In December 1955, the Cultural Circle of the Federation of German Industries invites ten young composers to submit a song cantata to the melody

a song cantata to the melody "Du mein einzig Licht" for mixed choir, strings and flute . There are no stylistic restrictions except for one verse, which should be set in a diatonic, pure four-part a.c. setting.

The deadline for submissions was 30 April 1956. Hummel was also asked for a simple song cantata for the "Christophorus-Chorwerk" series, edited by Fritz Schieri (1922-2009) at the Freiburg publishing house Herder. He then submitted Du mein einzig Licht and received the following message from the publisher Josef Diewald on 18 October 1956: " Yesterday, Mr Schieri sent us back the song cantata Du mein einzig Licht. He likes the style of the piece very much. He only has serious reservations about including it in the Christophorus choral programme because of the rather demanding scoring and the difficulty of the flute in particular. However, we must share these reservations. Would it not be possible, dear Mr Hummel, that you could suggest something else to Mr Schieri that would be easier to realise for the youth and church choirs? We understand each other correctly, it is not a judgement on the cantata if we have to refrain from publishing it in the choral works. But it shows that we must not overtax the forces in the choirs, which all draw from us. The work will not be performed.