Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227

The work

Jesu, meine Freude is one of six works which comprise the generally accepted and most often recorded Bach motet canon (BWV 225–230). These have traditionally been assumed to be written for St Thomas's Church, Leipzig, between 1723 and 1727. For stylistic reasons, one of them, Fürchte dich nicht appears to belong to an earlier stage of Bach's career. If so, Jesu, meine Freude, the "third" in the set, may have been the second to have been composed. There is a hypothesis that it was written for the funeral (on 18 July 1723) of Johanna Maria Käsin, the wife of the Leipzig postmaster. While the words are suitable for a funeral, and from a stylistic point of view the music is generally compatible with a date in the 1720s, recent scholarship suggests that the documentary evidence linking the piece to the funeral in 1723 is not conclusive.

It is the longest and most musically complex of the six. The 5th voice of the chorus is a second soprano part of harmonic richness, adding considerably to the tonal palette of the work as a whole.

The chorale melody on which it is based was by Johann Crüger (1653), and it first appeared in his Praxis pietatis melica. The German text is by Johann Franck, and dates from c. 1650. The words of the movement nos. 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 are based on the Epistle to the Romans 8:1–2, 9–11. The scriptures here speak of Jesus Christ freeing man from sin and death. The chorale text is from the believer's point of view and praises the gifts of Jesus Christ as well as longing for his comforting spirit. It also abounds with stark contrasts between images of heaven and hell, often within a single section. Bach's vivid setting of the words heightens these dramatic contrasts resulting in a motet with an uncommonly wide dramatic range.

Movements

1. Jesu, meine Freude (1st stanza)
2. Es ist nun nichts Verdammliches (based on Romans 8:1,4)
3. Unter deinem Schirmen (2nd stanza)
4. Denn das Gesetz (à 3, based on Romans 8:2)
5. Trotz dem alten Drachen (3rd stanza)
6. Ihr aber seid nicht fleischlich (fugue, based on Romans 8:9)
7. Weg mit allen Schätzen (4th stanza)
8. So aber Christus in euch ist (à 3, based on Romans 8:10)
9. Gute Nacht, o Wesen (à 4, 5th stanza)
10. So nun der Geist (based on Romans 8:11)
11. Weicht, ihr Trauergeister (6th stanza)

A brief guide to the eleven movements follows:

1. Chorale setting, four-part
2. Five-part dramatic chorus, florid variations on the chorale, in the manner of an instrumental ripieno
3. Chorale, with flourishes
4. Setting in the manner of a trio sonata (soprano, soprano, alto).
5. Five-part dramatic chorus, florid variations on the chorale, in the manner of an instrumental ripieno.
6. Five-part double fugue
7. Chorale, with florid variations.
8. Setting in the manner of a trio sonata (alto, tenor, bass)
9. Chorale prelude (soprano, soprano, alto, tenor. The cantus firmus is in the alto).
10. Five-part dramatic chorus (repeats much of #2 with different text)
11. Chorale setting (repeats #1 with different text)

There has been speculation, for example by Daniel Melamed, that the piece incorporates music composed at different times. Whether this is true or not, commentators usually point to a clearly defined structure. An analysis would reveal a balanced musical symmetry around the 6th movement double fugue, with both #3–5 and #7–9 containing a chorale, a trio and a quasi-aria movement, and the work beginning and ending with the identical chorale, albeit to different words.

This can be expressed as a diagram:

Score and publication

The autograph score has not survived. Parts survive from the 1730s. Like most of Bach's output, the music was not published in the composer's lifetime. It first appeared in the early nineteenth century in an edition by Johann Gottfried Schicht.