Pachelbel's Canon

Pachelbel's Canon, also called Canon in D or P 37, is a piece by the German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706). It is an accompanied canon, originally written for three violins and basso continuo, and was paired with a gigue; together they are known as the Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso continuo. Both sections are in D major. The piece works as a true canon at the unison for three parts, with a fourth part providing a ground bass throughout. No one knows when or why Pachelbel wrote it—suggested dates range from 1680 to 1706—and the oldest surviving handwritten copy dates from between 1838 and 1842.

Like most of Pachelbel’s music, this canon fell out of fashion and was largely forgotten for centuries. Its fortunes changed in 1968, when the Jean-François Paillard chamber orchestra recorded an arrangement that gained popularity over the following decade. During the 1970s, many ensembles began recording the piece, and its chord progression turned up in various pop songs. By the early 1980s, it had become nearly inescapable as background music. Today, it is famously used at weddings and funerals across the Western world.

Pachelbel was well known in his time for organ and keyboard music, but he is also now recognized for his church and chamber works. Little of his chamber music survives, however. Apart from a few isolated manuscript pieces, the only known collection published during his life is *Musikalische Ergötzung*, a set of partitas. The Canon and Gigue in D major is one of those isolated pieces. A single 19th-century manuscript copy survives in the Berlin State Library (Mus.ms. 16481/8), which also includes two other chamber suites. Another copy, once held at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, is now lost.

The circumstances of the piece’s composition remain unknown. In 1985, scholar Hans-Joachim Schulze suggested it might have been written for the wedding of Johann Christoph Bach on 23 October 1694, which Pachelbel attended. Johann Ambrosius Bach, Pachelbel, and other friends and family provided music for the occasion. Johann Christoph Bach, the eldest brother of Johann Sebastian Bach, had been a student of Pachelbel. Pachelbel scholar Kathryn Jane Welter calls this idea “pure speculation.” Another scholar, Charles E. Brewer, looked into possible links between Pachelbel’s music and Heinrich Biber’s published chamber works. His research suggested the Canon may have been a response to a chaconne with canonic elements that Biber included in Partia III of *Harmonia artificioso-ariosa*. If so, the Canon could not have been written before 1696, when Biber’s collection was published. Other dates, such as 1680, have also been proposed.

The canon (without the gigue) first appeared in print in 1919, when scholar Gustav Beckmann included the score in an article on Pachelbel’s chamber music. His work was inspired and supported by early music scholar Max Seiffert, who published his own arrangement of the “Canon and Gigue” in his Organum series in 1929. That edition added articulation marks and dynamics not found in the original, and Seiffert also suggested tempos that later research did not support. The first recording of the canon was made in Berlin in 1938 by Hermann Diener and His Music College, under the title “Dreistimmiger Kanon mit Generalbass.”

The 1968 recording by the Jean-François Paillard chamber orchestra changed the piece’s fate. This version was played in a more Romantic style, at a much slower tempo than earlier recordings, and included obbligato parts written by Paillard. It was released in France in June 1968 by Erato Records on an LP that also featured the Trumpet Concerto by Johann Friedrich Fasch and other works by Pachelbel and Fasch. The same interpretation appeared on a widely distributed album from the mail-order label Musical Heritage Society later that year.

In July 1968, the Greek band Aphrodite’s Child released the single “Rain and Tears,” a baroque-rock adaptation of Pachelbel’s Canon. The band was based in France at the time, but it is not known whether they had heard the Paillard recording or were inspired by it. The single was a hit, reaching number 1 on pop charts in several European countries. A few months later, in October 1968, the Spanish band Pop-Tops released “Oh Lord, Why Lord,” also based on the Canon. Again, it is unclear whether they knew of the earlier releases. The American band Parliament covered “Oh Lord, Why Lord” on their 1970 album *Osmium*.

In 1970, a classical radio station in San Francisco played the Paillard recording and was flooded with listener requests. The piece grew increasingly popular, especially in California. In 1974, London Records, noticing the interest, reissued a 1961 album of the Corelli Christmas Concerto performed by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. That album happened to include the Canon and was retitled *Pachelbel Kanon: the Record That Made it Famous and other Baroque Favorites*. It became the best-selling classical album of 1976. Its success prompted many other labels to release their own recordings, many of which also sold well. In Britain and Ireland, the piece became widely known after being used in television ads for Pure New Wool starting in 1975. In 1977, RCA Red Seal reissued the original Erato album in the United States and elsewhere, where it became the sixth-highest-selling classical album of that year.