Johann Pachelbel (also spelled Bachelbel; born September 11, 1653 [Old Style: September 1] and died March 9, 1706) was a German composer, organist, and teacher who helped bring the south German organ schools to their highest level. He wrote many religious and non-religious musical pieces, and his work on the chorale prelude and fugue made him one of the most important composers of the middle Baroque period.
During his lifetime, Pachelbel's music was very popular. He taught many students, and his compositions became a model for composers in south and central Germany. Today, he is best known for the Canon in D. Other well-known works include the Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and the Hexachordum Apollinis, a collection of keyboard variations.
Pachelbel was influenced by southern German composers like Johann Jakob Froberger and Johann Caspar Kerll, Italian composers such as Girolamo Frescobaldi and Alessandro Poglietti, French composers, and those from the Nuremberg tradition. He preferred a clear and simple style of music that focused on strong melodies and harmonies. His music was less complex and less adventurous in harmony compared to Dieterich Buxtehude. However, like Buxtehude, Pachelbel experimented with different musical groups and instrument combinations in his chamber and vocal music, which often included rich and detailed instrumentation. Pachelbel explored many types of variation forms, which appear in a wide range of pieces, from sacred concertos to harpsichord suites.
Life
Johann Pachelbel was born in 1653 in Nuremberg, Germany, to a family of moderate means. His father, Johann (Hans) Pachelbel, was a wine dealer, and his mother was Anna (Anne) Maria Mair. Johann’s exact birth date is unknown, but he was baptized on September 1. He had an older brother named Johann Matthäus, who later became a church music director in Feuchtwangen, near Nuremberg.
As a young boy, Pachelbel studied music with Heinrich Schwemmer, who later became the church singer at St. Sebaldus Church. Some sources say he also studied with Georg Caspar Wecker, an organist and composer at the same church, but this is now considered unlikely. Both Schwemmer and Wecker had been trained by Johann Erasmus Kindermann, a key figure in Nuremberg’s music tradition.
Johann Mattheson, a writer from the 1700s, noted that Pachelbel showed great talent in music and academics. He studied at schools in Nuremberg, including St. Lorenz Hauptschule and the Auditorio Aegediano. In 1669, he began studying at the University of Altdorf and also worked as an organist at St. Lorenz Church. However, financial problems forced him to leave the university after less than a year. He then studied at the Gymnasium Poeticum in Regensburg, where he was admitted even though the school had already filled its usual number of students.
While in Regensburg, Pachelbel also studied music outside of school with Kaspar Prentz, who had once studied with Johann Caspar Kerll. Kerll was influenced by Italian composers, so it is possible that Prentz helped Pachelbel develop an interest in Italian music and Catholic church music.
In 1672, Prentz left Regensburg for Eichstätt. This period of Pachelbel’s life is not well documented, so it is unclear whether he stayed in Regensburg until 1673 or left with his teacher. By 1673, Pachelbel was living in Vienna, where he worked as a deputy organist at St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Vienna was a major cultural center in the Habsburg Empire, and Italian music was popular there. Many famous composers lived in Vienna, including Johann Jakob Froberger and Johann Caspar Kerll, who may have influenced Pachelbel’s style. Pachelbel stayed in Vienna for five years, learning from Catholic composers in southern Germany and Italy.
In 1677, Pachelbel moved to Eisenach, where he worked as a court organist under Kapellmeister Daniel Eberlin. He became friends with members of the Bach family, including Johann Ambrosius Bach, the father of Johann Sebastian Bach. However, Pachelbel left Eisenach in 1678 after court musicians were reduced during a period of mourning. Eberlin wrote a letter praising Pachelbel as a "perfect and rare virtuoso," which helped Pachelbel find work in Erfurt.
In June 1678, Pachelbel became the organist at the Predigerkirche in Erfurt, succeeding Johann Effler. The Bach family was well known in Erfurt, and Pachelbel continued his friendship with them. He taught Johann Christoph Bach, the eldest brother of Johann Sebastian Bach, and lived in the home of Johann Christian Bach. Pachelbel stayed in Erfurt for 12 years, becoming one of the most respected German organ composers of his time. His most famous works from this period were chorale preludes, which were required by his contract to be written for church services. He also composed a large-scale musical piece each year to show his progress as a composer and organist.
In 1682, Johann Christian Bach, Pachelbel’s landlord in Erfurt, died. In 1684, Pachelbel bought the house where he had lived from Johann Christian’s widow. In 1686, he was offered a job as the organist at St. Trinitatis Church in Sondershausen but had to decline after discussions with church leaders in Erfurt. He stayed in Erfurt for four more years and received a raise in salary.
During his time in Erfurt, Pachelbel married twice. His first wife, Barbara Gabler, died in 1683 during a plague, along with their only son. His first published work, Musicalische Sterbens-Gedancken ("Musical Thoughts on Death"), was likely influenced by this event. He later married Judith Drommer, and they had five sons and two daughters. Two of his sons, Wilhelm Hieronymus and Charles Theodore, also became organ composers. Another son, Johann Michael, became an instrument maker and traveled to places like London and Jamaica. One of his daughters, Amalia, became known as a painter and engraver.
Although Pachelbel was highly respected in Erfurt, he asked for permission to leave in 1690 and was released with a letter praising his work. He quickly found a new job as a musician-organist in the court of Stuttgart under Duchess Magdalena Sibylla. However, he left after two years due to the War of the Grand
Works
During his lifetime, Pachelbel was best known as an organ composer. He wrote more than 200 pieces for the instrument, including both religious and non-religious works, and explored most music styles of his time. He also composed many vocal music pieces, with about 100 surviving, including around 40 large works. Only a few chamber music pieces by Pachelbel exist, though he may have written more, especially during his time as a court musician in Eisenach and Stuttgart.
