Johann Pachelbel
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Johann Christoph Pachelbel [[[Template:IPA]]] (baptized September 1, 1653 – March 3, 1706) was an acclaimed Baroque composer, organist and teacher who brought the Southern German organ tradition to its 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.
Pachelbel is now best known for his Canon in D; it is the only canon he wrote, and is somewhat unrepresentative of the rest of his oeuvre. In addition to the canon, his most well-known works include the Chaconne in F minor and the Toccata in C minor for organ, and a set of keyboard variations called Hexachordum Apollinis.
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Life
Image:Saint Sebald-Nuremberg.jpg
Pachelbel was born in Nuremberg and baptized September 1, 1653, suggesting that he was born in August. He received early musical training from Heinrich Schwemmer, Cantor of the Church of Saint Sebald (Sebalduskirche), and Georg Caspar Wecker, organist of the same church. At the age of 15, Pachelbel entered the University of Altdorf. During his stay in Altdorf, he studied and served as organist of one of the churches. He was forced to leave the university after less than a year because of financial difficulties.
Later he became a scholarship student at the Gymnasium poeticum at Regensburg, where the school authorities, impressed by Pachelbel's academic qualifications and his advanced standing in music, permitted him to study music outside the gymnasium under Kaspar Prentz, a student of Johann Kaspar Kerll. In 1673 Pachelbel became a deputy organist at the Saint Stephen Cathedral (Stephanskirche), Vienna. Kerll moved to Vienna in 1673 as well, and while there may have known or even taught Pachelbel, whose music shows traces of Kerll's style.
Pachelbel spent several years in Vienna, absorbing the music of composers from southern Germany and Italy before moving to Eisenach in 1677, where he found employment as court organist under Kapellmeister Daniel Eberlin, in the employ of Prince Johann Georg, Duke of Saxe-Eisenach. He met the Bach family in Eisenach (home city of JS Bach's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, becoming a close friend of Johann Ambrosius and tutoring his children. This friendship continued when Pachelbel moved to Erfurt: Pachelbel became godfather to Johann Ambrosius' daughter, Johanna Juditha, and taught Johann Christoph Bach.
Pachelbel only spent one year in Eisenach before his patron's brother died—during the period of mourning court musicians were greatly curtailed and Pachelbel was left without employment. He requested a testimonial from Eberlin, who wrote one for him (in the document, Eberlin described Pachelbel as a 'perfect and rare virtuoso'—einen perfecten und raren Virtuosen). With this document, Pachelbel left Eisenach on 18 May 1678.
In June 1678, Pachelbel was employed as organist of Preacher's Church (Predigerkirche) in Erfurt, where he remained for 12 years. Having established his reputation as one of the most accomplished organists and composers of his time during his stay in Eisenach, Pachelbel became one of the leading German composers for organ when he was in Erfurt—partly because his duties included composing (not improvising) chorale preludes, and composing a large-scale work every year to demonstrate his progress as organist. Chorale preludes became the most characteristic products of his time at Erfurt.
Image:Pachelbels autograph letter.jpg
During his stay in Erfurt, Pachelbel married twice. He married Barbara Gabler on 25 October 1681, but she and their son died in September 1683 during a plague. Pachelbel married his second wife, Judith Drommer, on 24 August 1684. They had five sons and two daughters. Two of his sons, Wilhelm Hieronymus Pachelbel and Charles Theodore Pachelbel, also became organ composers; another son, Johann Michael, became an instrument maker. One of his daughters, Amalia, achieved recognition as a painter and engraver.
Even though Pachelbel was outstandingly successful as organist, composer, and teacher at Erfurt, he asked for a permission to leave, apparently seeking a better appointment. He was formally released on 15 August 1690, and found employment in less than two weeks: from September 1, 1690 he was musician and organist at the Württemberg court at Stuttgart under the patronage of Duchess Magdalena Sibylla. The position was an improvement, but very soon Pachelbel was forced to flee before a French invasion. He returned to Nuremberg, then travelled to Gotha where he became town organist on 8 November.
