Synopsis

On today’s date in 1706, German composer and organist Johann Pachelbel was buried in Nuremberg, the town where he was born 53 years earlier.

In his day, Pachelbel was regarded as an innovative composer of Protestant church music and works for harpsichord and organ. He was acquainted with the Bach family, and was, in fact, the teacher of the teacher of J.S. Bach, and served as godfather to one J.S. Bach’s older relatives.

Pachelbel would be pretty much forgotten by most music lovers until late in the 20th century, when an orchestral arrangement of a little canon he had written would suddenly become one of the best-known classical themes of our time. In 1979, American composer George Rochberg even included variations on Pachelbel’s famous Canon as the third movement of his own String Quartet No. 6.

Like Bach, some of Pachelbel’s children also became composers, and one of them, Karl Teodorus Pachelbel, emigrated from Germany to the British colonies of North America. As “Charles Theodore Pachelbel,” he became an important figure in the musical life of early 18th century Boston and Charleston, and died there in 1750, the same year as J.S. Bach.

Music Played in Today's Program

George Rochberg (1918-2005): Variations on the Pachelbel Canon; Concord String Quartet; RCA/BMG 60712