[6] Bach's duties as a church musician involved some responsibility for choral music, but the exact year he began composing cantatas is unknown.

Christ lag in Todes Banden is the only exception, but was most likely composed not for Arnstadt but for an application to a more important post at the church of Divi Blasii in Mühlhausen.

[7] Christ lag in Todes Banden shows similarities to a composition of Johann Pachelbel based on the same Easter chorale.

[14] Features characteristic of his later cantatas, such as recitatives and arias on contemporary poetry, were not yet present,[15] although Bach may have heard them in oratorios by Buxtehude, or even earlier.

The final stanza recalls the tradition of baking and eating Easter Bread, with the "old leaven" alluding again to the exodus, in contrast to the "Word of Grace",[25] concluding "Christ would ... alone nourish the soul.

[26] Christ lag in Todes Banden survives in a version from the 1720s when Bach held the position of Thomaskantor (director of church music) in Leipzig.

It is known that Bach performed a cantata of his own composition at Easter in 1707 as a part of his application for the post of organist of Divi Blasii in Mühlhausen, and this may have been Christ lag in Todes Banden.

Wolff notes that Bach possibly sent two other cantata scores with his application, and once he knew the date of the audition may have composed Christ lag in Todes Banden in addition.

[3] The title of the original parts of the first Leipzig performance is (in Johann Christoph Altnickol's handwriting): "Feria Paschatos / Christ lag in Todes Banden / a.4.

Joh.Seb.Bach",[31][b] In this late version, Bach scored the work for four vocal parts (soprano (S), alto (A), tenor (T), and bass (B)), and a Baroque instrumental ensemble consisting of strings, brass and continuo.

[24][35] A new version was published by Luther in 1524 and adapted by Johann Walter in his Wittenberg hymnal for choir, Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn (1524).

The cantata begins with an instrumental sinfonia a work in the style of an overture to a contemporary Venetian opera, with chordal passages and occasional polyphony.

[4] The final Halleluja is faster, giving up the fantasia format for a four-part fugue in motet style, with all instruments doubling the voices.

[33] The second stanza, "Den Tod niemand zwingen kunnt" (No one could defeat death),[2] is set as a soprano and alto duet, over an ostinato continuo.

[39] "Es war ein wunderlicher Krieg, da Tod und Leben rungen" (It was a strange battle, that death and life waged),[2] is the center of the symmetrical structure.

The alto sings the cantus firmus, transposed by a fifth to B-Dorian,[38] while the other voices follow each other in a fugal stretto with entries just a beat apart until they fall away one by one.

[40] Stanza five, "Hier ist das rechte Osterlamm" (Here is the true Easter-lamb),[2] is sung by the bass alone, accompanied at first by a descending chromatic line in the continuo which has been compared to the Crucifixus of the Mass in B minor, but changing to "a dance-like passage of continuous eighth notes" when the voice enters.

[38] Taruskin describes this: "With its antiphonal exchanges between the singer and the massed strings ... this setting sounds like a parody of a passacaglia-style Venetian opera aria, vintage 1640".

[41] "So feiern wir das hohe Fest" (So we celebrate the high festival),[2] is a duet for soprano and tenor accompanied only by the ostinato continuo.

[41] Bach incorporates the solemn rhythms of the French overture into this verse, reflecting the presence of the word "feiern" (celebrate) in the text.

[33] Bach's original setting of the final stanza, "Wir essen und leben wohl" (We eat and live well),[2] is lost; it may have been a repeat of the opening chorus.

It bears a comment on page 178: "Nach den auf der Thomasschule befindlichen / Original / : Autograph: / Stimmen in Partitur gebracht.

[43] Half a century later a vocal score of the cantata appeared in Novello's Original Octavo Edition, under the title Christ Lay in Death's Dark Prison.

[45] Henry S. Drinker's translation Christ lay by death enshrouded appeared in a score edited by Arnold Schering and published by Eulenburg in 1932.

[47] Breitkopf & Härtel, the publisher of the BGA, produced various editions of the cantata separately, for instance in 1968 a vocal score with Arno Schönstedt's piano reduction and Charles Sanford Terry's translation (Christ lay in Death's grim prison).

[31][42] Also in the 21st century, Serenissima Music published a vocal score of Christ lag in Todes Banden compatible with Kalmus' performance material based on the BGA.

The first recording was a Catalan version arranged by Francesc Pujol with Lluís Millet conducting the Orfeó Català: this 1931 performance was released on three 78 rpm discs by the label "La Voz de su Amo" (His Master's Voice) in 1932.

[21] Nikolaus Harnoncourt recorded Christ lag in Todes Banden in 1971 in a historically informed performance with original instruments and male singers (the upper two parts are sung by boys and the countertenor Paul Esswood).

[21] Christ lag in Todes Banden has since been included in the other "complete sets", conducted by Rilling, Gardiner, Koopman, Leusink, and Suzuki (details of these recordings are given in the discography article).

[21] Music from the cantata was performed as early as 1914 at the Proms (at that time held in the Queen's Hall), although the complete work was not heard in this concert series until 1978, when it was given at St Augustine's church, Kilburn.