Georg Caspar Wecker, Pachelbel's former teacher and organist of the Church of Saint Sebald in Nuremberg, died on April 20, 1695. The city authorities were so anxious to appoint Pachelbel—by then a celebrated native of the city—that the position at Saint Sebald, the most important of its kind in Nuremberg, was not filled by examination, nor were the organists of the city's lesser churches invited to apply. Instead, Pachelbel had received an official invitation from Saint Sebald and accepted it. He asked Gotha authorities to release him and arrived in Nuremberg sometime during summer 1695, his road expenses paid by the Nuremberg city council. He remained in Nuremberg until his death.
Fame
It is sometimes supposed that classical music is intrinsically timeless and is not subject to the caprices of fashion. Pachelbel's Canon may be said to both support and refute this assertion. As tracked by mentions in The New York Times<ref>Numbers shown are numbers of results obtained in search on term "Pachelbel" in "ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851–2002)."</ref>, Pachelbel was all but unknown to United States audiences before the 1930s:
| Decade | 1850s | 1860s | 1870s | 1880s | 1890s | 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s |
| Number of Pachelbel references in The NY Times | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 29 | 39 | 57 | 100 | 237 | 347 | 217 |
During the 1930s, his organ music, particularly the chorale prelude Vom Himmel hoch, da komm' ich her ("From Heaven Above to Earth I Come", German's most popular carol before Silent Night), began to be played regularly by church organists during the Christmas season, and performances of other works are occasionally mentioned, such as organ chorale variations, a motet and a Magnificat.
Canon in D was first mentioned on March 15, 1871, and the context, "a Bach fugue and a Pachelbel canon" suggests that the work was not familiar. However, by May 20, 1977, it was being referred to as "the famous Pachelbel canon."
Thus, on one hand the Canon is a musical piece that, entirely divorced from its temporal context, managed to attain wide popularity in Western culture, thus supporting the "timelessness" of classical music. However, it may also be said to be a piece which went unnoticed in its own time and which, with the changes in vogue and popular culture in later years, underwent a change of fortunes; in effect, its time had come. The latter understanding would indicate that, like everything else, classical music (and the 'Canon' is certainly a classic in all senses of the word) is subject to changes in fashion.
Some classical music purists frown on the Canon if for no other reason than its popularity with the masses who are also unappreciative of Pachelbel's other works.
Works
- See also List of compositions by Johann Pachelbel.
Introduction
During his lifetime, Pachelbel was best known as an organ composer. He wrote more than two hundred organ pieces, both liturgical and secular, and explored most of the genres of the day. His keyboard music includes harpsichord suites and sets of variations. Pachelbel composed numerous vocal works: arias, Magnificat settings, motets, sacred concertos, and chamber music (mostly in partita form).
Pachelbel's music shows the influence of Italian and Southern German composers. Italian influences can be traced to his earliest datable works (two arias composed in 1679, So ist denn dies der Tag and So ist denn nur die Treu). He almost certainly studied Johann Caspar von Kerll's music—the similarities are compelling (for example, some of movements from Pachelbel's organ chaconnes are reminiscent of Kerll's works in the genre—Passacaglia in D minor and Chaconne in C major). Other influences probably included Johann Jakob Froberger and various French composers.
As a composer, Pachelbel was apparently most interested in variation forms and associated techniques. His first published work was a set of chorale variations. He dedicated to Dieterich Buxtehude the work he was most proud of, a collection of keyboard variations. Variation techniques are used in many of his organ works. The famous Canon in D is a set of variations.
Keyboard music
Much of Pachelbel's liturgical organ music, particularly the chorale preludes, is relatively simple and written for manuals only, no pedal is required. This is partly due to Lutheran religious practice where congregants sang the chorales. Household instruments like virginals or clavichords accompanied the singing, so Pachelbel and many of his contemporaries made music playable using these instruments. The quality of the organs Pachelbel used also played a role. None of the organs at his disposal survived, but we know that the Erfurt instrument had 27 stops and two manuals (compare to the famous Silbermann organs that sometimes had more than 50 stops on three manuals), and Pachelbel's organ in the Church of Saint Sebald in Nuremberg had only 14 stops on two manuals.
