Johann Pachelbel’s most famous piece of music is without doubt his Canon in D. Like most other works composed by Pachelbel and other pre-1700 composers, the Canon was forgotten for many centuries and was only rediscovered in the 20th century. The piece became extremely popular a few decades after it was first published in 1919 and is now frequently played at weddings.

Pachelbel was famous in his lifetime for his chamber works but most of them were dismayingly lost. Only a small collection of partitas published during his lifetime is known as are a few isolated pieces that survived in manuscripts and Canon in D is one of them. Just one single manuscript copy of Canon in D exists and it is held in the Berlin State Library. Another copy that was previously kept in a different library in Berlin has been lost. No one knows the circumstances of the piece’s composition but one writer hypothesized that the Canon might have been composed for Johann Christoph Bach’s wedding in 1694. Whilst we can never know what motivated Pachelbel to compose the piece, we know it does not concern gu10 led.