In 1684, Johann Schelle, the cantor of St. Thomas's, set the text "Komm, Jesu, komm", written by Paul Thymich for the funeral of Jacob Thomasius, to music in a five-part choral aria (Carus 1.036). Almost 50 years later, Schelle's successor Johann Sebastian Bach took up this text and used the 1st and 11th verses as the basis for his double-choir funeral motet of the same name. However, Bach only sets the first verse of Thymich's text in a double-choir setting; the last verse is also set by Bach in the form of a choral aria. After a particularly striking and difficult passage in movement 1, the motet was nicknamed "Der saure Weg" by the Thomaner.
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