Johann Pachelbel

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Johann Pachelbel (baptized 1 September 1653 – buried 9 March 1706) was a German composer, organist, and educator who brought the south German organ schools to their highest level.

P.T.Pachelbel's contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue earned him a spot among the country's most influential composers during his lifetime; he had many students and his music became a model for composers of south and central Germany.

Pachelbel is best known for his Canon in D, the Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and a number of keyboard variations.

He preferred a lucid, uncomplicated contrapuntal style that emphasised melody and harmonic clarity.

His music is less virtuosic and less adventurous harmonically than that of Dieterich Buxtehude, but Pachelbel, like Buxtehude, experimented with various ensembles and orchestrations in his chamber music and, most importantly, his vocal music, much of which features exceptionally rich instrumentation.

Pachelbel investigated many variations and related techniques, which result in a variety of styles, ranging from sacred concertos to harpsichord suites.

Life

Johann Pachelbel was born in Nuremberg in 1653 as the son of Johann (Hans) Pachelbel, a wine merchant, and his second wife Anna (Anne) Maria Mair, who was born in 1653. Johann's exact date of birth is uncertain, but he was baptized on September 1st. Johann Matthäus (1644–1710), who lived as Kantor in Feuchtwangen, near Nuremberg, was one of his many siblings.

Pachelbel received musical instruction from Heinrich Schwemmer, a guitarist and music coach who later became the cantor of St. Sebaldus Church (Sebalduskirche). Pachelbel is said to have studied with Georg Caspar Wecker, organist of the same church and a popular composer of Nuremberg's school, but this is now considered unlikely. Both Wecker and Schwemmer were trained by Johann Erasmus Kindermann, one of the Nuremberg musical tradition's earliest students, who had been a pupil of Johann Staden at one time.

Johann Mattheson, one of Pachelbel's most reliable sources of information about the boy's life, mentions that the young Pachelbel demonstrated outstanding academic and academic abilities. He began his primary education in Nuremberg and the Auditorio Aegediano, and on June 29, 1669, he became a student at the University of Altdorf, where he was also appointed organist of St. Lorenz church the same year. Pachelbel left the university after less than a year due to financial difficulties. He became a scholarship student at Regensburg's Gymnasium Poeticum in order to complete his studies. Pachelbel's academic credentials were so impressed that he was admitted above the school's average quota.

Pachelbels were also allowed to study music outside of the Gymnasium. Kaspar (Caspar) Prentz, a pupil of Johann Caspar Kerll, was his tutor. Since the latter was heavily influenced by Italian composers such as Giacomo Carissimi, it is likely that Pachelbel took an interest in contemporary Italian music and Catholic church music in general, it was likely through Prentz.

Prentz left for Eichstätt in 1672. Pachelbel's life span is the least documented, so it's unknown if he lived in Regensburg until 1673 or left the same year as his teacher did; if anything, Pachelbel was living in Vienna, where he became a deputy organist at Saint Stephen Cathedral in 1673. Vienna was at the center of the vast Habsburg empire at the time and was regarded with sway; its musical tastes were mainly Italian. Several well-known cosmopolitan composers performed there, many of whom contributed to Europe's cultural exchanges. Johann Jakob Froberger, a court organist in Vienna, served until 1657 and was succeeded by Alessandro Poglietti. Georg Muffat lived in the city for a long time, but Johann Caspar Kerll, the city's most notable explorer, immigrated to Vienna in 1673. Although Pachelbel may have known or even taught him, his music carries traces of Kerll's style. Pachelbel spent five years in Vienna, devouring Catholic composers from southern Germany and Italy. Pachelbel is similar to Haydn, who performed as a professional musician of the Stephansdom in his youth and as such was exposed to the music of the leading composers of the time. Despite being a Lutheran, his works were influenced by Catholic music.

Pachelbel married Johann Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Eisenach, in 1677. He found work as a court organist under Kapellmeister Daniel Eberlin (also a native of Nuremberg). In Eisenach, which was the home city of J. S. Bach's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, he became a close friend of Johann Ambrosius and tutor to his children. However, Pachelbel lived in Eisenach for only one year. Bernhard II, Duke of Saxe-Jena, Johann Georg's brother, died in 1678, and court musicians were greatly reduced during this period. Pachelbel was left homeless. Pachelbel, who wrote one for him, was a 'perfect and rare virtuoso,' according to him, who wanted him to be a 'perfect and rare virtuoso.' Pachelbel left Eisenach on May 1878 with this paper.

