Bach’s Frolics slip jig

We’ve had Pachelbel’s Frolics, and now we have Bach’s. Who says classical and trad are incompatible? Melodic motifs of Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring have been butchered and patched back together again in the form of a slip jig. LOL.

Here’s the lyrics:

Jesus bleibet meine Freude,
meines Herzens Trost und Saft,
Jesus wehret allem Leide,
er ist meines Lebens Kraft,
meiner Augen Lust und Sonne,
meiner Seele Schatz und Wonne,
darum laß ich Jesum nicht
aus dem Herzen und Gesicht.

Well, Bach didn’t compose a piano piece “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring.” Someone else rewrote it based on this choral piece.

Wikipedia says “The melody was not composed by Bach, as is often assumed, but by Johann Schop; Bach harmonized Schop’s melody.” Maybe I should change the name!

Right, so Schop composed the slow choral tune, but who composed the jiggy bits? Was it Myra Hess?

Jiggy bits were done by Bach, of course.

That’s what I thought.

It’s clearly no coincidence that his initials were ‘J. S.’ . In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s ‘S. J.’ backwards.

Interesting, Slainte, that, in the German text, ‘Jesu(s)’ is inflected as if it were Latin. Perhaps it is commonplace in German sacred texts, but I’m neither German nor Christian nor a linguist, so I’d never noticed before.

I haven’t noticed that either, but “Jesu” seems to be used as the vocative of “Jesus” in English too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesu