Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718-1795)
- Partita Sesta C-Dur (1756)
World Premiere Recording
Performers: Sibelius + Harpsichord samples (edited by Pau NG)
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German critic, journalist, theorist and composer. Gerber claimed that
Marpurg had told him that he lived in Paris around 1746; Carl Spazier
confirmed this, adding that Marpurg was friendly with Voltaire,
D'Alembert and others when he was secretary to a ‘General Bodenburg’.
This is generally assumed to refer to Generallieutenant Friedrich
Rudolph Graf von Rothenburg, a favourite of Frederick the Great and
Prussian emissary to Paris in 1744-45, and the dedicatee of Marpurg's
Der critische Musicus an der Spree (1749-50). From 1749 to 1763 Marpurg
devoted himself almost exclusively to writing and editing books and
periodicals about music and to composing and editing lieder and works
for keyboard. In 1752, at the request of the heirs of J.S. Bach, he
wrote a notable preface for a new edition of Die Kunst der Fuge. In 1755
J.G.I. Breitkopf asked him to review the first work printed with
Breitkopf's improved system of movable type, and subsequently published
many of his works. Their correspondence shows that this was a period of
severe financial difficulties for Marpurg, as do various letters from
Kirnberger to Forkel. Through Kirnberger's efforts Marpurg obtained a
position in the Prussian state lottery in 1763; in 1766 he was appointed
director, a post he held until the end of his life. Though there is
evidence that he continued to review music and engage in other musical
activities after 1763, very little appeared with his signature in his
later years. Marpurg's compositions consist largely of strophic songs of
the kind composed in north Germany in the mid-18th century. He was very
active as a compiler and editor of such songs and of keyboard works
suited to amateur performers. Most of his surviving compositions appear
in these collections; they are competent but not outstanding. In
addition he published a set of six sonatas for keyboard (c.1755), a
collection of fugues (1777) and two collections of chorale preludes. The
sonatas are similar to those composed by C.P.E. Bach in the 1740s, the
fugues are correct in detail and plan but uninteresting, and the chorale
preludes are mostly routine cantus firmus treatments.
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