This page was created by James A. Brokaw II. The last update was by Elizabeth Budd.
Gott ist unsere Zuversicht BWV 197 / BC B 16
Wedding Ceremony, 1736–1737
Bach inscribed his autograph score of the cantata Gott ist unsere Zuversicht BWV 197 (God is our assurance) with the words In diebus nuptiarum (On wedding days). Hence, it is for wedding celebrations and belongs to the not particularly comprehensive group of Trauungskantaten (wedding ceremony cantatas) or, in the terminology of Bach’s day, Brautmessen (bridal masses). Furnishing wedding ceremonies and celebrations with festive music was an ancient tradition, and the “better society” of Leipzig saw no reason to give it up or restrict its use. On the contrary: the annual average of such commissions was relatively stable, making it possible to calculate Bach’s supplemental income as a nearly constant amount. Regarding these fees, a regulation at St. Thomas School observed tersely that “with respect to the bridal masses, the cantor has until now been given one reichsthaler for each, with which he shall also henceforth be satisfied and shall not demand more.”1In practice, however, a more lucrative arrangement was in force. Former St. Thomas School students described it when they were asked in 1781, when disagreements about fee amounts arose. Gottlob Friedrich Rothe, sexton at St. Thomas Church and later known as a friend of the writer Johann Gottfried Seume, went on record saying: “In previous times, the cantors Kuhnau, Bach, Harrer, along with the organists, served in person at bridal masses and afterward held a banquet as recreation. For the sake of convenience, the old Martius told the groom to give a thaler instead of this banquet. Since that time the thaler has always been given to those people.”2 The concern here is for catering in addition to cash benefits, for the participation of cantors and organists in celebratory meals, and, later, for the more popular, time-saving option of receiving monetary compensation in lieu of participating in the wedding reception feast. The “alte Martius,” responsible for the new regulation of 1730, functioned in Bach’s day in Leipzig as director of weddings and funerals. Rothe’s colleague Carl Ephraim Haupt, sexton of St. Nicholas Church, unearthed another memory in 1781: “For a full bridal mass the Herr Cantor received two thalers, which he always kept, and one thaler instead of a double flask of wine (which I myself, as a student, many times gave the blessed Herr Cantor Bach in kind; the food has long since ceased).”3And so, contrary to the stipulation in the school regulations, the cantor of St. Thomas School received three thalers, one of which was paid in kind for some time and later was paid as a cash benefit. Two thalers went to the St. Thomas School students and five to the city musicians, or eight, in case trumpets and drums were involved. Hence, it was understandable that often the fathers of brides avoided these expenses and, under various pretexts, arranged stille Trauungen (silent weddings) without music or had the ceremony performed outdoors in the countryside. Just as understandably, the clergy and musicians tried to collect the fees to which they were entitled and that they had already taken into account in calculating their basic salaries; many legal disputes were fought over this.
These relatively high fees were incurred by the full bridal masses—or, as we would say today, wedding ceremony cantatas (Trauungskantaten). "Half bridal masses" (halben Brautmessen) were less lavish, financially as well as musically. These involved the performance of several wedding chorales with instrumental accompaniment. These obligations were less profitable and productive in every respect, and the Thomaskantor made every effort to pass them off to a substitute. That person, most frequently a prefect in St. Thomas School, would then find out how well he could get along with the mischievous band of singers. In the early summer of 1736, the only way Gottfried Theodor Krauß, then twenty-two years old, knew how to earn respect was through corporal punishment. This touched off a long-lasting dispute between the cantor and rector of St. Thomas School that has come to be known in Bach biography as the “prefects’ battle” (Präfektenstreit). In one of his missives to the Leipzig town council, the rector remarked, viciously, that the “misfortune” (Unglück) of the prefect, who ultimately had to leave the school, was
to be attributed solely to the negligence of the Cantor. For if he had gone to the wedding service as he should have, since there was nothing wrong with him, instead of thinking it was beneath his dignity to conduct at a wedding service where only chorales were to be sung (for which reason he has absented himself from several such wedding services, including the recent one for the Krögels, in connection with which, as I could not help hearing, the musicians in service to Your Magnificences and You, Noble Sirs, complained to other people)—then the said Krause would have had no opportunity to indulge in those excesses, both in the Church and outside.4
The cantata Gott ist unsre Zuversicht is a true full bridal mass. It was composed during the tension-filled years 1736 and 1737, when the prefects’ battle threatened to shake the foundations of musical tradition at Leipzig’s St. Thomas School. Who the bridal couple may have been cannot be established today. The unknown librettist crafted his text in such a general fashion that any search for clues has little hope of success. Perhaps this is in fact an advantage of the libretto, reflecting Bach’s intention to use the cantata over and over. The opening movement begins with a phrase in the first verse of Psalm 46:
Gott ist unsre Zuversicht,
Wir vertrauen seinen Händen.
Wie er unsre Wege führt,
Wie er unser Herz regiert,
Da ist Segen aller Enden.
God is our assurance,
We trust his hands.
As he guides our ways,
As he governs our heart,
There is blessing for all purposes.
Next, two recitatives surround an aria before the cantata’s first part, performed before the ceremony, closes with the third strophe from Luther’s chorale Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist (Now we implore the holy spirit): “Du süße Lieb, schenk uns deine Gunst” (You sweet love, grant us your favor).
The aria in this first part of the cantata is striking; its text begins with these peculiar lines:
Schläfert allen Sorgenkummer
In den Schlummer
Kindlichen Vertrauens ein.
Put to sleep all care and sorrow
In the slumber
Of childlike trust.
