Personalities | Johann Pachelbel | Early Baroque | Classical

(Yo’-han Pakh’-el-bel) 1653–1706
German composer

Pachelbel held the position of court organist at Eisenach (where he taught J. S. Bach’s eldest brother Johann Christoph) before taking up the same post at Erfurt. It was here that he published his first organ music, Musicalischen Sterbens-Gedancken (‘Musical Meditation on Death’, 1683). In 1690 he moved to Stuttgart and then Gotha before becoming organist at the Sebaldkirche in Nuremberg, where he served for the last decade of his life. His chorale-based works, for organ and for voices, illustrate his skill both in imitative part-writing and in ornamental variation. His suites for two violins and continuo – Musicalische Ergötzung – were published in the 1690s and his Hexachordum Apollinis for organ or harpsichord, dedicated to Buxtehude, in 1699. Today he is best known for his three-part canon in D major.

Recommended Recording:
Canon & Gigue, Two Suites, Aria con variazioni; Buxtehude: Three Sonatas, Musica Antiqua Cologne (dir) Reinhard Goebel (Archiv)

Introduction | Early Baroque | Classical
Personalities | Bernardo Pasquini | Early Baroque | Classical

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