Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

Sometimes, I wonder just what I can get away with on this blog; and then I realize that I can get away with just about anything, as long as it's not factually incorrect.  Yes, that's Celtic Woman.  I'm almost sorry for posting it, but then again, after the atrocity that was "Handel's Messiah Rocks," this is just about beautiful and tasteful.  Yet another case of a piece with no delusions of grandeur becoming a beloved piece of music (and easily a Top Five contender in terms of wedding marches, though I've always privately wondered how one processes down the aisle in 9/8 time...), "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" does deserve the attention heaped upon it - though I must say, I'm not entirely sure anyone actually deserves Celtic Woman.

I've always wondered what wigless Bach looked like...

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany.  He was the youngest son of Johann Ambrosius Bach, a professional musician.  In fact, his whole damn family was comprised of professional musicians - his uncle taught him the rudiments of organ playing, and when he was orphaned at age 10, his older brother Johann Christoph (apparently, they were much more conservative with names in the 17th century) took him in and taught him more music fundamentals.  At 14, he received a scholarship to the St. Michael's School in Lüneburg, graduating at 18.  When he was twenty (which is a very good age for undertaking adventures such as this), Bach walked 250 miles to hear Dieterich Buxtehude, a prominent organist and composer, perform.  Buxtehude's work clearly impressed young Bach, and he stayed several months to learn from the older man.  His first grown-up job at Weimar began in 1708 and continued until his dismissal in 1717 (after being imprisoned for a solid month due to his disputes with The Man at Weimar - Bach was never particularly known for being an agreeable man).

In 1721, he met Anna Magdalena, married her that year and eventually had thirteen children with her.  Add that to the seven had had from his previous marriage and you have a very productive man.  True to the Bach heritage, many of his children became musicians and composers in their own right, including Carl Philip Emmanuel and Johann Christian (again with the Johann...), the latter of which moved to London and became friends with (and influenced) one young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  It all comes around, doesn't it?

From 1723 until his death, Bach worked in Leipzig as the Cantor of the Thomasschule (or Thomas School) at St. Thomas Church, and as part of the job, he had to conduct a cantata each Sunday.  True to form, he took it upon himself to write new works most of the time, eventually composing upwards of 200 of them.  At the end of his life, he began to go blind and opted for eye surgery, which was a huge gamble in the mid-eighteenth century.  Unfortunately, it was a gamble that cost him his life, and he died in 1750 at the age of 65 from complications due to that surgery.  To add posthumous insult to, well, death, his music was almost entirely ignored for nearly eighty years by the general public.  Composers, for the most part, revered him (Beethoven declared him the Father of Harmony, for one), but the public saw his work as old-fashioned and even stodgy.  Between you and me, though, I don't think Bach would have minded either of those two adjectives.  In 1829, though, Felix Mendelssohn performed Bach's St. Matthew Passion for the first time since the 18th century, and that set in motion a chain of events that led to Bach becoming one of the world's best-known and most-loved composers.

Let it be known that this is the first useful picture on this blog.

Before discussing "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," we must, unfortunately, discuss the cantata.  I say 'unfortunately' because 'cantata,' much like 'opera' and 'oratorio,' is another one of those fussy categorizing words that (in my humble opinion) tends to do less good than is hoped.  And again, much like the opera and oratorio, the roots of the musical form start with good intentions.  At the beginning of its existence, the cantata ("sung" in Italian) was a form of vocal chamber music, with one or two solo voices, a continuo and maybe a few solo instruments as well.  Continuo is usually a keyboard of some kind and perhaps a low string instrument such as a cello, playing figured bass (a bass line with notes plus numbers, sharps, and flats below each note to show what chords above the bass line should be played, assuming that a major chord, or notes 3 and 5 above the bass, is 'normal' - in the case of the picture above, the '6' below the second bass note is shown because C is six notes above E in the bass line, but the G is three notes above, which is still 'normal'... ya follow me?).

This would be a nice distinction, except for the fact that nothing can ever be a nice distinction when it comes to musical terms.  Cantatas became more and more theatrical, and in Bach's case, sometimes became indistinguishable from opera scenes and oratorios.  It is said that Bach never wrote an opera, which is technically true - he did, however, compose a 'cantata' about a young woman's coffee addiction, complete with arias, duets, and recitatives.  Furthermore, Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" is simply six separate cantatas bound into one whole.  One way cantatas can be distinguished, however, is their length - they tend to be shorter than operas and oratorios - so if you're ever presented with a short vocal piece in several movements that may or may not include a choir, you can pretty safely call it a cantata without incurring the wrath of someone who's decided they know more than you about classical music.

I didn't know people actually did this.

"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" is the tenth and final movement of Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and Mind and Deed and Life), composed in 1716 during Bach's Weimar days.  The German title of the movement is "Jesus bleibet meine Freude," or "Jesus shall remain my gladness" - similar enough, but perhaps a bit more selfish.  The melody was actually written by one Johann Schop, and Bach liked it so much that he used it again in the St. Matthew Passion.  Its simple beauty gives it a heart-wrenching quality, and though Bach intended it to be performed at a rather brisk tempo, the slow, meditative pace used in most performances these days gives the piece an element of the sublime.  Hey - if it's good enough for Celtic Woman, it's good enough for me.

Further listening:

Interested in the advent of the cantata?  Try "Mad Bess" by Henry Purcell (sung by Drew Minter): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUwCKkDIsRw

Like beautiful pieces by Bach that aren't actually by Bach?  Try "Bist du bei mir" by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (sung by Laura Heims): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWnEUzUizkI

Like Bach, and also happiness?  Try "Wir eilen mit schwachen" from Jesu, der du meine Seele:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY3XAPqGy_Q&feature=related