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Ihr Tore zu Zion BWV 193.2 / BC B 5
City Council Inauguration, August 25, 1727
The cantata Ihr Tore zu Zion BWV 193 (You gates of Zion) belongs to the small group of Leipzig town council election cantatas: festive compositions performed traditionally in the main municipal church, St. Nicholas, at the end of August on the Monday following St. Bartholomew’s Day. The annual occasion was the end of the period of service for the governing or “sitting” council and the transfer of business to one of the two “resting” councils according to an inviolable schedule of rotation.
It was the task of the Thomaskantor to provide an appropriate piece for the morning town council election service either by composing a new cantata or by reperforming an existing one. From 1723 to 1749 Johann Sebastian Bach must have had to fulfill this obligation twenty-seven times. This large number of occasions stands in sharp contrast to the very modest corpus of works that has survived: four town council election cantatas preserved in their entirety, evidence for the texts of three, and one fragmentary composition. The last-named work is the cantata Ihr Tore zu Zion. All that survives is an incomplete set of performance parts from which the tenor and bass parts are missing, as well as the basso continuo, and possibly the parts for trumpets and drums and perhaps flutes.
Source materials in such a state of ruin do not exactly provide the ideal point of departure for a study of a work’s genesis. Even so, the first performance can be dated with reasonable certainty to the end of August 1727. Furthermore, it seems to be established that substantial portions of the work go back to a congratulatory cantata performed on August 3 of the same year for the name day of the elector of Saxony.1 There, four allegorical figures offer their congratulations to the country’s leader in recitatives, arias, and ensemble movements. Except for very minor fragments, the music for this secular predecessor is lost. It was that leader of Berlin theologians and Bach scholars, Friedrich Smend, who first recognized that this work must have been drawn upon for our town council cantata. He had been struck by all sorts of correspondences of verse meter between the two works.
In the secular version, the following is presented by a “Rat der Götter” (council of the gods):
Ihr Häuser des Himmels, ihr scheinenden Lichter,
Seid gebückt.
Denn Augustus’ Namens-Glänzen
Wird in eure helle Grenzen
Heute heilig eingerückt.
You houses of heaven, you gleaming lights,
Be bowed,
For the brilliance of August’s name
Will, within your bright borders,
Be embossed as holy today.
There is much here that is questionable with regard to language as well as content. The poet, Christian Friedrich Henrici (Picander), may have concluded as much as well, after the fact. In any case, in a new edition of the text, he replaced the “Häuser” (houses) that are asked to bow with “Häupter” (heads). On the one hand, the unknown librettist of the town council cantata was able to draw upon a verse from Psalm 87, “Der Herr liebet die Tore Zions über alle Wohnungen Jakobs” (87:2; The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jakob), and, on the other, he succeeded in matching the syllable count and rhyme structure of the secular original precisely:
Ihr Tore zu Zion, ihr Wohnungen Jakobs,
Freuet euch!
Gott ist unsers Herzens Freude,
Wir sind Völker seiner Weide,
Ewig ist sein Königreich.
You gates of Zion, you dwellings of Jacob,
Rejoice!
God is the joy of our heart,
We are the peoples of his pasture,
Eternal is his kingdom.
As is typical for town council elections, passages from the psalms are found frequently in the other movements as well. Where Psalm 121 reads, “Siehe, der Hüter Israels schläft noch schlummert nicht. Der Herr behütet dich; der Herr ist dein Schatten über deiner rechten Hand” (4–5; See, the guardian of Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers. The Lord protects you; the Lord is your shade upon your right hand), the first recitative of our cantata, developed from this, reads:
Der Hüter Israels entschläft noch schlummert nicht;
Es ist annoch sein Angesicht
Der Schatten unsrer rechten Hand;
Und das gesamte Land
Hat sein Gewächs im Überfluß gegeben.
Wer kann dich, Herr, genug davor erheben?
The guardian of Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers;
His countenance has till now been
The shade at our right hand;
And the entire land
Has yielded its increase in abundance.
Who can exalt you, Lord, enough for this?
A core idea in Psalm 65, “Du erhörest Gebet; darum kommt alles Fleisch zu dir” (2; You hear prayer; therefore, all flesh comes to you), characterizes the associated aria and its song of praise:
Gott, wir danken deiner Güte,
Denn dein väterlich Gemüte
Währet ewig für und für.
Du vergibst das Übertreten,
Du erhörest, wenn wir beten,
Drum kömmt alles Fleisch zu dir.
God, we thank you for your goodness,
For your fatherly spirit
Endures eternally forever and ever.
You forgive trespassing,
You listen when we pray,
Therefore, all flesh comes to you.
The secular version gives the parallel movement to the allegorical figure Salus, the embodiment of well-being:
Herr! So groß als Dein Erhöhen,
Pflanz ich auch Dein Wohlergehen
Ewigem Gedeihen ein.
