(NB the bar numbers in the first movement refer to the score layout which contains four minims to the bar i.e. Readers with scores may be using modern editions with two minims a bar, 228 bars in all.) This cantata has a more complex history than most and much of it is still only partially understood.

Its genesis lies in a version, now known as C 80a, dating as far back as 1715 at Weimar (Dürr pp 255/6) with the text, the only part to survive, by Salomo Franck (see also C 168, vol 3 chapter 2).

The Wolfs find themselves among like-minded retailers, since their store is in an eclectic shopping center in South Reno, where every store is a small, locally owned business with a distinct personality, including popular restaurants and a wine shop.

“We felt this was a part of town that wasn’t being served with art and jewelry,” Wolf says.

The composition is based on the seven stanzas of the hymn and its tune, which was derived from Medieval models.

Bach used the unchanged words of a stanza of the chorale in each of the seven vocal movements, in the format of chorale variations (for all stanzas), and he used its tune as a cantus firmus.

The two choral movements frame alternating recitatives and arias of three vocal soloists.

Bach also used a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of a choir of trombones, two oboes, strings and continuo.

John Eliot Gardiner describes it as Bach's "first-known attempt at painting narrative in music".

A further setting of this text was made in Bach′s early Leipzig years although opinions differ as to exactly when.

It is thought that this work, lacking the opening chorus as we know it today, was reused around 1730.

With the repeats it has nine phrases, some of which are short and declamatory.

What becomes clear is the fact that Bach, as with C 14, elected to compose a fantasia of even greater complexity and displays of contrapuntal technique than had been apparent in many of his earlier works of this genre.