Johann Pachelbel

Johann Christoph Pachelbel nasceu, provavelmente, em agosto, sendo batizado a 01 de setembro de 1653, em Nürnberg, Alemanha, e faleceu entre 6 e 7 de março de 1706, na mesma localidade, sendo sepultado a 9 de março de 1706.
Esse compositor criou uma das mais belas músicas de todos os tempos. É a composição "Canon e Giga em D maior".
Sua primeira parte é um "canon", tendo personalidade própria, sendo a nossa adorada ''Canon'', que é tocada de diversas maneiras e em diversos ambientes.
Pode aparecer mais conservadora, estritamente igual ou muito próxima à versão original. Ou pode aparecer nos arranjos mais transformantes possíveis.
Esta é um tópico para trocar opiniões, pareceres, solicitações, indicações, tudo que for relacionado com a obra de Pachelbel, em especial, é claro, nossa querida ''Canon''.

De BACH, Ana Madalena. (1700-1760?) ''Vida de Bach.'' São Paulo (São Paulo): Atena Editôra, trad. Augusto de Sousa, (1758) 1958.

''Antes de improvisar no órgão ou no cravo e de dar livre curso ao seu gênio, Sebastian começava sempre por executar uma pequena composição de Buxtehude, de Pachelbel ou de seu tio Cristóvão Bach, cujas obras muito admirava.''

O que, afinal, sabemos sobre Pachelbel?

Um outro recorte, por Stoddard Lincoln:

"Pachelbel was essentially a keyboard composer and organist. Although he did write some orchestral suites and suites for two violins and continuo, his greatest contribuition was in the mastery of the fugue and in the development of the choral-variation to keyboard. It is, in fact, in this field that he most influenced Bach."

''Predecessor dos grandes mestres clássicos – tanto Bach como Handel tinham somente vinte anos quando ele faleceu, Johann Pachelbel foi uma das fortes personalidades musicais da sua época. Organista renomado, da mesma forma que o seu contemporâneo Buxtehude, Pachelbel confiou a este instrumento o essencial da sua produção. De numerosas viagens por toda Alemanha entre 1668 e 1695, data em que voltou para Nuremberg, sua cidade natal, permitiu-lhe assimilar com rara inteligência a linguagem de seu tempo. Foi organista em Viena (1674), Eisenach (1677), Erfurt (1678), Stuttgart (1690), Ghota (1692) e finalmente Nuremberg (1695), onde veio a falecer 11 anos depois. É considerado como um dos antepassados espirituais de Bach, por suas composições para órgão, especialmente os Corais.''

Outro recorte:
"Johann Pachelbel began his musical instruction under Schwemmer and later at the Universities of Altdorf and Ratisbon. In 1671 Johann moved to Vienna where he became student and deputy organist to Kerll at the Imperial chapel. In 1677 he was organist for one year in Eisenach--the city of Bach's birth eight years later. The following year he moved to Erfurt, where his son, Hieronymus, was born. While in Erfurt he taught Johann Christoph Bach, Sebastian's older brother and guardian in Ohrdruf when the Bach parents died. In 1690 Pachelbel became court organist at Stuttgart. Two years later Johann took his final post, in Nuremburg. Johann Pachelbel's repertory is the stylistic ancestor of J. S. Bach's, particularly his technique of chorale variation. Carl Philipp Emanuel named Pachelbel as a composer whose works his father had admired."
Timothy A. Smith

Outro recorte, por Jean-Louis Trenque, em janeiro de 1999:

"Johann PACHELBEL - Compositeur allemand (Nuremberg 1653 - id. 1706)
Pachelbel est né une génération avant J-S Bach. Si son parcours croise la famille Bach, J-S Bach ne le rencontrera jamais. Mais la connaissance qu'avait ce dernier sur l'oeuvre de Pachelbel l'influencera sur son travail.
En 1663 Pachelbel est inscrit à l'université d'Altdorf proche de Nuremberg. Il obtient son premier poste d'organiste à la Lorenzkirche. Il entreprend des voyages dès 1670. Organiste avant tout, Pachelbel composa pour l'orgue une oeuvre très importante. Il occupa les postes d'organiste suivants:
1677 Eisenach
1678 Erfurt pendant douze ans
1690 cour de Wurtenberg à Stuttgart
1692 Gotha
1695 Nuremberg jusqu'à sa mort"