Some pieces (several chorales, all ricercars, some fantasias) are written in white mensural notation. This notation system has hollow note heads and omits bar lines (measure delimiters). It was widely used since the 15th century but was being dropped in favor of modern notation (sometimes called black notation) during the 16th-17th centuries. In most cases Pachelbel used white notation for pieces composed in old-fashioned styles, to provide artistic integrity, as it were. In chorales, he may have used the notation to make the works more familiar to performers and musicians, most of whom were not used to the modern system.
Chorales
The main body of Pachelbel's organ oeuvre consists of liturgical pieces: around 70 chorales and chorale preludes (including numerous pieces composed in Erfurt, see above) and around 95 magnificat fugues (discussed below). Pachelbel's chorales tend to use three or four voices and feature the chorale melody in clear recognizable form, usually as a cantus firmus in the soprano or the bass. A few pieces are brief fughettas based on the chorale melody (Komm, heiliger Geist, Herre Gott).
A new model invented by Pachelbel is a small chorale fugue (a fugue where the subject is a part of the chorale melody—usually the first phrase) that is followed by a three- or four-part cantus firmus chorale setting. Chorale phrases are treated one at a time, in the order in which they occur; frequently, the accompanying voices anticipate the next phrase. Here's an example from Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist: Image:Pachelbel-chorale-wenn-mein.png The piece begins with a chorale fugue (not shown here) that morphs into a four-part chorale setting which starts at bar 35. The slow-moving chorale (the cantus firmus, i.e., the original hymn tune) is in the soprano, and is highlighted in blue. The lower voices anticipate the shape of the second phrase of the chorale in an imitative fashion (notice the distinctive pattern of two repeated notes). Pachelbel wrote numerous chorales using this model (Auf meinen lieben Gott, Ach wie elend ist unsre Zeit, Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist, etc), which soon became a standard form.
A collection of eight chorales called Acht Chorale zum Praeambulieren was published by Pachelbel in 1693 and contained, among other pieces, several chorales written using ancient techniques: Wir glauben all' an einen Gott, with melodic ornamentation of the chorale melody, Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren (Psalm 103), based on German polyphonic song with cantus firmus in the tenor, and Jesus Christus, unser Heiland der von uns, a bicinium chorale.
Fugues and ricercars
The magnificat fugues were composed during Pachelbel's final years in Nuremberg. They form a cycle of some 90 pieces written for the Magnificat at Vespers. Usually, the latter was either accompanied by the organist playing alternate verses from the chant or preceded by a short organ prelude to establish pitch for the singers. Pachelbel chose the latter approach, so most of his magnificat fugues are pieces based on original themes (rather than those from the chant), and are preludial in nature.
The magnificat fugues are organized according to the eight Church Modes: 23 in primi toni, 10 in secundi toni, 11 in tertii toni, 8 in quarti toni, 12 in quniti toni, 10 in sexti toni, 8 in septimi toni and 13 in octavi toni. All are original compositions except for four quinti toni pieces that are transposed versions of four tertii toni pieces. The majority of these pieces are in three voices, with a few two- and four-voice fugues present. Most are comparatively short, straightforward pieces; the exceptions include a few double fugues. The fugues are on subjects ranging from simple one-measure ideas to expansive sequences such as the subject of Magnificat Fugue sexti toni No. 10: Image:Pachelbel-mfugue-6-10.png
Not counting the magnificat pieces, Pachelbel composed around 20–30 fugues, most in three or four voices, and a few pieces that are simple bicinia. The fugue hadn't evolved into its mature form (as seen and heard in Johann Sebastian Bach's works), and Pachelbel was one of the composers who helped to define it. So it is not surprising that quite a few of these pieces can be classified as imitative ricercars rather than strict fugues. Pachelbel was also one of the first composers to combine a fugue with a preludial movement—a technique extensively used by Bach. This happens, for instance, in Prelude and Fugue in E minor and Toccata and Fugue in B flat major.
