Come, Jesu, come

In 1684 Johann Schelle, the Kantor of St. Thomas’s, set to music “Komm, Jesu, komm”, a five-part choral aria written by Paul Thymich for the funeral of the Rector of St. Thomas’s (Carus 1.036/00). Almost 50 years later, Schelle’s successor-but-one Johann Sebastian Bach drew on this text and used the 1st and 11th verses for his double-choir funeral motet of the same name. But Bach only set the first verse of Thymich’s text for double choir; he set the last verse in the form of a choral aria. The motet was given the nickname “Der saure Weg” (The sour path) by the choirboys of St. Thomas’s because of its particularly distinctive and tricky passage in the first movement.