Rather than using the archaic “Jesu,” it has been replaced with “Christ.” One significant change is the first word: the anglicized pronunciation of “Jesus” doesn’t seem to match the stateliness of the text. It is a metricized paraphrase of the German, with an emphasis both on translational similarity and singability. The textual content bears no relation to the original German used in Bach’s cantata.īelow is a new English text for church use. The text that is now commonly associated with Bach’s music, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” was penned by Robert Bridges and first appeared in the Yattendon Hymnal, 1899. The text Bach uses in his cantata is from the sixteenth stanza of a hymn by Martin Jahn (1661), “Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne (Jesus, My Soul’s Wonder)”: The music appears in his cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and Mouth and Deeds and Life), BWV 147, composed in 1723. It was Bach who harmonized the hymn and set it against the well-known counter-melody that is the staple of every wedding musician. One of Bach’s best-known pieces is commonly referred to today as “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” The hymn tune actually predates Bach, and was known in his day as Werde munter, mein Gemüthe, composed by Johann Schop. Bach’s “Jesus bleibet meine Freude” here. View and download a new performing edition of J.S.
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