Herr ich habe missgehandelt

Marpurg's prelude to the chorale "Herr, ich habe misgehandelt" is one of Marpurg's more ambitious compositions. The choral melody is played with the pedals, while the hands play an elaborated accompaniment. The soprano voice derives it's material in the introduction from the choral melody, though a score is needed to recognize this. The motive of sixteenth notes from the first bar of the introduction, is the building block of the accompaniment for the entire composition. It is used in almost every bar of the composition and other material is clearly derived from it, bot inversion and retrograde inversion.

Despite all the sixteenth notes, the three part texture and the many paralel thirds and sixths, the music is actually quite commfortable for the hands to play. Marpurg clearly knew what he was doing, both from a compositorial viewpoint as from a technical viewpoint.

Score available here: http://partitura.org/index.php/friedrich-wilhelm-marpurg-herr-ich-habe-misgehandelt