Essential Pachelbel
For most music lovers, the name Pachelbel is connected with just one work: the immediately recognisable Canon. This Canon (the first movement of his Canon and Gigue in D major, composed for three violins and basso continuo) must count as one of the best known – and most reworked and reused – works of all classical music.
Read more…But Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706) was celebrated during his lifetime primarily for his choral and organ works. Chamber music made up only a small part of the output of this successful organist, influential teacher (his pupils included Johann Christoph Bach) and prolific composer. Pachelbel’s career took in appointments at such significant musical institutions as St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna, the Predigerkirche in Erfurt and St Sebald's in Nuremberg, where he was serving as organist at the time of his death. Like the ubiquitous Canon, his music is generally defined by clarity of expression and an avoidance of unnecessary complication; it focuses on easily flowing melody and counterpoint, and features an emotional range that rarely strays beyond even-tempered equability. But it’s music that also sparkles with life and ingenuity – characteristics that define his best-known work as much as his other chamber music and masterpieces for organ and chorus.