44 Facts About Johann Pachelbel

Johann Pachelbel 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.

Today, Johann 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.

Johann Pachelbel 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.

Johann Pachelbel preferred a lucid, uncomplicated contrapuntal style that emphasized melodic and harmonic clarity.

Johann Pachelbel's 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.

Johann Pachelbel explored many variation forms and associated techniques, which manifest themselves in various diverse pieces, from sacred concertos to harpsichord suites.

Some sources indicate that Johann Pachelbel studied with Georg Caspar Wecker, organist of the same church and an important composer of the Nuremberg school, but this is considered unlikely.

Johann Mattheson, whose Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte is one of the most important sources of information about Pachelbel's life, mentions that the young Pachelbel demonstrated exceptional musical and academic abilities.

Financial difficulties forced Johann Pachelbel to leave the university after less than a year.

Johann Pachelbel's teacher was Kaspar Prentz, once a student of Johann Caspar Kerll.

Since the latter was greatly influenced by Italian composers such as Giacomo Carissimi, it is likely through Prentz that Johann Pachelbel started developing an interest in contemporary Italian music, and Catholic church music in general.

Johann Pachelbel spent five years in Vienna, absorbing the music of Catholic composers from southern Germany and Italy.

In some respects, Johann Pachelbel is similar to Haydn, who too served as a professional musician of the Stephansdom in his youth and as such was exposed to music of the leading composers of the time.

Johann Pachelbel remained in Erfurt for 12 years and established his reputation as one of the leading German organ composers of the time during his stay.

Johann Pachelbel's duties included organ maintenance and, more importantly, composing a large-scale work every year to demonstrate his progress as composer and organist, as every work of that kind had to be better than the one composed the year before.

Johann Pachelbel initially accepted the invitation but, as a surviving letter indicates, had to reject the offer after a long series of negotiations: it appears that he was required to consult with Erfurt's elders and church authorities before considering any job offers.

Johann Pachelbel's first published work, a set of chorale variations called Musicalische Sterbens-Gedancken, was probably influenced by this event.

One of the daughters, Amalia Johann Pachelbel, achieved recognition as a painter and engraver.

Johann Pachelbel accepted, was released from Gotha in 1695, and arrived in Nuremberg in summer, with the city council paying his per diem expenses.

Johann Pachelbel lived the rest of his life in Nuremberg, during which he published the chamber music collection Musicalische Ergotzung, and, most importantly, the Hexachordum Apollinis, a set of six keyboard arias with variations.

Johann Pachelbel is buried in the St Rochus Cemetery, a Catholic cemetery.

Johann Pachelbel wrote more than two hundred pieces for the instrument, both liturgical and secular, and explored most of the genres that existed at the time.

Johann Pachelbel was 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 Johann Pachelbel exist, although he might have composed many more, particularly while serving as court musician in Eisenach and Stuttgart.

The quality of the organs Johann Pachelbel used played a role: south German instruments were not, as a rule, as complex and as versatile as the north German ones, and Johann Pachelbel's organs must have only had around 15 to 25 stops on two manuals.

Johann Pachelbel employed white mensural notation when writing out numerous compositions ; a notational system that uses hollow note heads and omits bar lines.

Chorale preludes constitute almost half of Johann Pachelbel's surviving organ works, in part because of his Erfurt job duties which required him to compose chorale preludes on a regular basis.

The models Johann Pachelbel used most frequently are the three-part cantus firmus setting, the chorale fugue and, most importantly, a model he invented which combined the two types.

Johann Pachelbel wrote more than one hundred fugues on free themes.

Johann Pachelbel's fugues are almost all based on free themes and it is not yet understood exactly where they fit during the service.

Johann Pachelbel frequently used repercussion subjects of different kinds, with note repetition sometimes extended to span a whole measure.

Johann Pachelbel's chaconnes are distinctly south German in style; the duple meter C major chaconne is reminiscent of Kerll's D minor passacaglia.

In 1699 Johann Pachelbel published Hexachordum Apollinis, a collection of six variations set in different keys.

The final piece, which is the best-known today, is subtitled Aria Sebaldina, a reference to St Sebaldus Church where Johann Pachelbel worked at the time.

About 20 toccatas by Johann Pachelbel survive, including several brief pieces referred to as toccatinas in the Perreault catalogue.

In pairs of preludes and fugues Johann Pachelbel aimed to separate homophonic, improvisatory texture of the prelude from the strict counterpoint of the fugue.

However, Johann Pachelbel's collection was intended for amateur violinists, and scordatura tuning is used here as a basic introduction to the technique.

Already the earliest examples of Johann Pachelbel's vocal writing, two arias "So ist denn dies der Tag" and "So ist denn nur die Treu" composed in Erfurt in 1679 display impressive mastery of large-scale composition and exceptional knowledge of contemporary techniques.

Johann Pachelbel explores a very wide range of styles: psalm settings, chorale concertos, sets of chorale variations, concerted motets, etc.

Distinct features of Johann Pachelbel's vocal writing in these pieces, aside from the fact that it is almost always very strongly tonal, include frequent use of permutation fugues and writing for paired voices.

One of the last middle Baroque composers, Johann 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.

Johann Pachelbel was the last great composer of the Nuremberg tradition and the last important southern German composer.

The latter became one of the first European composers to take up residence in the American colonies and so Johann Pachelbel influenced, although indirectly and only to a certain degree, the American church music of the era.

Much of Johann Pachelbel's work was published in the early 20th century in the Denkmaler der Tonkunst in Osterreich series, but it was not until the rise of interest in early Baroque music in the middle of the 20th century and the advent of historically informed performance practice and associated research that Johann Pachelbel's works began to be studied extensively and again performed more frequently.