs).

Brian Wilson

Contents
I. Paris
Nâyi Osman DEDE (1652?-1729)
Taksim ney [2:37]
Rast Dilârâ Peşrev [1:14]
Nicolas BERNIER (1664-1734)
Troisième Livre de Cantates: Le Caffé, pour voix, flûte, violon & basse continue¹ [18:01]
Nâyi Osman DEDE
Taksim oud [1:09]
Rast Dilârâ Saz Semâî [4:12]
Taksim ney [0:54]
Marin MARAIS (1656-1728)
Troisième Livre de Pièces de Viole: Saillie du caffé [2:28]

II. London
Kathleen KAJIOKA (b.1973)
Taksim kaman [2:39]
Wahda Sarabande [3:51]
Matthew LOCKE (1621-1677)
Consort of fower parts: Fantasia in d minor [4:49]

III. Constantinople
Tanburi Cemil BEY (1873-1916)
Taksim & Mahur Peşrev [3:47]

IV. Leipzig
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Coffee Cantata; Schweigt stille, Plaudert nicht, BWV211 (c.1735) ² [25:38]
Hana Blažíková (soprano)^1,2
Reinoud van Mechelen (tenor)²
Lisandro Abadie (bass)²
Adrien Espinouze (Ney); Evgenios Voulgaris (Yayli Tanbur); Pierre Rigopoulos (percussions: zarb & daıre)
Ensemble Masques/Olivier Fortin