Johann Christoph 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.
Pachelbel's music enjoyed enormous popularity during
his lifetime; he had many pupils and his music became a
model for the composer...(+)
Johann Christoph 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.
Pachelbel's 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, as
well as the Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor
for organ, and the Hexachordum Apollinis, a set of
keyboard variations.
He was influenced by southern German composers, such as
Johann Jakob Froberger and Johann Caspar Kerll,
Italians such as Girolamo Frescobaldi and Alessandro
Poglietti, French composers, and the composers of the
Nuremberg tradition. He preferred a lucid,
uncomplicated contrapuntal style that emphasized
melodic and harmonic clarity. His music is less
virtuosic and less adventurous harmonically than that
of Dieterich Buxtehude, although, like Buxtehude,
Pachelbel experimented with different ensembles and
instrumental combinations in his chamber music and,
most importantly, his vocal music, much of which
features exceptionally rich instrumentation. Pachelbel
explored many variation forms and associated
techniques, which manifest themselves in various
diverse pieces, from sacred concertos to harpsichord
suites.
One of the last middle Baroque composers, Pachelbel did
not have any considerable influence on most of the
famous late Baroque composers, such as George Frideric
Handel, Domenico Scarlatti or Georg Philipp Telemann.
However, he did influence Johann Sebastian Bach
indirectly; the young Johann Sebastian was tutored by
his older brother Johann Christoph Bach, who studied
with Pachelbel, but although J.S. Bach's early chorales
and chorale variations borrow from Pachelbel's music,
the style of northern German composers, such as Georg
Böhm, Dieterich Buxtehude, and Johann Adam Reincken,
played a more important role in the development of
Bach's talent.
During his lifetime, Pachelbel was best known as an
organ composer. He wrote more than two hundred pieces
for the instrument, both liturgical and secular, and
explored most of the genres that existed at the time.
Pachelbel was also a prolific vocal music composer:
around a hundred of such works survive, including some
40 large-scale works. Only a few chamber music pieces
by Pachelbel exist, although he might have composed
many more, particularly while serving as court musician
in Eisenach and Stuttgart.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Pachelbel).
Although originally composed for Organ, I created this
Arrangement of the Ricercare in C Major (P. 418) for
String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
SHEET MUSIC