Es erhub sich ein Streit, BWV 19
church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach
Es erhub sich ein Streit (There arose a war), BWV 19, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig in 1726 for the Feast of Saint Michael and first performed it on 29 September 1726. It is the second of his three extant cantatas for this feast.
History and words
Bach took up his position in Leipzig in 1723. His first two years in the city were particularly productive in terms of cantatas for the church calendar. As well as being a Christian festival, St. Michael's Day was important in the commercial life of Leipzig as it marked the start of one of the city's annual trade fairs.
The prescribed readings for the day were from the Book of Revelation, Michael fighting the dragon (Revelation 12:7–12), and from the Gospel of Matthew, heaven belongs to the children, the angels see the face of God (Matthew 18:1–11). The text of the cantata was originally written by Christian Friedrich Henrici, better known as Picander, who published it in Leipzig in 1725 in his collection Sammlung Erbaulicher Gedancken über und auf die gewöhnlichen Sonn- und Fest-Tage Leipzig. Picander had become by then a regular collaborator of the composer, who had also provided the libretto for a previous St.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Es erhub sich ein Streit, BWV 19” is church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through erhub, sich and Streit, not as a finished interpretation.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1366432. VIAF identifies the subject as 181121413. The Library of Congress control number is n83073629. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1726, 1723 and 1725.
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This entry incorporates text from “Es erhub sich ein Streit, BWV 19” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.