Composer
Johann Pachelbel
1653–1706
609 works in the index
Johann Pachelbel, a German Baroque composer who was a friend of the Bach family â and, in fact, who taught the organ to Johann Sebastian Bachâs older brother, Johann Christoph, while both families resided in Erfurt in the 1680s â is best known in the 21st century for his 'Canon in D Major', originally scored for three violins and a keyboard. Yet this now-famous Canon made no great impact in Pachelbelâs own time. It was forgotten, and not rediscovered until 1919. The honor of that rediscovery belongs to musicologist Gustav Beckmann. The Canon was first recorded in 1940.
Pachelbel composed much else, including a collection of four chorales with variations, entitled Musicaliscbe Sterbensgedancken (Musical Thoughts on Death), and published in Erfurt in 1683.
He spent the final years of his life in Nuremberg as the organist of the St. Sebaldus Church, where he composed a set of Magnificat fugues. He is regarded as one of the key figures in the development of the fugue.
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