During his youth, Pachelbel received his musical education from Heinrich Schwemmer, a musician and music teacher who later became cantor of Saint Sebaldus in Nuremberg. Some sources indicate that Pachelbel would also studied with Georg Caspar Wecker, organist in the same church and important composer of the Nuremberg school.
However, this is now considered unlikely. In all cases, Wecker as Schwemmer were students of Johann Erasmus Kindermann, one of the founders of the musical tradition of Nuremberg, who was himself a pupil of Johann Staden.
Johann Mattheson, whose Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte Hamburg, is one of the more sources of information on the lives of Pachelbel, mentions that the young Pachelbel showed exceptional musical ability and academic. He began his academic education in the St.. He was also organist of the Saint Lawrence the same year.
Financial difficulties forced Pachelbel to leave college after less than a year of schooling. To complete his studies, he became a fellow at Poeticum Gymnasium in Regensburg in , where he shone by his talents. Pachelbel was allowed to study music outside the Gymnasium. The latter, strongly influenced by Italian composers such as Giacomo Carissimi, Pachelbel transmitted to his interest in his Italian contemporaries, and for the Catholic church music in general.
This period of Pachelbel's life is the least documented, we do not know if he stayed in Regensburg until or if it went the same year as his teacher, in any case, in Pachelbel was living in Vienna, where he was organist at the famous St. Stephen's Cathedral.
Some sources state that he wrote over two hundred works for the organ. He was also highly prolific as a vocal music composer, a genre for which he wrote forty large scale works, and about a hundred works in all. He was also known for his remarkable fugue compositions, as of now, historians agree that he wrote about thirty free fugues and ninety Magnificat Fugues.
Apart from fugues, he was also a noted composer of variations, chaconnes, and toccatas, fantasia, and preludes. Pachelbel is most famous for his Canon in D Major. It was originally written for three violins and a basso continuo, but later composers have transcribed it for many instruments.
His other highly famous works included his Chaconne in F Minor, which is also considered to be his best organ piece. He was to precede the singing of a chorale by the congregation with a thematic prelude based on its melody, and he was to accompany the singing throughout all the stanzas. In a further attempt to reign in any tendency of unpredictable behavior on the part of the Organist, Pachelbel's contract makes it clear that he was not to improvise the Prelude but should diligently prepare it beforehand.
It was also specified that every year on St John the Baptist's Day, June 24th, , he was to observe the anniversary of his employment by submitting to a re-examination, and by demonstrating his vocational progress during the past year in a half-hour recital at the end of the afternoon service, using the entire resources of the organ in "delightful and euphonious harmony". On August 24th, he married Judith Drommer Trummert , who bore him five sons and two daughters.
During his years in Thuringia at Eisenach and Erfurt he was naturally drawn to the Bach family. Ambrosius, Johann Sebastian's father, asked him to act as godfather to his daughter Johanna Juditha and to teach music to his son Johann Christoph, later known as the Ohrdruf Bach, and the teacher of Johann Sebastian. Pachelbel was outstandingly successful as organist, composer, and teacher at Erfurt, but he eventually asked for permission to leave and was formally released on August 15th, after twelve years' service.
His new position was in many respects an improvement for him, but in the autumn of he was forced to flee before a French invasion. He went to Nuremberg but within a few weeks returned to Thuringia, where on the 8th of November he became Town Organist at Gotha.
According to Mattheson he was invited on December 2nd, by a distinguished gentleman to fill an organist's post at Oxford but declined the offer.
He also refused a request to return to Stuttgart. Following the death on April 20th, of Wecker, Organist of St Sebaldus Church, Nuremberg, the authorities appeared anxious to appoint Pachelbel, a celebrated native of the city, for contrary to the usual practice, the position at St Sebaldus, the most important position of its kind in Nuremberg, was not filled by examination, nor were the Organists of the city's lesser churches invited to apply.
After Pachelbel had officially received an invitation from St Sebaldus, he addressed a gracious letter to the authorities at Gotha asking them to release him.
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