Deine Kraft will ich erhalten,
Wie die Adler nicht veralten,
Wie die Felsen feste sein.
Lord! As great as your exaltation,
I will implant your well-being
Into eternal flourishing.
Your power I will preserve,
Like the eagles never aging,
Like the mountains being strong.
In the recitative that follows in the town council election cantata, the trade fair city is addressed directly and, as usual, compared to Jerusalem. Here, a verse from Psalm 9 is woven in: “Der Herr aber bleibt ewiglich; er hat seinen Stuhl bereitet zum Gericht” (7; The Lord abides eternally; he has prepared his throne for judgment). The recitative reads, accordingly:
O Leipziger Jerusalem, vergnüge dich an deinem Feste!
Der Fried ist noch in deinen Mauern,
Es stehn annoch die Stühle zum Gericht,
Und die Gerechtigkeit bewohnet die Paläste.
Ach bitte, daß dein Ruhm und Licht
Also beständig möge dauern!
O Leipzig, our Jerusalem, delight in your festival!
Peace is still within your walls,
The thrones still stand for judgment,
And righteousness inhabits the palaces.
Ah, pray that your fame and light
May perpetually endure!
The last two lines serve as a transition to the aria that follows, with its plea for blessing for the future work of the council:
Sende, Herr, den Segen ein,
Laß die wachsen und erhalten,
Die vor dich das Recht verwalten
Und ein Schutz der Armen sein!
Sende, Herr, den Segen ein!
Send, Lord, your blessing down,
Let them increase, and preserve them,
Those who administer justice before you
And are a shelter for the poor!
Send, Lord, your blessing down!
This aria’s counterpart in the congratulatory cantata for August the Strong is presented by Pietas, personification of piety and humility:
Sachsen, komm zum Opferherd,
Laß den Weihrauch lieblich brennen,
Daß sein Herze mög erkennen,
Daß Du seines Glanzes wert.
Saxons, come to the sacrificial burner,
Let the incense burn lovely,
That his heart may recognize
That you are worthy of his radiance.
In the town council election cantata, this appeal for blessing is followed by a recitative that must have been composed for tenor or bass; it has been lost along with the performing parts. The opening movement is repeated to conclude the work.
Clearly, many questions remain unresolved as a result of this work’s fragmentary source transmission. There are many phrasings in the congratulatory cantata that are not entirely skillful or logical; they have nourished the suspicion that this work too may not be an original composition in all of its parts and that several linguistically questionable expressions might be explained by the retexting of existing music on hand. Friedrich Smend attempted to cut the Gordian knot using the hypothesis that the three questionable movements of the congratulatory / town council election cantatas—the opening chorus and two arias—all went back to a common prototype, a cantata from Bach’s Köthen period now lost. Of course, this hypothesis does not provide a satisfactory solution. Both the congratulatory cantata and the town council work clearly had parts for trumpets and drums—and these were genuine components of the compositions, not subsequent additions. So far, nothing of the sort has been found in Bach’s vocal works for Köthen. Therefore, any lost prototype would have been from Bach’s time in Leipzig between 1723 and 1727.
Moreover, the last aria of the town council election cantata, “Sende, Herr, den Segen ein,” corresponds so closely to the text of the congratulatory cantata that it seems superfluous to assume another text as a point of reference. This is particularly true of the extended coloraturas in the voice on the keyword “brennen” (burn), referring to incense on the “Opferherd” (sacrificial burner). Additionally, there are indications that this aria had a virtuoso figural obbligato part for oboe d’amore, an instrument that is found first in Bach’s Leipzig works after 1723 but for which there is no evidence in Köthen. At best, one would have to suppose a transposition of the aria and the use of another obbligato instrument in the hypothetical prototype. The first aria of the town council cantata remains truly problematic, with its unmistakable minuet character. Neither “Gott, wir danken deiner Güte” (God, we thank you for your goodness) nor the secular “Herr! So groß als Dein Erhöhen” (Lord! As great as your exaltation) has a declamation that is even minimally acceptable, so that an older prototype in fact seems likely. Yet even here, dating such a hypothetical original to Bach’s Köthen period is by no means conclusive; instrumental dominance and the dance character of the aria in question can be just as easily found in relevant Leipzig compositions.
The complex of questions regarding the origins of individual movements is joined by the problem of performing the cantata as a whole. We have already discussed the incomplete nature of the surviving performing parts. To approach the way the original cantata sounded would require the hypothetical reconstruction of the parts for tenor and bass, for trumpets and drums, and for basso continuo. All in all, this is not likely to be a rewarding task, since opinion will likely be divided about the result. But before the work is completely condemned to silence, such a reconstruction is certainly worth the attempt.
Footnotes
- Ihr Häuser des Himmels, ihr scheinenden Lichter BWV 193.1 (You houses of heaven, you gleaming lights).—Trans.↵