Pachelbel was employed as organist of the Predigerkirche in Erfurt in June 1678, succeeding Johann Effler (c. 1640-1711; Effler later succeeded Johann Sebastian Bach in Weimar). So Pachelbel's relationship with the Bach family continued here in Erfurt (where virtually all organists would later be referred to as "Bachs." Johanna Juditha Bach (1671-1721), Johann Sebastian Bach's eldest brother, lived in Johann Christian Bach's (1640–1682) house, becoming Johanna Juditha, Johanna Juditha, Johanna Juditha's godfather. During his stay in Erfurt for 12 years, Pachelbel established himself as one of the best German organ composers of the time. Since Pachelbel's contract specifically required him to write the preludes for church services, the chorale prelude became one of his most popular products of the Erfurt period. His duties also included organ maintenance and, more importantly, composing a large-scale work every year to demonstrate his development as a composer and organist, as every work of this sort had to be better than the one created the year before.

Johann Christian Bach (1640–1682), Pachelbel's landlord, died in 1682. Pachelbel acquired the house (called Zur silbern Tasche, now Junkersand 1) from Johann Christian's widow in June 1684. He was given a post as organist of the St. Trinitatis church (Trinitatiskirche) in Sondershausen in 1686. Pachelbel accepted the invitation initially, but after a lengthy period of talks, it appears that he was required to speak with Erfurt's elders and church officials before considering any job opportunities. The situation seems to have been negotiated humbly and with no damage to Pachelbel's image; he was given a raise and stayed in the city for four more years.

During his stay in Erfurt, Pachelbel married twice. On October 25, Barbara Gabler, daughter of the Stadt-Major of Erfurt, became his first wife. The wedding took place in the bride's father's house. Both Barbara and their only son died in October 1683 during a plague. Musicalische Sterbens-Gedancken, Pachelbel's first published work, was certainly inspired by the 1683 event.

On August 24, 1684, Pachelbel married Judith Drommer (Trummert), the daughter of a coppersmith. They had five sons and two daughters. Wilhelm Hieronymus Pachelbel and Charles Theodore Pachelbel, two of the sons, became organ players, and the two composers migrated to the American colonies in 1734. Johann Michael, Johann Michael's son, became an instrument maker in Nuremberg and has travelled as far as London and Jamaica. Amalia Pachelbel, one of the daughters', was honoured as a painter and engraver.

Despite Pachelbel's success as an organist, composer, and mentor at Erfurt, he asked permission to leave, apparently seeking a better date, and was officially released on August 1590, with a testimonial lauding his dedication and fidelity.

He was in fortnight, starting 1 September 1690 as a musician-organist in Stuttgart's Württemberg court, under the patronage of Duchess Magdalena Sibylla. The job was more rewarding, but he was only two years old when fleeing the French attacks of the Grand Alliance. His next job was in Gotha as the town organist, a post he held for two years, beginning on November 8th, 1692; there he unveiled his first, and only, liturgical music collection: Acht Chorale zum Praeambuliert.

Johann Christoph Bach's family celebrated his marriage in Ohrdrom on October 23rdquo, inviting him and other composers to perform; if so, it was the first time Johann Sebastian Bach, then nine years old, met Johann Pachelbel.

He had been given two positions in Götham, Germany, and Oxford University, England; he declined both. Meanwhile, when the St. Sebaldus Church organist Georg Caspar Wecker (and his potential former instructor) died on 20 April 1695, the city authorities were so keen to appoint Pachelbel (then a famous Nuremberger) to the position that they had to admit without conducting the traditional examination or soliciting applicants from respected organists from lesser churches. He accepted and was released from Gotha in 1695 and arrived in Nuremberg in the summer, with the city council paying his per diem.

Pachelbel died in Nuremberg for the remainder of his life, releasing the chamber music collection Musicalische Ergötzung and, most important, the Hexachordum Apollinis, a series of six keyboard arias with variations. Despite being influenced by Italian and southern German composers, he knew the northern German academy because he dedicated the Hexachordum Apollinis to Dieterich Buxtehude. Concertato Vespers and a set of more than ninety Magnificat fugues were among the works that were also composed in the last years.

Johann Pachelbel died at the age of 52 in early March 1706 and was buried on March 9th; Mattheson cites either 3 March or 7 March 1706 as the death date, but it is unlikely that the corpse was allowed to remain unburied for longer than six days. The dead were buried on the third or fourth postmortem day in modern history; thus, either 6 or 7 March 1706 is a much earlier death date. He is buried in the St. Rochus Cemetery.

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