Pachelbel's Canon (also known as the Canon in D, P 37) is an accompanied canon by the German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel. The canon was originally scored for three violins and basso continuo and paired with a gigue, known as Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso continuo. Both movements are in the key of D major. Although a true canon at the unison in three parts, it also has elements of a chaconne. Neither the date nor the circumstances of its composition are known (suggested dates range from 1680 to 1706), and the oldest surviving manuscript copy of the piece dates from 1838 to 1842.[1]
Like his other works, Pachelbel's Canon went out of style, and remained in obscurity for centuries. A 1968 arrangement and recording of it by the Jean-François Paillard chamber orchestra gained popularity over the next decade, and in the 1970s the piece began to be recorded by many ensembles; by the early 1980s its presence as background music was deemed inescapable.[2] From the 1970s onward, elements of the piece, especially its chord progression, were used in a variety of pop songs. Since the 1980s, it has also found increasingly common use in weddings and funeral ceremonies in the Western world.[3][4]
Creation
In his lifetime, Pachelbel was renowned for his organ and other keyboard music, whereas today he is also recognized as an important composer of church and chamber music.[5] Little of his chamber music survives, however. Only Musikalische Ergötzung—a collection of partitas published during Pachelbel's lifetime—is known, apart from a few isolated pieces in manuscripts. The Canon and Gigue in D major is one such piece. A single 19th-century manuscript copy of them survives, Mus.MS 16481/8 in the Berlin State Library. It contains two more chamber suites. Another copy, previously in Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, is now lost.[6]
The circumstances of the piece's composition are wholly unknown. Hans-Joachim Schulze, writing in 1985, suggested that the piece may have been composed for Johann Christoph Bach's wedding, on 23 October 1694, which Pachelbel attended. Johann Ambrosius Bach, Pachelbel, and other friends and family provided music for the occasion.[7] Johann Christoph Bach, the oldest brother of Johann Sebastian Bach, was a pupil of Pachelbel. Another scholar, Charles E. Brewer, investigated a variety of possible connections between Pachelbel's and Heinrich Biber's published chamber music. His research indicated that the Canon may have been composed in response to a chaconne with canonic elements which Biber published as part of Partia III of Harmonia artificioso-ariosa. That would indicate that Pachelbel's piece cannot be dated earlier than 1696, the year of publication of Biber's collection.[8] Other dates of the Canon's composition are occasionally suggested, for example, as early as 1680.[9]
Rediscovery and rise to fame
The canon (without the accompanying gigue) was first published in 1919 by scholar Gustav Beckmann, who included the score in his article on Pachelbel's chamber music.[10] His research was inspired and supported by early music scholar and editor Max Seiffert, who in 1929 published his arrangement of the "Canon and Gigue" in his Organum series.[11] However, that edition contained numerous articulation marks and dynamics not in the original score. Furthermore, Seiffert provided tempi he considered right for the piece, but that were not supported by later research.[12] The canon was first recorded in 1940 by Arthur Fiedler.[13]
In 1968, the Jean-François Paillard chamber orchestra made a recording of the piece that would change its fortunes significantly.[2] This rendition was done in a more Romantic style, at a significantly slower tempo than it had been played at before, and contained obbligato parts, written by Paillard.[2] The Paillard recording was released in June in France by Erato Records as part of an LP record that also included the Trumpet Concerto by Johann Friedrich Fasch and other works by Pachelbel and Fasch, all played by the Jean-François Paillard chamber orchestra. Paillard's interpretation of the canon was also included on a widely distributed album by the mail-order label Musical Heritage Society in 1968.
In July 1968, Greek band Aphrodite's Child released the single "Rain and Tears", which was a baroque-rock adaptation of Pachelbel's Canon.[14] The band was based in France at the time, although it is unknown whether they had heard the Paillard recording, or were inspired by it. "Rain and Tears" was a success, reaching number 1 on the pop charts of various European countries. Several months later, in October 1968, Spanish band Pop-Tops released the single "Oh Lord, Why Lord", which again was based on Pachelbel's Canon.[15] Again, it is unknown whether they were aware of or had been inspired by the releases from earlier that year. "Oh Lord, Why Lord" was covered by American band Parliament on their 1970 album Osmium.
