Johann Pachelbel (1653 - 1706) was a German composer,
organist, and teacher who brought the south German
organ schools to their peak. He composed a large body
of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to
the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have
earned him a place among the most important composers
of the middle Baroque era. His music enjoyed enormous
popularity during his lifetime; he had many pupils and
his music became a model for the composers of south and
central German...(+)
Johann Pachelbel (1653 - 1706) was a German composer,
organist, and teacher who brought the south German
organ schools to their peak. He composed a large body
of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to
the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have
earned him a place among the most important composers
of the middle Baroque era. His music enjoyed enormous
popularity during his lifetime; he had many pupils and
his music became a model for the composers of south and
central Germany. Today, Pachelbel is best known for the
Canon in D; other well known works include the Chaconne
in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and the
Hexachordum Apollinis, a set of keyboard
variations.
Pachelbel's Canon (also known as the Canon in D, P 37)
is an accompanied canon by the German Baroque composer
Johann Pachelbel. The canon was originally scored for
three violins and basso continuo and paired with a
gigue, known as Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso
continuo. Both movements are in the key of D major.
Although a true canon at the unison in three parts, it
also has elements of a chaconne. Neither the date nor
the circumstances of its composition are known
(suggested dates range from 1680 to 1706), and the
oldest surviving manuscript copy of the piece dates
from 1838 to 1842.
Like his other works, Pachelbel's Canon went out of
style, and remained in obscurity for centuries. A 1968
arrangement and recording of it by the Jean-François
Paillard chamber orchestra gained popularity over the
next decade, and in the 1970s the piece began to be
recorded by many ensembles; by the early 1980s its
presence as background music was deemed inescapable.
From the 1970s onward, elements of the piece,
especially its chord progression, were used in a
variety of pop songs. Since the 1980s, it has also
found increasingly common use in weddings and funeral
ceremonies in the Western world.
In his lifetime, Pachelbel was renowned for his organ
and other keyboard music, whereas today he is also
recognized as an important composer of church and
chamber music. Little of his chamber music survives,
however. Only Musikalische Ergötzung—a collection of
partitas published during Pachelbel's lifetime—is
known, apart from a few isolated pieces in manuscripts.
The Canon and Gigue in D major is one such piece. A
single 19th-century manuscript copy of them survives,
Mus.MS 16481/8 in the Berlin State Library. It contains
two more chamber suites. Another copy, previously in
Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, is now lost.
The circumstances of the piece's composition are wholly
unknown. Hans-Joachim Schulze, writing in 1985,
suggested that the piece may have been composed for
Johann Christoph Bach's wedding, on 23 October 1694,
which Pachelbel attended. Johann Ambrosius Bach,
Pachelbel, and other friends and family provided music
for the occasion. Johann Christoph Bach, the oldest
brother of Johann Sebastian Bach, was a pupil of
Pachelbel. Another scholar, Charles E. Brewer,
investigated a variety of possible connections between
Pachelbel's and Heinrich Biber's published chamber
music. His research indicated that the Canon may have
been composed in response to a chaconne with canonic
elements which Biber published as part of Partia III of
Harmonia artificioso-ariosa. That would indicate that
Pachelbel's piece cannot be dated earlier than 1696,
the year of publication of Biber's collection. Other
dates of the Canon's composition are occasionally
suggested, for example, as early as 1680
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachelbel%27s_Canon).
Although originally composed for Organ, I created this
Interpretation of the Canon in D Major (P.37) for Flute
& Concert (Pedal) Harp.
PARTITION