Part of a project for Emmanuel Music's 50th anniversary season that included commissioning four local composers: John Harbison, Kati Agocs, Jonathan Bailey Holland, and Yehudi Wyner, to create a cappella motets directly inspired by four cantatas (BWV 1, 4, 14, and 140). The project was delayed by COVID. The Mystery is a motet written as a prelude to Bach’s Cantata No. 4, Christ lag in Todesbanden.