In 1970, a classical radio station in San Francisco played the Paillard recording and became inundated by listener requests. The piece gained growing fame, particularly in California.[16] In 1974, London Records, aware of the interest in the piece, reissued a 1961 album of the CorelliChristmas Concerto performed by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, which happened to contain the piece, now re-titled to Pachelbel Kanon: the Record That Made it Famous and other Baroque Favorites.[16] The album was the highest-selling classical album of 1976.[17] Its success led to many other record labels issuing their own recordings of the work, many of which also sold well.[16]
Its use from 1975 in television ads for Pure New Wool popularised the piece in Britain and Ireland.[18]
In 1977, the RCA Red Seal label reissued the original Erato album in the United States and elsewhere. In the U.S. it was the 6th-highest-selling classical album of 1977. (Two other albums containing Pachelbel's Canon charted for the year: the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra album at number 17, and another album featuring the Paillard recording, Go For Baroque!, at number 13.)[19] The Paillard arrangement of the piece was then featured prominently in the soundtrack of the 1980 film Ordinary People.[2] The Erato/RCA album kept climbing the Billboard Classical Albums chart, and in January 1982 it reached the number 1 position,[2] where it remained until May 1982, when it was knocked out of first place by an album featuring Pachelbel's Canon played by the Academy of Ancient Music directed by Christopher Hogwood.[20] The canon was selected for the soundtrack of Carl Sagan's popular 1980 American PBS television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, and the astronomer cited this work as one of his Desert Island Discs on the BBC on 18 July 1981.[21] In 1981 The Music of Cosmos, an album by RCA Records, and in 2000 a CD by the Cosmos Studios label of the soundtrack were published, that feature an arrangement of the canon by Glenn Spreen and James Galway.[22][23]
In 1982, pianist George Winston included his "Variations on the Kanon by Johann Pachelbel" on his solo piano album December, which has sold over three million copies.[24]
Analysis
.
The canon is in three voices spaced by a span of two measures; it unfolds over an ostinato in the bass which provides the harmonic basis for the piece, implying a progression of eight chords:
The harmonic progression follows a sequential pattern known as the Romanesca, which according to Robert Gjerdingen was a common schema during the 17th and 18th centuries.[25]
In Germany, Italy and France of the 17th century, some pieces built on an ostinato bass were called chaconnes or passacaglias; such works sometimes incorporate some form of variation in the upper voices. While some writers consider each of the 28 statements of the ground bass a separate variation,[5] one scholar finds that Pachelbel's canon is constructed of just 12 variations, mostly four bars in length, and describes them as follows:[26]
(bars 43–46) dotted rhythms and sixteenth-note patterns on upper neighbor notes
(bars 47–50) syncopated quarter- and eighth-note rhythm
(bars 51–56) eighth-note octave leaps
Pachelbel's canon thus merges a strict polyphonic form (the canon) and a variation form (the chaconne). Pachelbel skillfully constructs the variations to make them "both pleasing and subtly undetectable."[26]
Gigue
The gigue is set in 12 8 time and consists of 2 equal sections of 10 bars each. Unlike the canon, the gigue neither has a repeating bass voice nor a set chord progression. The gigue exhibits fugal writing, with each section introducing a brief melodic statement which is then imitated in the other voices.
Parodies
In its August 17, 1981, issue the magazine The New Yorker published a cartoon by Mick Stevens captioned "Prisoner of Pachelbel",[27] in which a prisoner hears over the loudspeaker: "For your listening pleasure, we once again present Pachelbel's Canon."[2]
In 2017, BBC Radio 4 sketch show John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme featured a sketch entitled "One Hit Wonder" in which Pachelbel is annoyed by the fact the only thing people know him for is his Canon. The same episode features a parody called "Loose Canon" in which Pachelbel sings about his frustrations to the tune of the Canon.[28]
Several months after the Paillard recording was released, two groups released successful singles with a backing track based on Pachelbel's Canon: Greek band Aphrodite's Child with "Rain and Tears"[14] and Spanish group Pop-Tops with "Oh Lord, Why Lord".[15]
In 2002, pop music producer Pete Waterman described Canon in D as "almost the godfather of pop music because we've all used that in our own ways for the past 30 years". He also said that Kylie Minogue's 1988 UK number one hit single "I Should Be So Lucky", which Waterman co-wrote and co-produced, was inspired by Canon in D.[29]The Farm's 1990 single "All Together Now" has its chord sequence lifted directly from Pachelbel's Canon.[9]
In 2012, the UK-based Co-Operative Funeralcare compiled a list of the most popular, classical, contemporary and religious music across 30,000 funerals. Canon in D placed second on the Classical chart, behind Edward Elgar's "Nimrod".[4]
Johann Pachelbel was a German composer, organist, and teacher who brought the south German organ schools to their peak. He 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.
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a musical composition for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also have been the first performer of the work.
Dieterich Buxtehude was a Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period, whose works are typical of the North German organ school. As a composer who worked in various vocal and instrumental idioms, Buxtehude's style greatly influenced other composers, such as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Buxtehude is considered one of the most important composers of the 17th century.
In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces include classical compositions such as Ravel's Boléro and the Carol of the Bells, and popular songs such as Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's "I Feel Love" (1977), Henry Mancini's theme from Peter Gunn (1959), The Who's "Baba O'Riley" (1971), The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" (1997), and Flo Rida's "Low" (2007).
A chaconne is a type of musical composition often used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line which offers a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and melodic invention. In this it closely resembles the passacaglia. It originates and was particularly popular in the Baroque era; a large number of Chaconnes exist from the 17th- and 18th- centuries.
The passacaglia is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used today by composers. It is usually of a serious character and is typically based on a bass-ostinato and written in triple metre.
A suite, in Western classical music, is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral/concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes and grew in scope to comprise up to five dances, sometimes with a prelude, by the early 17th century. The separate movements were often thematically and tonally linked. The term can also be used to refer to similar forms in other musical traditions, such as the Turkish fasıl and the Arab nuubaat.
