  We derive a variational model to fit a composite B\'ezier curve to a set of
data points on a Riemannian manifold. The resulting curve is obtained in such a
way that its mean squared acceleration is minimal in addition to remaining
close the data points. We approximate the acceleration by discretizing the
squared second order derivative along the curve. We derive a closed-form,
numerically stable and efficient algorithm to compute the gradient of a
B\'ezier curve on manifolds with respect to its control points, expressed as a
concatenation of so-called adjoint Jacobi fields. Several examples illustrate
the capabilites and validity of this approach both for interpolation and
approximation. The examples also illustrate that the approach outperforms
previous works tackling this problem.
