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Browse piano sheets by Johann Pachelbel on Zen Virtual Piano. A middle-class Nuremberg family produced Pachelbel in 1653: his father, Johann, dealt in wine, and his mother, Anna Maria Mair, was the father's second wife. Money problems ended his university studies within a year, and in 1670 he enrolled as a scholarship student at the Gymnasium Poeticum in Regensburg. There he was allowed to study music outside the school with Kaspar Prentz, once a student of Johann Caspar Kerll. A student who left university for lack of money and found a scholarship elsewhere suggests how much of his path depended on support. He spent five years in Vienna, absorbing the music of Catholic composers from southern Germany and Italy. In Eisenach he met members of the Bach family, becoming a close friend of Johann Ambrosius Bach and tutor to his children; he also stood as godfather to two of Ambrosius's older children, including Johann Christoph, whom he taught. He asked Eberlin for a testimonial, and Eberlin described him as a perfect and rare virtuoso; with that document he left Eisenach on May 18, 1678. A glowing testimonial before moving on suggests that he was already respected as a performer. A close friendship with Ambrosius Bach, together with teaching his children and standing as godfather to two of them, suggests that he was closely woven into that household. Chorale preludes make up almost half of his surviving organ works, partly because his duties in Erfurt required him to write them regularly. He preferred a lucid, uncomplicated contrapuntal style that stressed melodic and harmonic clarity. A preference for lucid, uncomplicated counterpoint, together with five years in Vienna among Catholic composers from southern Germany and Italy, may hint at a style formed among several musical traditions. Nuremberg was his home for the remainder of his days. During that time he put out Musicalische Ergötzung, a set of chamber pieces, and above all the Hexachordum Apollinis (Nuremberg, 1699), which holds six keyboard arias with variations. The Canon in D probably dates from around the 1680s, but despite its enormous modern popularity, next to nothing is known about its origins or intended purpose, and nobody knows why or for whom he wrote it or its companion, the Gigue. The earliest surviving copy of the pair, now in the Berlin State Library, dates from between 1838 and 1842. A canon with enormous modern popularity, yet an earliest surviving copy from the 19th century, hints at a long gap between its composition and its present fame. A man born in Nuremberg who spent the rest of his life there after years elsewhere suggests a career that came full circle.
Browse piano sheets by Johann Pachelbel on Zen Virtual Piano.
A middle-class Nuremberg family produced Pachelbel in 1653: his father, Johann, dealt in wine, and his mother, Anna Maria Mair, was the father's second wife. Money problems ended his university studies within a year, and in 1670 he enrolled as a scholarship student at the Gymnasium Poeticum in Regensburg. There he was allowed to study music outside the school with Kaspar Prentz, once a student of Johann Caspar Kerll. A student who left university for lack of money and found a scholarship elsewhere suggests how much of his path depended on support.
He spent five years in Vienna, absorbing the music of Catholic composers from southern Germany and Italy. In Eisenach he met members of the Bach family, becoming a close friend of Johann Ambrosius Bach and tutor to his children; he also stood as godfather to two of Ambrosius's older children, including Johann Christoph, whom he taught. He asked Eberlin for a testimonial, and Eberlin described him as a perfect and rare virtuoso; with that document he left Eisenach on May 18, 1678. A glowing testimonial before moving on suggests that he was already respected as a performer. A close friendship with Ambrosius Bach, together with teaching his children and standing as godfather to two of them, suggests that he was closely woven into that household.
Chorale preludes make up almost half of his surviving organ works, partly because his duties in Erfurt required him to write them regularly. He preferred a lucid, uncomplicated contrapuntal style that stressed melodic and harmonic clarity. A preference for lucid, uncomplicated counterpoint, together with five years in Vienna among Catholic composers from southern Germany and Italy, may hint at a style formed among several musical traditions.
Nuremberg was his home for the remainder of his days. During that time he put out Musicalische Ergötzung, a set of chamber pieces, and above all the Hexachordum Apollinis (Nuremberg, 1699), which holds six keyboard arias with variations. The Canon in D probably dates from around the 1680s, but despite its enormous modern popularity, next to nothing is known about its origins or intended purpose, and nobody knows why or for whom he wrote it or its companion, the Gigue. The earliest surviving copy of the pair, now in the Berlin State Library, dates from between 1838 and 1842. A canon with enormous modern popularity, yet an earliest surviving copy from the 19th century, hints at a long gap between its composition and its present fame. A man born in Nuremberg who spent the rest of his life there after years elsewhere suggests a career that came full circle.
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Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel
Common questions
Johann Pachelbel was a composer of organ works, born in Nuremberg in 1653. He studied at the Gymnasium Poeticum in Regensburg, spent five years in Vienna, became a close friend of Johann Ambrosius Bach and tutor to his children in Eisenach, and lived the rest of his life in Nuremberg. He lived from 1653 to 1706.
It is a Pachelbel work that probably dates from around the 1680s, with a companion piece, the Gigue, though the reason it was written is not known.
He was a close friend of Johann Ambrosius Bach, tutor to his children and godfather to two of them.
It is a set of six keyboard arias with variations that he published in Nuremberg in 1699.