One common feature seen in many Pachelbel fugues (both free and magnificat) is the use of subjects that either begin with or contain strings of repeated notes. While this technique was not uncommon, Pachelbel often extended it to span many measures. For instance, here's the subject of a G minor fugue, with a string of six repeated notes: Image:Pachelbel-fugue-subject-gmin.png Other, more extreme examples are found in magnificat fugues: Magnificat Fugue quarti toni No. 4 has eight repeated notes in its subject and Magnificat Fugue octavi toni No. 6 has 12. Even a fugue with an ordinary subject can rely on strings of repeated notes, as it happens, for example, in Magnificat Fugue octavi toni No. 12: Image:Pachelbel-mfugue-8-12.png However, the most impressive example of this technique is not found in fugues but in the first setting of the Vom Himmel hoch chorale, where a string of 30 repeated 16th-notes occurs in bars 15 and 16.
Pachelbel composed three ricercars. All three are polythematic and marked alla breve. The C minor is the most popular and frequently performed and recorded. Ricercare in F-sharp minor is far more interesting musically; it is in a key rarely used in Baroque music and requires a tuning system with D-sharp, A-sharp, E-sharp, and B-sharp, which is not the case with meantone temperament of the Baroque era. This means that Pachelbel may have used his own tuning system, of which little is known. Ricercare in C major is probably an early work, and employs the same kind of writing with consecutive thirds and sixths as seen in Pachelbel's toccatas (see below).
Chaconnes and variations
Since Pachelbel composed mostly for organ, it is not surprising that his affinity for variation form manifests itself primarily in his organ works, particularly in six organ chaconnes. These pieces are more complicated and better structured than earlier works in the genre, though not as harmonically complex nor as virtuosic as, for example, Buxtehude's chaconnes. They have a wide variety of moods and are among Pachelbel's most well-known organ pieces: the Chaconne in F minor is often cited as his best organ work. Template:Listen Image:Pachelbel-hexachordum-prima-var4.jpg In 1699 Pachelbel published a music collection entitled Hexachordum Apollinis (a reference to Apollo's lyre), which is widely regarded as Pachelbel's masterpiece. It contains six arias with variations in six keys, playable on harpsichord or organ. The collection is dedicated to composers Ferdinand Tobias Richter and Dieterich Buxtehude. The arias are numbered Aria prima through Aria sexta ("first" through "sixth"). The final piece is subtitled Aria Sebaldina, a reference to the Church of Saint Sebald where Pachelbel worked at the time and where he received his first music lessons. Aria secunda has five variations, Aria Sebaldina has eight; the others have six variations.
Pachelbel also composed several sets of chorale variations. Four of these were published in Erfurt in 1683 under the title Musikalische Sterbensgedanken ("Musical Thoughts on Death"), which might refer to Pachelbel's first wife's death in the same year. This was Pachelbel's first published work and it is now partially lost. These pieces, along with Georg Böhm's works, may or may not have influenced Johann Sebastian Bach's early organ partitas.
Other variation sets include a few arias and an arietta (a short aria) with variations.
Toccatas
Most of Pachelbel's toccatas (of which there are about 20) consist of relatively fast passagework in both hands over sustained pedal notes or chords, more or less similar to pedal toccatas by Girolamo Frescobaldi and Johann Jakob Froberger. For instance, here's a typical passage from the D major piece: Image:Pachelbel-toccata-dmaj-passagework.png This kind of writing is frequently seen preceded by simplistic passages that too are improvisational in nature, like the beginning of Toccata in E minor, one of Pachelbel's more known pieces. However, Pachelbel's later works in the genre exhibit a much simpler style, in which only two voices interact over sustained pedal notes, and said interaction—already much simpler than the virtuosic passages in earlier works—sometimes resorts to consecutive thirds, sixths or tenths, which can be seen in the following example: Image:Pachelbel-toccata-cmaj-thirds.png Sometimes a bar or two of consecutive thirds embellish the otherwise more complex toccata, occasionally there is a whole section written in that manner, and a few toccatas (particularly one of the D minor and one of the G minor pieces) are composed using only this technique, with almost no variation. Partly due to their simplicity, the toccatas are very accessible works; however, the E minor and C minor ones which receive more attention than the rest are in fact slightly more complex.