Um recorte, por H. Richynet:

''Compositeur allemand baroque.
C'était avant tout un organiste de grande importance, activité qu'il exerça durant toute sa vie dans les villes d'Altdorf, Vienne, Eisenach, Stuttgart et Nuremberg. Mais il composait également des morceaux essentiellement déstinées au culte, notamment des motets, des cantates, des magnificats et surtout des pièces pour orgue, chorals, variations, préludes, fugues et toccatas, autant de compositions quasiment inconnues aujourd'hui. Mais il y une oeuvre, le Canon a tre pour cordes qui lui a assuré sa notoriété actuelle, et sans elle, Pachelbel serait sans aucun doute dans les oubliettes. Le compositeur-organiste était un ami du père de Jean Sébastien Bach ; il fut en exemple et un conseil pour le jeune musicien.
Vous l'avez compris, si le nom de Pachelbel ne nous est pas étranger aujourd'hui, c'est grâce à cette unique oeuvre qu'est le Canon a tre. Il s'agit en fait d'un thème avec 27 variations (je crois !). C'est une mélodie vraiment simple, mais d'une telle douceur et d'une telle beauté, que le morceau nous éblouit.''

Dicionário Karadar de Música Clássica:

"Johann Pachelbel, viendra au monde et mourra à Nuremberg.
Il est organiste de son état, en 1674 on le retrouve à Vienne, second organiste de la cathédrale Saint-Etienne.
En 1677, il est organiste à la cour d’Eisenach; en 1678, il est à Erfurt, organiste des Frères Prêcheurs.
A cette époque, ses Pensées musicales sur la mort, et ses Variations sur Alle Menschen muessen sterben (Tous les hommes doivent mourir) expriment la douleur pour la perte de sa femme et de ses enfants emportés par la peste.
Il continue sa carrière d’organiste: en 1690 à la cour de Stuttgart, en 1692 à la cour de Gotha, en 1695 en l’église Saint-Sebald de Nuremberg.
Il dédiera à sa ville natale ses Variations sur les Aria Sebaldina."

Por Chris Whent / Hoasm

Walther was born in Erfurt during Pachelbel's stay and studied with several students of the master, and then in Nuremberg with Pachelbel's son, which made him a worthy disciple of the master of St. Sebald. Walther also studied with Werckmeister, a friend of Buxtehude, and played a pivotal role in the transmission of the German organ repertoire to future generations, which was effected mainly through oral tradition and manuscript copies of unpublished works.

Pachelbel, like many of this foremost contemporaries, was somehow able to combine his professional activities as a church musician, secular musician and teacher, not to mention his responsibilities as the father of a large family, with his activities as a composer. in keeping with the customs of the time, he published only a small number of his compositions, since copper engraving was an expensive process and published works had to have some special feature to make them attractive to prospective purchasers. First, in Erfurt, he brought out a small collection of four chorales with variations in 1683, which he entitled Musicaliscbe Sterbensgedancken (Musical Thoughts on Death; next, in Nuremberg, six Sonatas for two violins and bass, and the collection Musicalissche Eigötzung (Musical Rejoicing, circa 1691), eight chorale preludes, Acht Choräle zum Praeambulieren in 1693, and lastly, in 1699, his master work, Hexachordum Apollinis, the Hexachord of Apollo, containing six Arias with variations in six different keys for harpsichord (or organ), including the famous Aria Sebaldina in F minor, and which includes a dedication to Buxtehude and his Vienna contemporary Ferdinand Tobias Richter.

Pachelbel's secular output consisted of around twenty harpsichord suites, sets of variations and various instrumental works. As a parish musician, though, the bulk of this work was written for church services, in particular Mass and Vespers, in which both singers and instrumentalists took part.

