The text of the cantata is a reflection on death, based on "Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben", a Lutheran hymn in five stanzas which Caspar Neumann wrote around 1690.

[18] Caspar Neumann, a professor of Protestant theology and pastor from Breslau, wrote "Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben", a hymn in five stanzas of eight lines, around 1690.

[27][29][30][31] Aimed at the pious Leipzig merchant class for "spiritual recreation" or "refreshment" through music, the simple four-part organ chorales were paired with spinet or clavichord broken-chord variations, in the style brisé, then in vogue.

[38] As Dürr comments, the chorus, with instrumental ensemble of high obbligato flute, two oboes d'amore and downward plucked arpeggios, presents "a sublime vision of the hour of death".

As Schering writes: "Their constant sweet-sounding strains overflow in tenderly articulate, or light and gracefully swelling, figures, which, treated in dialogue form, constitute a stream of almost ceaseless melody".

The staccato repetitive semiquavers of the transverse flute, played at the top of its register, portray pealing bells in Bach's musical iconography—unexpected and unsettling sounds for the listeners.

BWV 20 has biblical references to the Raising of Lazarus, and its tortured mood resonates with boiling cauldrons, devils and hell-fire as depicted in Early Netherlandish morality paintings by Hieronymous Bosch and his contemporaries.

In contrast, the biblical references for BWV 8 are to the Raising of the son of the widow of Nain; instead of instilling fear, it presents a vision where a penitential sinner, despite their unworthiness, can be saved by God's mercy and be rewarded in heaven.

[14] Having taken note of underlying biblical references, Whittaker explains the highly original musical conception for the first movement: "It is virtually a duet for two oboes d'amore, tender and mournful, an example of 'endless melody' long before Wagner coined the term."

Although Whittaker comments on the changes to scoring for the different versions (with solo violins replacing the oboes d'amore, possibly because of technical breathing difficulties), he concludes: "it is wholly unlike any other expansion of a chorale.

Two melodious oboes d'amore, the high-pitched transverse flute and pizzicato strings provide the extensive orchestral passages which are interspersed with each short vocal line of Vetter's chorale.

The 1727 aria Erbarme dich, mein Gott ("Have mercy my God") for alto and violin from the St Matthew Passion is identical melodically, although the phrasing is slightly different.

Mein Leib neigt täglich sich zur Erden, Und da muss seine Ruhstatt werden, Wohin man soviel tausend trägt.

They are characterised by their subdivided beats (e.g. triplets), normally with an upbeat; a joyous and intense mood; jigging rhythms; long phrases without break; and a dance-like lilt.

The other parts of the ritornello involve rapid semiquaver passage work for the flute, often in sequences, as the strings gently accompany either with detached crotchets or long sustained notes.

The new music for the bass singer combines rapid semiquaver runs and turns, detached quavers and long sustained notes; this material is matched to the earlier flute motifs.

Accompanied only by the continuo, the bass then sings the same question to the tune of the triplet scale and arpeggio figures; without pause the flute and strings play a two and a half bar coda similar to the end of the ritornello.

Then, as the bass solo starts to sing the staccato crotchets nichts, the flute commences a motto perpetuo accompaniment with the 'repeating semiquaver motifs' in sequence and sustained strings.

As the flute in a flourish takes up its original jig tune in the relative minor accompanied by short sighs in the strings, the bass sings verkläret with an octave leap and a one and a half bar note for the second syllable.

"[97] Arnold Schering summarises the last movement as follows: "After the mood thus established has been re-asserted by the soprano in a Recitative, there follows the final Chorale—this time arranged on a plan unusual with Bach.

Herrscher über Tod und Leben, Mach einmal mein Ende gut, Lehre mich den Geist aufgeben Mit recht wohlgefasstem Mut!

Hilf, dass ich ein ehrlich Grab Neben frommen Christen hab Und auch endlich in der Erde Nimmermehr zuschanden werde!

In fact, after Bach's death, the music publishing company of Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf, at the 1761 Michaelmas Fair in Leipzig, started to advertise their own catalogue of hand-copied and printed versions of sacred cantatas, at that stage uniquely for feast days.

With a second Breitkopf catalogue for 1770, interest in church music was even more in decline during the second half of the eighteenth century, possibly as a result of changing fashions, with demands for more performable and simpler repertoire.

[116] Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel published the vocal parts of the cantata's closing chorale (BWV 8/6) in the Birnstiel and Breitkopf editions of his father's four-part chorales:[26] Comparing Vetter's four-part setting of his "Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben" melody (1713) to the last movement of Bach's cantata, Winterfeld wrote:[24] Der Tonsatz Vetters über diese seine Melodie, den wir bereits früher mit Bezug auf einen von Joh.

Vetter's setting of this melody of his, which we have already communicated earlier in connection with one by J. S. Bach, (example 97a and b) offers a compelling comparison when the former is held against the latter, while it shows us how, with a few touches and seemingly insignificant modifications, the contemporaneous great master gave the ultimate completion to the praiseworthy realisation of his fellow-artist.

After referring to Vetter's four-part setting, published in 1713, and to Winterfeld's comments about it, Spitta wrote: Bach hat die vierstimmige Arie gekannt, denn eben dieselbe ist es, welche, wenn auch umgearbeitet, so doch in leicht wieder zu erkennender Gestalt den Schluß seiner Cantate ausmacht.

The difficulties in finding students from the university available to perform as instrumentalists was already a problem while Johann Kuhnau was Thomaskantor, responsible for two main churches, the Nikolaikirche and the Thomaskirche, as well as the Neuekirche.

Other musicians such as Johann Nepomuk Schelble, who had conducted a performance of BWV 8 in Frankfurt am Main, considered that eighteenth-century recitatives might no longer be suitable for the public, so could be cut.

"[121][122][123] According to 19th-century hymnologist Carl von Winterfeld, Bach felt more at ease with hymn tunes from a less distant past, such as Crüger's "Jesu, meine Freude" and "Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele", Drese's "Seelenbräutigam" [choralwiki] and Vetter's "Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben", than those by earlier generations of composers, when adopting these chorale melodies in his own compositions: the older melodies go against the grain of how music was experienced in his own time.