Classical music: What famous composer wrote a composition that included coffee?
It can only be J S Bach’s Coffee Canata or Kaffe Kantate, which was performed at Zimmerman’s Coffee House, in Leipzig, I think, between 1732 and 1734. This is a secular or non-religious cantata, which is one of only a very small part of Bach’s works for chorus, most of which are sacred. Mm! how sweet the coffee tastes, more delicious than a thousand kisses, mellower than muscatel wine. Coffee, coffee I must have, and if someone wishes to give me a treat, ah, then pour me out some coffee! Not only did Bach write the Coffee Cantata, but he also wrote about smoking, in his song “So oft ich meine tobackspfeife.” from the Notebook of Anna Magdalena, his second wife. I can’t find the text on the internet but many years ago I saw the music, and I remember in the English translation, there was an appreciation of how the smoke would curl and billow, and how Bach would get lost in watching it, finding it very restful and relaxing. These works reveal Bach’s human side and show him to have been an