Por Chris Whent / Hoasm (cont.)

His seventy-five chorale preludes present a wide range of approaches, all designed to sustain musical interest. Although some pieces use the ancient two-voice bicinium technique, most are written in three or four voices; to meet the requirements of the liturgy, the chorale melody is usually heard unornamented in the soprano, or in long note-values as a cantus firmus. However, Pachelbel is never restricted by formula, and the melody sometimes moves to the tenor or the bass, or is enriched by a delicate ornamental mantle. The accompanying voices incorporate fragments of the chorale in augmentation or diminution, or sometimes in imitation, recalling the fugal style at the heart of Pachelbel's art; fugue, after all, amplifies and solemnizes the musical discourse by multiplying the appearances of a single motif. Each phrase of the chorale is thus introduced by a short fugato, or a preceded by a fugal preamble. Above all, Pachelbel was drawn to composite structures, where all the resources of his musical language could be used to illustrate the spiritual atmosphere of the chorale: sorrowful chromaticism, passing dissonance, delicate arabesque-like figures or expressive rhythmical formulae. His variations on chorale melodies clearly served as a model for the young Bach in his organ partitas.

Por Chris Whent / Hoasm (cont.)

Around twenty-six motets, nineteen spiritual songs, thirteen Magnificats, spiritual concerts and masses have survived. Like both Schütz and Buxtehude, Pachelbel liked to experiment with various instrumental configurations, from the smallest —voice, two violins and continuo—to the most grandiose. The spiritual concert Lobet den Herrn in seinem Heiligtum (Praise the Lord in his Sanctuary) is scored for five voices, two flutes, bassoon, five trumpets, trombone, drums, cymbals, harp, two violins, three violas, continuo and organ. However, it is Pachelbel's organ music that takes pride of place in his production, since the surviving corpus is one of the most extensive of the period: with some two hundred and fifty separate pieces it is, numerically, twice the size of Buxtehude's, and evidence of other lost works has been found.

Much of the organ music was intended for service use. It is important to remember that Luther's religious practice was articulated around two matching places of prayer: the church for the parish community, and the home for the family. Families came together each day around the head of the household to hold a domestic worship service that mirrored the Sunday service led by the Pastor. In both places chorales were sung, with their numerous verses that provided both instruction and a support for meditation. Any instrument, perhaps an oboe or a violin, could be used to give the starting note and support the voices. This is why the works of Pachelbel, and of many of his contemporaries, include chorale preludes that do not require the use of an organ with pedals and can be played on household keyboard instruments such as small virginals. in any case, church organs in central and southern Germany were seldom large. Like Frescobaldi and Bach, but unlike Buxtehude and Grigny, Pachelbel had access only to relatively small organs: twenty-seven stops on two manuals and pedal in Erfurt, a mere fourteen stops on two manuals and pedal at Nuremberg.

Por Chris Whent / Hoasm (cont.)

Pachelbel's organ fugues and ricercares reflect the growing interest of Baroque musicians in the learned world of dialogue and formal elaboration, and their tendency to underline the theatrical aspect of the musical discourse through the development of a single underlying motif, the "subject" — at a time when, following the work of Descartes, the focus was on the complexity of the "thinking subject." In his three ricercares, Pachelbel provides an impressive demonstration of his compositional skill, applied with more freedom in his fugues, which include twenty-six isolated fugues and no less than ninety-five fugues on the Magnificat (in fact, these fugues were for use with the German Magnificat, or were based on free themes, rather than on the actual themes of the Magnificat). They create a marvelous world of sound and poetry and display Pachelbel's never-failing powers of invention. Although the composer was probably not aware of it, his fugue subjects define the various elements of his character and constitute the fragments of a musical self-portrait that reveals a melancholy side to his nature that sometimes tends, towards pathos.

Two sons, Carl and Wilhelm Hieronymus were also organists and composer, the former emigrating to the New World and dyimg in Charleston, S.C.

