Canon Pachelbel

canon in d pachelbel

Executive Summary about Canon Pachelbel by Wikipedia

Canon Pachelbel, also known as Canon in D major, or more formally Canon Pachelbel and Gigue in D major for three Violins and Basso Continuo, is one of the most famous pieces of music by Johann Pachelbel. The Canon Pachelbel was originally paired with a gigue in the same key, although this composition is not regularly performed or recorded today. It became very popular in the late 1970s through a famous recording by the Jean-François Paillard chamber orchestra. American film director Robert Redford used the piece as the main theme for his 1980 Academy Award-winning film Ordinary People.

Canon Pachelbel Structure

The same two-bar bass line and harmonic sequence is repeated over and over, 28 times in total. The chords of this sequence are: D major (tonic), A major (dominant), B minor (tonic relative or submediant-the relative minor tonic), F sharp minor (dominant parallel or mediant-the relative minor dominant), G major (subdominant), D major (tonic), G major (subdominant), and A major (dominant). This sequence is known as a plagal sequence.

The actual Canon Pachelbel is played by the violins over the ground bass. In the beginning, the first violin plays the first two bars of the Canon Pachelbel melody. At this point, the second violin enters with the beginning of the melody, whilst the first violin continues with the next two bars of the Canon Pachelbel. Then the third violin commences the Canon Pachelbel, whilst the second violin plays the third and fourth bars and the first violin continues with the fifth and sixth.

The Canon Pachelbel becomes increasingly dense towards the middle of the piece as the note values become shorter (first in the first violin, then in the second, and finally in the third violin). Afterwards, the piece gradually returns to a less complex structure as the note values lengthen once more. There are 28 repetitions of the ground bass in total. The Canon Pachelbel is relatively simple and does not make use of any advanced contrapuntal devices such as inversion, augmentation, diminution, etc. The convention in the Baroque era would have been to play a piece of this type in the moderate to fast tempo.

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