Vice and Virtue: Kansas City Baroque Consortium celebrates Bach and friends

Kansas City Baroque Consortium performs side-by-side with students from KCBC’s Get H.I.P. (Historically Informer Performance) Workshop Intensive for “Bach at the Café Zimmermann,” at Visitation Catholic Church. Credit: Estaban Azevedo

Kansas City Baroque Consortium (and friends) gave their audience a glimpse into the social life of Johann Sebastian Bach and his contemporaries with the last concert of their 9th summer series: “Bach at the Café Zimmermann.” This summer, they’ve explored not only the music of Bach, but also his friends and family, giving their audiences a more rounded perspective on this giant of the era.

Last Sunday afternoon’s concert at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church was a concert of period music on period instruments, as we’ve come to expect, but with a cozy, social aspect, subtitled “Coffee, Pipe & Drink: Vice, Virtue & Redemption.” Just beyond the harpsichords, a coffee bar was set up, with barista, and on either side of the performance area, café tables with thick damask tablecloths. 

The concert’s opening number was led by concertmaster Daniel S. Lee, a bubbly “Introduttioni Teatrali,” Op. 4 No. 3 in B flat by Pietro Locatelli. While the instrumentalists danced through the sections, the barista began serving the vocalists sitting off to the side…what looked like coffee for soprano Miren Gabiola and something foamy and reddish for countertenor Jay Carter, both featured artists for the show. 

Gabiola brought her mug onstage for the next piece, the aria “Ei! Wie schmeckt der Coffee süße” (Mm! How sweet the coffee tastes) from Bach’s famous (or infamous) “Coffee Cantata,” BWV 211. Gabiola has a strong, pure sound, starting out a little too loud, but settling into the role in gorgeous connection with flutist Emlyn Johnson, playing traverso with a warm, buttery timbre supporting Gabiola’s soaring line. 

With that, the concert shifted into a coffeehouse open mic vibe, with the musicians breaking into smaller groups to show off different combinations, composers, and novel instruments. When performers weren’t actively playing, they were seated at the tables, drinking coffee and seeming to enjoy the performances as much as the rest of the hall. 

Concertmaster Daniel S. Lee brought out his violino piccolo, a rare instrument about the size of a child’s violin with a very sweet timbre, performing Philipp Heinrich Erlebach’s “Sonate Sesta in F Major” with Tess Roberts on viola da gamba and Jeffrey Noonan on theorbo, performing three of the movements then and the other four later in the set. The other instrumental-only performance was from Roberts, soloing on George Philipp Telemann’s Fantasía I in A Major, TWV 40:26, from a collection of recently rediscovered works for viola da gamba. 

Countertenor Jay Carter, who throughout the first portion had repeatedly had his goblet filled with the suggestively foamy, reddish beverage, performed two numbers. The first, an ode to pipe smoking and its conduciveness to contemplation, Bach’s “So oft ich meine Tobackspfeife,” BWV 515, with Carter holding (not smoking) a pipe in this very fun performance. Truly, an example how this music enjoys pertinence well into the 21st century with the right performers. 

Returning to the stage, he staggered for dramatic effect, hefting his goblet for Henry Purcell’s “Bacchus is a Pow’r Divine,” extolling the benefits of drinking, rather than fighting. Purcell wrote in plenty of theatrical text painting, which Carter emphasized with amusement, including the drunkard of the song’s final swirling off-key ornament. 

The first half ended back on the theme of coffee fandom, with Gabriola and Johnson returning for a recitative and aria from Nicolas Bernier’s “Cantate Le Caffé,” at once playful and virtuosic. It would be a good thing to hear more of Gabriola and of Johnson on traverso. 

Carter, who earlier in the show extolled the enjoyment of smoking and drinking, had a more serious expression while offering warning with Bach’s “Widerstehe doch der Sünde” (Just resist sin), BWV 54. Here, in contrast to the earlier works’ jaunty accompaniment, Bach wrote steady, ascending lines, somehow quietly menacing in the musicians’ deliberate performance. 

For the finale of this summer season, KC Baroque invited participants from their Get H.I.P. (Historical Informed Performance) Workshop Intensive, a cohort of high level teenage musicians — what founder Trilla Ray Carter called their “HIPsters.” Modeling on Bach’s own “Collegium Musicum,” the “HIPsters” performed side-by-side with the members of the KCBC Ensemble on Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major. The students were an excellent asset, nearly doubling the chamber orchestra, demonstrating Bach’s ability to challenge technically and inspire artistically, lo these many centuries later.

Reviewed Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025. Learn more about Kansas City Baroque Consortium and upcoming performances at kcbaroque.org.