Por Chris Whent / Hoasm

"Johann Pachelbel (1653 - 1706)
German composer and organist. He studied music with Heinrich Schwemmer and G. C. Wecker, attended lectures at the Auditorium aegidianum and entered the university at Altdorf in 1669, where he also served as organist at the Lorenzkirche. He was forced to leave the university after less than a year owing to lack of funds, and became a scholarship student at the Gymnasium poeticum at Regensburg, taking private instruction under Kaspar Prentz. In 1673 Pachelbel went to Vienna and became deputy organist at St. Stephen's Cathedral; in 1677 he became organist in Thuringen at the Eisenach court, where he served for slightly over a year. . This was an important move, since it was here that he became a dose friend of the townâ€s most prominent musician, Johann Ambrosius Bach, the future father of Johann Sebastian, and his family.

In 1678, Pachelbel obtained the first of the two important positions he was to hold during his lifetime when he became organist at the Protestant Predigerkirche at Erfurt, where he established his reputation as organist, composer, and teacher. Erfurt was, of course, the ancestral home of the Bach family, and there he met Ambrosius' eldest son, Johann Christoph (the Ohrdruf Bach), whom he knew from Eisenach and who lived in Erfurt from 1686 to 1689. Pachelbel undertook the musical education of the young man who, not many years later, would teach his brother Johann Sebastian all he knew when the latter came to live with his family following the death of their parents.

Por Chris Whent / Hoasm (cont.)

Both were well-proportioned small instruments, although different in character. The reed chorus at Erfurt and the mixtures at Nuremberg, and the highly individual sounds they produced, act as a reminder that today's performers should aim, first, to extract the full character of the elegant, delicate melodic arches of Pachelbel's arias and chorales, rather than seek large-scale dynamic contrast.

Pachelbel's geographical situation, midway between Vienna and Lubeck, was mirrored in his musical situation, equally distant from the harmonic subtleties of Richter as from the passionate vehemence of Buxtehude. Through his music Pachelbel appears not as an eloquent orator but as a specialist in intimate confidences. Often drawn towards a soft and meditative style, Pachelbel was apparently satisfied with the limited resources provided by his small instruments and sought to cultivate neither the dramatic contrasts of the stylus phantasticus, the enticements of chromaticism nor excessive ornamentation. A born melodist, he directed his skills to the elaboration of subtle webs of counterpoint based on pure, almost stark lines, although his ingenuity is masked by the perfection of the writing that seems to flow unimpeded. Clearly, Pachelbel inherited the great southern tradition initiated by Frescobaldi and passed on by Kerll, Poglietti and Froberger.

Pachelbel's art found its fullest expression in his treatment of the chorale. He mastered all the forms current at the time for setting chorale melodies, and generally presented the chorale unadorned in a clearly recognizable form (the melismatic chorale was developed by Buxtehude and, especially, Bach).

Para quem não lê em outras línguas com facilidade, elaborarei, assim que possível, uma biografia em Português de Pachelbel.

Por Chris Whent / Hoasm (cont.)

Pachelbel started a family in Erfurt; after the early death of his first wife and their child, he remarried and produced a highly artistic household: of the couple's seven children, two would later become organists, including his eldest son Wilhelm Hieronymus who acted as Pachelbel's successor at Nuremberg for thirty-nine years, another son who became an instrument maker and a daughter who achieved recognition as a painter and engraver. Pachelbel left Erfurt some years later, apparently looking for a better appointment, musician and organist for the Wurttemberg court at Stuttgart (1690-92), and then in Gotha (1692-95), where he was town organist. His travels finally led him home when he was invited to succeed Wecker as organist of St. Sebald, Nuremberg, after his former teacher's death in 1695; he obtained his release from Gotha that same year and remained at St. Sebald until his death. He died in the first months of 1706 at the young age of 52.

Johann Pachelbel was one of the dominant figures of late seventeenth-century European keyboard music. An exact contemporary of Georg Muffat he belonged to the generation that included German composers Böhm, Bruhns and Fischer, French composers Raison, Jullien and François Couperin, and the Englishman Purcell, and that came chronologically between Buxtehude and Bach.