This is an indication of parody, the retexting of music already on hand. The model is easily identified: it is found in what would later be known as Bach’s Easter Oratorio BWV 249 in the tenor aria “Sanfte soll mein Todeskummer” (Gentle shall my deathly trouble), which in turn goes back to a lullaby (Schlummerarie) in the secular model for the oratorio, the Shepherd Cantata BWV 249.1 as it is often called. Bach obviously planned to adapt this music, composed in 1725, and instructed his librettist accordingly. His efforts to create an appropriate new text were unrewarded, however, and Bach decided against his original intention in favor of new composition.
Bach proceeded differently in the second part, performed after the ceremony. Here both arias go back textually as well as musically to a Christmas cantata that probably originated in 1728, Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe BWV 197.1 (Glory to God in the highest). The greeting to the infant Jesus, “O du angenehmer Schatz” (O you charming treasure), became “O du angenehmes Paar” (O you charming couple). These lines in the original are just as purposeful:
Ich lasse dich nicht,
Ich schließe dich ein
Im Herzen durch Lieben und Glauben.
I will not let you go,
I enclose you
In my heart through love and faith.
They became these more general and less pointed lines:
Vergnügen und Lust,
Gedeihen und Heil
Wird wachsen und stärken und laben.
Pleasure and delight,
Prosperity and salvation
Will grow and strengthen and nourish.
The second part of the cantata closes with a strophe from Georg Neumark’s Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten (Whoever only lets dear God rule). Bach’s score is silent as to which text is intended. Another rather uncertain tradition presents Neumark’s seventh strophe in a partially paraphrased version:
So wandelt froh auf Gottes Wegen,
Und was ihr tut, das tut getreu.
Verdienet eures Gottes Segen,
Denn der ist alle Morgen neu:
Denn welcher seine Zuversicht
Auf Gott setzt, den verläßt er nicht.
Then wander happily on God’s ways,
And whatever you do, do it faithfully.
Earn your God’s blessing,
For it is every morning new:
For whoever places his trust
In God, he will not forsake him.
As discussed, there are two layers of different ages in Bach’s composition. The younger one includes the opening chorus, first aria, all the recitatives, and, mutatis mutandis, both choral movements. The older one is represented by the two arias in the second part, albeit with some alterations. The first of these arias, “O du angenehmes Paar” (O you charming pair), for bass, obbligato oboe, two muted violins, bassoon, and basso continuo, was scored for alto and two transverse flutes in the Christmas cantata; the original key, G major, was kept. The second aria, whose text begins “Verngügen und Lust” (Pleasure and delight), was originally scored in D major for bass and obbligato oboe d’amore. In the new version, it was transposed to G major and arranged for soprano, solo violin, and two oboi d’amore. The two oboes are only entrusted with filler parts, owing to the higher ranges of singing and instrumental obbligato parts. The wind parts in low register now do not allow the distance to the continuo bass to seem too large.
The most important of the newer group of movements are the opening chorus and first aria. Accompanied by a large festival orchestra with trumpets and drums, as well as woodwinds and strings, the chorus enters after an instrumental introduction of twenty-four measures with the obligatory fugal exposition on the earnest text beginning “Gott ist unsre Zuversicht, / Wir vertrauen seinen Händen.” But this episode flows directly into several sustained chords, after which all polyphonic ambitions seem tossed aside. The loose interplay of vocal and instrumental parts gives hardly any hint that this is a church cantata for a particular occasion. Instead, the writing reminds us of Bach’s secular cantatas between 1730 and 1740.
Similar features are found in the third movement, the “slumber aria,” scored for alto, oboe d’amore, strings, and basso continuo. But here Bach’s intentions regarding an adequate realization of the textual content can be clearly felt and easily comprehensible. If the aria in the Weissenfels Tafelmusik of 1725 had a unified scope, a certain degree of contradiction crept into the new version of the text for Easter of the same year, seen in the words “Todeskummer” (death throes) and “Schlummer” (slumber), on the one hand, and “tröstlich” (comforting) and “erfrischend” (refreshing), on the other. The librettist of the wedding cantata followed this tendency blindly; to the beginning section, with its “Schläfert alle Sorgenkummer,” he added a contrasting continuation with the words “Gottes Augen, welche wachen” (God’s eyes, which watch). Perhaps unwittingly, he failed to accomplish his task, thereby challenging the cantor of St. Thomas to compose a new composition, which had not been his initial intention. In this way, the contradiction intended by the text—but basically unintentional—is elevated to a principle, and the middle part of the aria is distinguished from the external parts by the change of key, meter, tempo, and thematic material.
Footnotes
- “Anlangende die Brautmessen, ist bisher dem Cantori von ieder ein Reichs-Thaler gegeben worden, mit welchem er auch hinführo sich begnügen lassen, und mehreres nicht fordern soll.”↵
- “In vorigen Zeiten haben die Cantores Kuhnau, Bach, Harrer, die gantzen Brautmessen in der Kirche und im Hauße, so wie die Organisten, in Persohn abgewartet, und nachher zur Recreation, eine Mahlzeit erhalten. Zu mehrerer Bequemlichkeit für solche, hat dann circa 1730, der alte Martius, den Bräutigam disponirt, ihnen statt dieser Mahlzeit einen Thaler zu geben. Seit der Zeit ist dieser Thaler allemal denen Leuten mit liquidiert worden” (BD III:342 [no. 852]).↵
- “Von einer ganzen Brautmeße bekommt der Herr Cantor 2 Thaler, die er allemal erhalten, und 1 Thaler statt einer Doppel-Flasche Wein (welche ich als Schüler dem seeligen Cantori Bach vielmahl selbst in natura gehohlt habe, die Speisung ist schon längstens abgekommen)” (BD III:342 [no. 851]).↵
- NBR, 181ff. (no. 184).↵