The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). They are some of the most frequently performed solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the period 1717–1723, when he served as Kapellmeister in Köthen. The title given on the cover of the Anna Magdalena Bach manuscript was Suites à Violoncello Solo senza Basso.
Discreet Music is the fourth studio album by Brian Eno, and the first released under his full name. The album is a minimalist work, with the titular A-side consisting of one 30-minute piece featuring synthesizer and tape delay. The B-side features three variations on Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel, performed by the Cockpit Ensemble and conducted by Gavin Bryars.
Karl Münchinger was a German conductor of European classical music. He helped to revive the now-ubiquitous Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel, through recording it with his Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra in 1960. Münchinger is also noted for restoring baroque traditions to the interpretation of Bach's oeuvre, his greatest musical love — moderate-sized forces, judicious ornamentation, and rhythmic sprightliness, though not on "period instruments".
Jean-François Paillard was a French conductor.
The sonatas and partitas for solo violin are a set of six works composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. They are sometimes referred to in English as the sonatas and partias for solo violin in accordance with Bach's headings in the autograph manuscript: "Partia" was commonly used in German-speaking regions during Bach's time, whereas the Italian "partita" was introduced to this set in the 1879 Bach Gesellschaft edition, having become standard by that time. The set consists of three sonatas da chiesa in four movements and three partitas in dance-form movements. The 2nd Partita is widely known for its Chaconne, considered one of the most masterly and expressive works ever written for solo violin.
The Partita in D minor for solo violin by Johann Sebastian Bach was written between 1717 and 1720. It is a part of his compositional cycle called Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin.
Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor is an organ piece by Johann Sebastian Bach. Presumably composed early in Bach's career, it is one of his most important and well-known works, and an important influence on 19th- and 20th-century passacaglias: Robert Schumann described the variations of the passacaglia as "intertwined so ingeniously that one can never cease to be amazed."
Baroque music refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition. The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and is widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning "misshapen pearl". The works of George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach are considered the pinnacle of the Baroque period. Other key composers of the Baroque era include Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Alessandro Stradella, Tomaso Albinoni, Johann Pachelbel, Henry Purcell, Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo Corelli, François Couperin, Johann Hermann Schein, Heinrich Schütz, Samuel Scheidt, Dieterich Buxtehude, Gaspar Sanz, José de Nebra, Antonio Soler, Carlos Seixas and others.
Musicalische Ergötzung is a collection of chamber music by Johann Pachelbel. Published during his lifetime, it contains six suites for two violins and basso continuo.
Chaconne in D minor is an organ chaconne by Johann Pachelbel. It is one of the six surviving chaconnes by the composer, and one of his best known organ works.
Chaconne in F minor is an organ chaconne by Johann Pachelbel. One of the six surviving chaconnes by the composer, it is one of his best known organ works.
"Goodbye to Romance" is a song written by Ozzy Osbourne, Bob Daisley and Randy Rhoads from Osbourne's 1980 album Blizzard of Ozz. A ballad, the song has been characterized as influenced by the chord progressions of Pachelbel's Canon by composer Johann Pachelbel.
References
↑ RISM455034292 Pachelbel, Johann (1653–1706): Canon and Gigue in D major
↑ Welter, Kathryn J. (1998). Johann Pachelbel: Organist, Teacher, Composer: A Critical Reexamination of His Life, Works, and Historical Significance (PhD). Harvard University. p.363.
↑ Schulze, Hans-Joachim (1985). "Johann Christoph Bach (1671–1721) Organist and Schul Collega in Ohrdruf, Germany, Johann Sebastian Bachs erster Lehrer". Bach-Jahrbuch. 71: 70, footnote 79.
↑ Brewer, Charles E. (2013). The Instrumental Music of Schmeltzer, Biber, Muffat and their Contemporaries. Ashgate Publishing. p.335. ISBN9781409494225.
↑ Perreault, Jean M. (2004). The Thematic Catalogue of the Musical Works of Johann Pachelbel. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. p.32. ISBN0-8108-4970-4.
↑ Dohr, Christoph (2006), "Preface", Canon und Gigue für drei Violinen und Basso continuo (Urtext). Partitur und Stimmen (in German), Dohr Verlag, ISMN979-0-2020-1230-7
↑ Daniel Guss, CD booklet to Pachelbel's Greatest Hit: The Ultimate Canon, BMG Classics (RCA Red Seal)
The Old Codgers (24 October 1975). "Live Letters; Organic Music". Daily Mirror. p.20 – via British Newspaper Archive.
Francis, John (16 December 1983). "A sad note as choir excels". Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser. p.16 – via British Newspaper Archive. The melodious Canon in D Variations by Pachelbel has become nationally known by being adopted -- I fancy -- by the Wool Council in its television advertisement
Howick, Peter (22 June 1995). "Music for lazing on a sunny afternoon". Evening Herald. Dublin. p.20 – via British Newspaper Archive. Pachelbel's famous canon (from the old Pure Wool ad)
Henley, Jon (26 September 2011). "Music for surgery". The Guardian. Pachelbel's Canon in D, the famously soothing chamber piece familiar from a thousand weddings and the Pure New Wool advert.
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