The young Johann Sebastian Bach, at the time on his way back from Lübeck, probably never met him. Perhaps it is because he was already familiar with the work of Pachelbel, which was well-known throughout central Germany, that he chose Buxtehude as his mentor. Many of Pachelbel's students, in particular, had actively transmitted his inimitable art of chorale variation, including Johann Christoph Bach who doubtless passed the knowledge on to his younger brother. Another important link in the chain is Johann Gottfried Walther, a contemporary and cousin of Bach who was his colleague in Weimar.

Por Hideo Tsukamoto:

"Pachelbel, Johann (1653-1706)"

"Johann Pachelbel, worked mainly in central-southern part of Germany, is said most important organist before J.S.Bach. He composed a lot of coral arrangements, some of which is called Pachelbel Coral.
He worked as church organist in various places such as Vienna and Nuremberg. When he was in Erfurt (1678-90) he got acquainted with Johann Christoph Bach, elder brother of Johann Sebastian, and taught him directly . It is said that Johann Sebastian, looked after life by his elder brother, also studied composition by transcribe music of Pachebel."

Por Arthur Torelly Franco:

''O Adágio de Albinoni e o Canon de Pachelbel''
por Arthur Torelly Franco

"Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) foi um organista tão genial na improvisação e na técnica do contraponto, quanto o italiano Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643). Nascido em Nuremberg, Pachelbel estudou música em Regensburg e foi organista da Catedral de Santo Estevão, em Viena. Sua carreira também o levou para Stuttgart e Eisenach. Ao residir na cidade de Erfurt, lecionou música para Johann Cristoph Bach, irmão mais velho de Johann Sebastian.
Pachelbel encerrou sua carreira em Nurenberg, como organista da igreja de São Sebald. Apesar de parte de sua obra ter se perdido, as principais composições para órgão foram preservadas. Este músico soube combinar o tecnicismo dos compositores alemães, com o virtuosimo dos mestres italianos, criando um estilo que foi atingir seu apogeu com Johann Sebastian Bach."

Do site "Preludio", de Angel Martínez.
Sobre "A vida dos grandes compositores de música clássica e seus melhores trabalhos":

"Pachelbel:
VIDA
Bautizado el 1 de septiembre de 1653, en Nurembergue, Alemania. Murió el 9 de marzo de 1706, en la misma ciudad.
Fue uno de los grandes maestros del órgano y extraordinário compositor vocal. Organista en Vienna, Stuttgart y otras ciudades. En 1695 fue indicado organista de la St. Sebalduskirche en Nurembergue, donde permaneció hasta la muerte.
Uno de sus alumnos fue Johann Christoph Bach, quien, a su vez, dio a su hermano más nuevo, J. S. Bach, sus primeras lecciones de teclado.
Todos sus trabajos son en estilo contrapontístico simple, predecesor del estilo de J. S. Bach, particularmente en su técnica de variación coral. Sus composiciones para órgano demuestran un conocimiento de las formas italianas derivadas de Frescobaldi, por medio de J. J. Froberger.
De importancia especial son sus preludios corales, que contribuyeron mucho para establecer las melodías corales del protestantismo del norte de Alemania, en la atmósfera lírica del sur, católico.
El popular Canon en Re mayor fue escrito para tres violines y continuo.
Carl Philipp Emanuel se refería a Pachelbel como un compositor cuyas obras su padre, J. S. Bach, había admirado.

OBRA
Canon en Re mayor;
Diversas Chaconnes para órgano;
Diversos Corales, Fantasías, Fugas, Preludios, Suítes, Tocatas y Magnificats para órgano;
Motetos para coros y continuo."

