Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, Meinen Jesum lass ich nicht

Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718 – 1795) was a German music critic, music theorist and composer. During his life he published two volumes of chorale preludes, which contain his only known composition for the organ. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek provides digital copies of these two collections of chorale preludes.

The prelude on the melody of “Meinen Jesum lass ich nicht” is the third composition from the first collection. It is a simple piece in which the right hand plays the choral melody in half notes and the left hand plays an accompaniment in eighth notes. Simple, yet effective. I choose a 16′ reed stop for the left hand part. Using a 16′ reed in this way is something I learned from playing Georg Friedrich Kauffmann’s choral preludes. He wrote the registrations he used by some of them and several of his registrations feature a 16’reed for the left hand. Often also in combination with a quintadena. It’s a combination I had not thought of myself, yet it works really well in compositions like this. And i could not resist the temptation to add the lowest D in the final bar, hopefully Marpurg’s spitir will forgive me for that.

The recording was done with the Hauptwerk software and the sampleset, made by Sonus Paradisi, of the Schittger organ in the St. Martini-kerk, Groningen.

Score
Marpurg, Meinem Jesum lass ich nicht

Performance

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