Important sources for Pachelbel’s music include manuscripts, though none are as significant as the Oldham manuscript for Louis Couperin. Key materials include parts of the Winterthur collection, preserved as microfilms, a two-volume manuscript in the Oxford Bodleian Library that contains many of Pachelbel’s later works, and the first part of the Tabulaturbuch (1692), compiled by his student Johann Valentin Eckelt. This collection includes Pachelbel’s only known handwritten scores. Other sources, like the Neumeister Collection and the Weimar tablature of 1704, provide information about Pachelbel’s musical style but do not include works definitively written by him.
There is no standard numbering system for Pachelbel’s works. Catalogs used today include those by Antoine Bouchard (POP numbers, for organ works only), Jean M. Perreault (P numbers, the most complete and organized alphabetically), Hideo Tsukamoto (T numbers, with L for lost works and organized by theme), and Kathryn Jane Welter (PC numbers).
Much of Pachelbel’s religious organ music, especially chorale preludes, is simple and written for the upper parts of the organ only, without the pedal. This was partly because Lutherans sang hymns during services, and household instruments like virginals or clavichords were used for accompaniment. The organs Pachelbel used had fewer stops (about 15–25) compared to more complex northern German organs. Additionally, the Nuremberg and southern German traditions did not emphasize the use of pedals as much as the northern German school.
Only two volumes of Pachelbel’s organ music were published during his lifetime: Musikalische Sterbens-Gedancken (1683), a set of hymn variations in memory of his wife and child, and Acht Choräle (1693), a collection of eight chorales. Pachelbel used a type of notation called white mensural notation, which had hollow note heads and no bar lines. This system was common in the 15th century but was gradually replaced by modern notation.
Chorale preludes make up nearly half of Pachelbel’s surviving organ works. This was partly due to his job in Erfurt, which required regular composition of these pieces. Pachelbel often used models like the three-part cantus firmus setting, chorale fugues, and a unique style that combined both. This style begins with a short chorale fugue, followed by a three- or four-part cantus firmus setting. The melody is played in the soprano, and the lower voices often use imitation to prepare the next phrase. An example is Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist, where the chorale melody is simple and unadorned.
Pachelbel’s Acht Choräle zum Praeambulieren (1693) includes various types of chorales, some based on older models. For instance, Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren uses a hymn melody in the tenor, while Wir glauben all an einen Gott has melodic ornamentation. Jesus Christus, unser Heiland der von uns features a bicinium style, with one hand playing the melody and the other providing fast accompaniment.
Pachelbel wrote over 100 fugues on free themes, divided into 30 free fugues and 90 Magnificat Fugues. His fugues are usually shorter than those of later composers like J.S. Bach and rarely use complex techniques like stretto or inversion. However, they show early signs of the unified structure seen in Baroque fugues. Pachelbel was also the first major composer to pair fugues with preludes, a practice later used by Bach.
The Magnificat Fugues were composed during Pachelbel’s final years in Nuremberg. These pieces, based on free themes, may have been used to help singers tune or as introductory music. There are 95 surviving pieces, covering all eight church modes. Most use three voices, though some have four. Only three are double fugues, and most are short, lasting about one and a half minutes. The themes vary widely, often using repeated notes to emphasize rhythm.
Posthumous influence
Johann Pachelbel was one of the last composers from the middle Baroque period. He did not greatly influence many famous late Baroque composers, such as George Frideric Handel, Domenico Scarlatti, or Georg Philipp Telemann. However, he indirectly influenced Johann Sebastian Bach. When Johann Sebastian was young, his older brother, Johann Christoph Bach, studied with Pachelbel. Because of this, some of Johann Sebastian Bach's early church songs and variations were inspired by Pachelbel's music. The style of other northern German composers, like Georg Böhm, Dieterich Buxtehude, and Johann Adam Reincken, also helped shape Bach's musical abilities.
Pachelbel was the last major composer from the Nuremberg tradition and the last important southern German composer. His influence was mainly limited to his students, including Johann Christoph Bach, Johann Heinrich Buttstett, Andreas Nicolaus Vetter, and two of his sons, Wilhelm Hieronymus and Charles Theodore. Charles Theodore became one of the first European composers to live in the American colonies, so Pachelbel's music indirectly affected American church music. Johann Gottfried Walther, a composer, music expert, and writer, was likely the most famous person influenced by Pachelbel. He was called the "second Pachelbel" by Mattheson in his book Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte.
As the Baroque style became less popular in the 18th century, most Baroque and earlier composers were largely forgotten. Local organists in Nuremberg and Erfurt sometimes performed Pachelbel's music, but the public and most musicians paid little attention to him. In the early 19th century, some of Pachelbel's organ works were published, and music experts like Philipp Spitta began to recognize him as an important composer. Much of his music was published in the early 20th century in a collection called Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich. However, it was not until the middle of the 20th century, when interest in early Baroque music grew and new ways of performing historical music were developed, that Pachelbel's works were studied and performed more often.
Pachelbel's Canon, a piece for three violins and a continuous bass line, became very popular in the 1970s. This was because of a recording by Jean-François Paillard in 1968, which made the piece widely known. Its popularity increased further when it was used as the theme music for the film Ordinary People in 1980. Now one of the most famous Baroque compositions, the Canon is often used at weddings, competing with Wagner's Bridal Chorus. Despite being hundreds of years old, the Canon's chord pattern has been used in many pop songs from the 20th and 21st centuries. Pete Waterman once called it "almost the godfather of pop music."