De "Mestre do barroco embala casamentos"
Johann Pachelbel
Notícia - Folha On Line

Séculos se passaram, mas o Canon mantém a sua popularidade até os dias de hoje. O Canon escrito pelo compositor e organista alemão Johann Pachelbel atravessou fronteiras e ressuscitou em pleno século 20, mais precisamente a partir do início da década de 70. A obra influencia muitas peças da música contemporânea, inspira trilha sonora de filmes e é uma das mais tocadas em casamentos. Tudo isso justifica a opinião dos especialistas ao afirmarem que o Canon de Pachelbel é uma das mais conhecidas obras instrumentais de todos os tempos.

Pachelbel foi um compositor prolífico. Sua música para órgão inclui 70 corais e 95 fugas para o Magnificat. Compôs considerável número de cantatas para a igreja luterana e sonatas para vários instrumentos, especialmente o violino. O respeitado organista manteve amizade com a família Bach. Exerceu influência nas obras do genial Johann Sebastian e foi professor de Johann Christoph, o filho mais velho do clã.

Nascido na cidade alemã de Nuremberg, em 1º de setembro de 1653, Johann Pachelbel cresceu em uma região culturalmente ativa na época. Desde cedo, demonstrou talento e, incentivado pelo pai, iniciou os estudos com o músico Heinrich Schwemmer e, posteriormente, com o organista Georg Caspar Wecker. A excelente habilidade musical o levou, aos 15 anos, para a Universidade de Altdorf. Por lá, foi organista em Lorenzkirche, abandonando o cargo menos de um ano depois, por falta de dinheiro.

Na primavera de 1670, matriculou-se no Gymnasium Poeticum, em Regensburg para prosseguir seus estudos de música com Kaspar Prentz, mestre que o apresentou à música italiana. Em 1673, Pachelbel decidiu voltar para Viena, onde passaria alguns anos como vice-organista da Catedral de Santo Estevão e depois, um ano como organista da corte em Eisenach, na Alemanha.

Em junho de 1678, Pachelbel foi nomeado organista da Protestant Predigerkirche, em Erfurt, onde permaneceu por 12 anos. No decorrer deste período, alcançou sucesso extraordinário como organista, compositor e professor. Casou-se duas vezes. Ele perdeu a primeira esposa e o filho contaminados pela peste, em 1683, e casou-se novamente em 1684.

Depois de deixar Erfurt em 1690, passou breves períodos como organista em Stuttgart e Gotha. No verão de 1695, voltou à sua Nuremberg natal para trabalhar os últimos 11 anos de sua vida, como organista na Igreja St. Sebald. Em 1699, produziu a importante coleção de seis árias, Hexachordum Apollinis, para órgão. Pachelbel Johann morreu, aos 53 anos, no dia 3 de março de 1706, mas acredita-se que ele tenha sido enterrado no dia 9.
.
http://musicaclassica.folha.com.br/cds/14/biografia-3.html

O que, além de adorarmos, afinal sabemos sobre a "Canon"?

Um recorte:

Enciclopédia "Os grandes temas da música" - V. 22 - Editoria Philips - sd.
"Escrita para três violinos, violoncelo e cravo, a primeira parte, o Canon, desenvolve-se sobre um baixo contínuo cuja célula básica se repete de forma insistente ao longo da partitura, sem nenhuma variação. Sobre este pedal se estabelece um jogo imitativo onde o primeiro violino introduz o tema e as diferentes variações, interpretadas sucessivamente pelos outros dois violino. A Giga, apesar de mudar o espírito contemplativo do trecho anterior como um scherzando despreocupado, conserva, no entanto, uma estrutura semelhante onde, ao contrário do que se passa no primeiro número, as vozes se entrecruzam, proporcionando maior variedade e inventividade."

Um recorte anônimo:

“O “Canon a três partes sobre um basso ostinato”, obra da maturidade, testemunha a segurança de sua composição e a elevação do seu pensamento. A forma austera e quase rígida do Canon, sob a pena de Pachelbel, torna-se numa peça viva e inspirada do princípio ao fim. Todos os artifícios técnicos desaparecem aqui bruscamente, e é um canto simples e calmo que sobe pouco a pouco, enriquecendo-se gradualmente até sua admirável peroração.”