Fantasias
Pachelbel composed six fantasias. Three of them (the A minor, C major and one of the two D Dorian pieces) are sectional compositions in 3/2 time, the sections are never connected thematically; the other D Dorian piece's structure is reminiscent of Pachelbel's magnificat fugues, with the main theme accompanied by two simple countersubjects
The E-flat major and G minor fantasias are variations on the Italian toccata di durezze e ligature genre. Both are gentle free-flowing pieces featuring intricate passages in both hands with many accidentals, close to similar pieces by Girolamo Frescobaldi or Giovanni de Macque.
Preludes
Almost all pieces designated as preludes resemble Pachelbel's toccatas closely, since they too feature virtuosic passagework in one or both hands over sustained notes. However, most of the preludes are much shorter than the toccatas: the A minor prelude pictured above only has 9 bars, the G major piece has 10. The only exception is one of the two D minor pieces, which is very similar to Pachelbel's late simplistic toccatas, and considerably longer than any other prelude. The toccata idiom is completely absent, however, in the short Prelude in A minor: Image:Pachelbel-prelude-amin.png A texture of similar density is also found in the ending of the shorter D minor piece, where three voices engage in imitative counterpoint.
Other keyboard music
21 dance suites apparently composed around 1683 are usually attributed to Pachelbel, although this attirubtion is questionable for all but three suites. The pieces are French influenced and indicate Pachelbel may have studied Froberger's keyboard suites. Harmonically, the suites are quite varied: 17 keys are in these pieces, including F-sharp minor, which was seldom used in baroque music. (It was difficult to use because of meantone temperament. Pachelbel's other pieces in the same key include an organ ricercare and a chamber suite).
All suites follow the typical German model (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue), but are sometimes updated with an extra movement between the courante and the sarabande, usually a gavotte or a ballet. Generally, these additional movements are uncomplicated and less developed than main movements, but offer catchy and memorable melodies. All movements are in binary form, except for two arias.
Chamber music
Pachelbel's chamber music is much less virtuosic than Biber's Mystery Sonatas or Buxtehude's Opus 1 and Opus 2 chamber sonatas. The famous Canon in D belongs to this genre, as it was originally scored for 3 violins and a basso continuo, and paired with a gigue in the same key. The canon is actually more of a chaconne or a passacaglia: it consists of a ground bass over which the violins play a three-voice canon based on a simple theme, the violins' parts form 28 variations of the melody. The gigue which originally accompanied the canon is a simplistic piece that uses strict fugal writing. Template:Listen Musikalische Ergötzung ("Musical Delight") is a set of six chamber suites for two scordatura violins and basso continuo published sometime after 1695. At the time, scordatura tuning was used to produce special effects and execute tricky passages. However, Pachelbel's collection was intended for amateur violinists, and scordatura tuning is used here as basic introduction to the technique. Scrodatura only involves the tonic, dominant and sometimes the subdominant notes.
Each suite of Musikalische Ergötzung begins with an introductory Sonata or Sonatina in one movement. In suites 1 and 3 these introductory movements are Allegro three-voice fughettas and stretti. The other four sonatas are reminiscent of French overtures. They have two Adagio sections which juxtapose slower and faster rhythms: the first section uses patterns of dotted quarter and eighth notes in a non-imitative manner. The second employs the violins in an imitative, sometimes homophonic structure, that uses shorter note values. The dance movements of the suites show traces of Italian (in the gigues of suites 2 and 6) and German (allemande appears in suites 1 and 2) influence, but the majority of the movements are clearly influenced by the French style. The suites do not adhere to a fixed structure: the allemande is only present in two suites, the gigues in four, two suites end with a chaconne, and the fourth suite contains two arias.
Pachelbel's other chamber music includes an aria and variations (Aria con variazioni in A major) and four standalone suites scored for a string quartet or a typical French five-part string ensemble with 2 violins, 2 violas and a violone (the latter reinforces the basso continuo). Of these, the five-part suite in G major (Partie a 5 in G major) is a variation suite, where each movement begins with a theme from the opening sonatina; like its four-part cousin (Partie a 4 in G major) and the third standalone suite (Partie a 4 in F-sharp minor) it updates the German suite model by using the latest French dances such as the gavotte or the ballet. The three pieces mentioned all end with a Finale movement. Interestingly, Partie a 4 in G major features no figuration for the lower part, which means that it wasn't a basso continuo and that, as Jean M. Perreault writes, "this work may well count as the first true string quartet, at least within the Germanophone domain."<ref>Perreault, 224.</ref>
Vocal music
- 19 arias, two of which are earliest datable works. Pachelbel's arias are usually scored for solo voice accompanied by several instruments; most were written for weddings, birthdays, funerals, etc.
