1653–1706 · Germany · Baroque
Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706) was a German Baroque composer and organist who was born and died in Nuremberg. His most famous piece is the Canon in D, yet he also wrote chorale preludes, fugues, toccatas and variations. The site has sheet music for his Canon, his Magnificat fugues and the chorale "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott".
Pachelbel was born in Nuremberg, the son of the wine merchant Johann (Hans) Pachelbel and his second wife Anna Maria Mair. When exactly he was born nobody knows; the record shows only that the boy was baptised in September 1653. Among his brothers was an older one, Johann Matthäus, who was Kantor in Feuchtwangen, near Nuremberg. Johann's first music lessons came from Heinrich Schwemmer, the cantor of St. Sebaldus Church.
The boy stood out not only in music but also in his school subjects. While still a teenager he entered the University of Altdorf and at the same time served as organist at one of the churches. But money was short, and after less than a year he had to leave the university.
To carry on his education, Pachelbel won a scholarship place at the Gymnasium poeticum in Regensburg. The school's management thought so highly of his abilities that it took him on above its usual number of pupils and let him study music away from the school as well. His teacher was Kaspar Prentz, a pupil of Johann Caspar Kerll.
By 1673 Pachelbel was living in Vienna and working as deputy organist at St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna was the capital of the Habsburg lands, with a taste for Italian music. He stayed for several years, getting to know the music of Catholic composers of southern Germany and Italy. In 1673 Johann Caspar Kerll also moved to Vienna; he may have known Pachelbel or even taught him, and Pachelbel's music shows traces of Kerll's style. A Lutheran himself, Pachelbel nevertheless absorbed something of Catholic music, which left its mark on his works. Like Haydn, who also served as a musician at the cathedral in his youth, he heard the works of the leading composers of his day.
In 1677 Pachelbel moved to Eisenach and became court organist to Johann Georg, Duke of Saxe-Eisenach. There he grew close to the Bach family: he became a friend of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the father of Johann Sebastian, and taught his children.
He spent only a year in Eisenach. The Duke's brother died, and during the mourning the court's musicians were cut back sharply, which left Pachelbel jobless. Kapellmeister Daniel Eberlin, also from Nuremberg, wrote him a testimonial, and on 18 May 1678 Pachelbel left the city.
In June 1678 Pachelbel took the post of organist at the Predigerkirche in Erfurt, following Johann Effler, and held it for twelve years. Under his contract he had to write chorale preludes for the services, maintain the organ and offer a new large work every year. In Erfurt he became one of the best-known German composers of his time.
The friendship with the Bachs continued: Pachelbel became godfather to Johanna Juditha, daughter of Johann Ambrosius, and taught his son Johann Christoph Bach, the elder brother of Johann Sebastian. At first he lived in Erfurt in the house of Johann Christian Bach, and after the owner died in 1682 he bought that house from his widow in June 1684. In 1686 he was offered a post as organist in Sondershausen; after long negotiations he turned it down, was given a raise and stayed another four years.
Pachelbel married twice in Erfurt. He wed his first wife, Barbara Gabler, on 25 October 1681; she and their son died in the plague of 1683. In 1684 he married Judith Drommer; they had five sons and two daughters. The sons Wilhelm Hieronymus and Charles Theodore became organ composers, and Charles Theodore later moved to the American colonies. The son Johann Michael was an instrument maker in Nuremberg who journeyed as far as London and Jamaica, while the daughter Amalia became a painter and engraver. In 1683 his first published work appeared in Erfurt, the chorale variations "Musikalische Sterbens-Gedanken"; the title may be connected with the death of his first wife.
Despite his success, Pachelbel asked for his release, apparently hoping for a better post. He was let go on 15 August 1690, and in under three weeks he was already serving as court organist to Duchess Magdalena Sibylla in Stuttgart. The post was better than the one in Erfurt, but soon the threat of a French invasion forced the musician to flee.
Pachelbel returned to Nuremberg and from there went to Gotha, where he became town organist. In 1693 his collection of eight chorales, "Acht Chorale zum Praeambulieren", was published. It included chorales written on old models too.
On 20 April 1695 Georg Caspar Wecker, the organist of St. Sebaldus Church in Nuremberg, died. The city authorities were so eager to have Pachelbel in his place that, against custom, they did not hold a competition but sent him an official invitation. He accepted and in the summer of 1695 returned to his native city.
Pachelbel lived in Nuremberg for the rest of his life. In 1699 the "Hexachordum Apollinis" was published here, a collection of six themes with variations that is counted among the composer's masterpieces. In his last years he also wrote more than ninety short fugues for the Magnificat.
Among Pachelbel's chamber music, the collection "Musicalische Ergötzung" is well known: six suites for two violins and basso continuo, published after 1695. The violins are tuned in an unusual way (scordatura), but the set was meant for amateur violinists, and here the device serves as a first introduction to the technique.
Pachelbel had many pupils, and composers in southern and central Germany took his music as a model. One of his pupils was Johann Heinrich Buttstett, another Johann Valentin Eckelt, whose Tabulaturbuch contains the only known autographs of Pachelbel.
Pachelbel died in Nuremberg in early March 1706 and was buried in St. Rochus Cemetery. During the composer's lifetime his organ works came first, while the Canon in D won no recognition in its day and became famous in the West only much later.
During Pachelbel's lifetime it was his organ music that earned him most renown, with over two hundred pieces. He also wrote sacred and secular vocal music, Magnificat settings, motets, concertos, and suites and variations for harpsichord. Only a few chamber pieces survive.
His style took shape under the influence of Italian and southern German composers; Froberger, Kerll and some French composers also influenced him. Pachelbel preferred a clear, uncomplicated polyphony in which both melody and harmony are easy to hear. Variation form interested him most: chaconnes, chorale variations and the Canon in D are built on it.
Much of Pachelbel's church music, the chorale preludes above all, is fairly plain and needs no pedal, only the manuals. That suited home instruments such as the virginals and clavichord, which accompanied hymn singing. In these pieces the hymn tune is easy to pick out, usually in the soprano or the bass.
He introduced the short chorale fugue, in which the subject is the opening of the chorale melody and a chorale in three or four voices follows; this scheme soon became standard. Among his fugues the short Magnificat fugues, grouped by the eight church modes, have a special place. Pachelbel was also one of the first to pair a fugue with a short piece before it, a prelude or a toccata.
Pachelbel wrote about twenty toccatas, and most of them are fairly accessible; the toccatas in E minor and C minor are more demanding. Of his six organ chaconnes, the one in F minor is named as one of the best. In 1699 the "Hexachordum Apollinis" was published: six themes with variations that can be played on the harpsichord or the organ.
The site's sheet music catalogue has "Canon in D" for solo violin ("Beginner+" level), "Fugues on the Magnificat III. 7." for piano ("Medium" level) and the chorale "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" for organ (also "Medium"). Pachelbel's short fugues are generally brief and simple in structure, so after the Canon it makes sense to move on to them.