A piece almost everyone is familiar with. This group I sometimes perform with made this sample recording of our playing that will be used to promote ourselves for gigs such as weddings, parties, and other social events. We made a few of these recordings so there will be a few more pieces on the way. The instrumentation is Piano, Two Violins, and Cello. I am the pianist. I also produced this recording. Enjoy!

Program Notes:
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring is a movement from the cantata, "Herz und Mund und Tat
und Leben," by Johann Sebastian Bach, and was written during his time in Leipzig,
Germany. This movement uses the chorale melody Werde munter, mein Gemüthe, a
melody that was not composed by Bach, as is often assumed. It is rather a creation by
Johann Schop of which Bach later harmonized. Bach wrote a total of 200 cantatas during his time in Leipzig, largely due to the fact
that Leipzig Churches would go through an average of 58 different cantatas each year.
Though in modern day the piece is often employed in weddings, this is in no way
related to the scope of the piece, nor was it intended to be a wedding piece upon
composition. The cantata was composed to be an extended treatment of a traditional
Church hymn, resulting in a length of approximately 20 minutes, which is to be
expected of cantatas of the Baroque period. Even though various transcriptions of this piece have been made for many different types of instrumental and vocal combinations, the original piece was written for a trumpet, an oboe, an organ and strings.