- 11 motets, ten scored for two four-part choruses. Most of this music is harmonically simple and make little use of complex polyphony (indeed, the polyphonic passages frequently feature reduction of parts). The texts are taken from the psalms, except in Nun danket alle Gott which uses a short passage from the Ecclesiastes. The motets are structured according to the text they use.
- Gott ist unser Zuversicht and Nun danket alle Gott both feature endings that are four-part chorale settings reminiscent of Pachelbel's organ chorale model. Here the chorale melody sung by the sopranos is presented in long note values, and three lower parts that accompany with passages in shorter note values. Here's an example from the ending of Gott ist unser Zuversicht:
Image:Pachelbel-motet-ps46-part.png
- 11 sacred concertos, many in concertato style. These works significantly feature unusually large groups of instruments: Jauchzet dem Herrn, alle Welt (in C) uses four trumpets, timpani, 2 violins, 3 violas, violone and basso continuo, while Lobet den Herrn in seinem Heiligtum is scored for a five-part chorus, two flutes, bassoon, five trumpets, trombone, drums, cymbals, harp, two violins, basso continuo and organ. Stylistically, Pachelbel's sacred concertos present a diversity of styles:
- Gott ist unser Zuversicht, Gott sei uns gnaedig and Lobet den Herrn in seinem Heiligtum are settings of psalm texts.
- Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan and Christ lug in Todesbanden are chorale concertos, the former being a series of six variations on the chorale melody.
- Kommt her zu mir is a work that closely resembles a church cantata (which did not exist as a genre at the time).
- 2 masses. One is probably an early work in the concertato style, and the other (Missa brevis) is a small mass in three movements, simple, unadorned and reminiscent of his motets.
- 24 pieces for use with Vespers: 11 settings of ingressus (Vesper openings preceding the hymn) and 13 magnificats. All the ingressus break the text and the music into 6 parts and are written in concertato style. Two Magnificat settings are in motet style, the rest are in concertato style, influenced by Italian Catholic music and amazingly diverse: from a more known D major piece written for a 4-part choir, 4 violas and basso continuo, to the Magnificat in C major scored for a five-part chorus, 4 trumpets, timpani, 2 violins, a single viola and two violas da gamba, bassoon, basso continuo and organ. Most of this has Italian influence, and some parts of the magnificats make use of older techniques like the plainchant cantus firmus.
Recordings
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References
- Kathryn Jane Welter: "Johann Pachelbel: organist, teacher, composer : a critical reexamination of his life, works, and historical significance". Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University, 1998, diss. Available through UMI Dissertation Services, 2001. 384p.
- As described by Perreault: The only really general book on Pachelbel in English; richly informative, especially on biography and transmission of MS sources.
- Jean M. Perreault: "The thematic catalogue of the musical works of Johann Pachelbel". Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Md. 2004. 414 p. ISBN 0-8108-4970-4.
- A complete index of Pachelbel's compositions, the manuscripts in which they survive, and publications in which they can be found today. Includes an exhaustive bibliography.
Notes
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External links
- General reference:
- Johann Pachelbel biography and works
- Pachelbel Street—Archives of J.Pachelbel's Works, includes a complete catalogue of Pachelbel's works compiled by Hideo Tsukamoto
- Johann Pachelbel at Allmusic.com
- Johann Pachelbel at Virtually Baroque, sound samples of Pachelbel's organ works rendered on computer; see also [1]
See also
de:Johann Pachelbel es:Johann Pachelbel fr:Johann Pachelbel it:Johann Pachelbel he:יוהן פכלבל hu:Johann Pachelbel nl:Johann Pachelbel ja:ヨハン・パッヘルベル pl:Johann Pachelbel fi:Johann Pachelbel ru:Пахельбель, Иоганн sv:Johann Pachelbel zh:约翰·帕赫贝尔