Canon and Gigue in D Major

Calmly a bass line picks out an unruffled eight-note theme that ends, reassuringly, where it had begun. Above it, a violin hitches a ride as the theme is repeated. One of the most famous of baroque canons has begun; and if the work vies with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons for instant widespread recognition, paradoxically, almost nothing is known about the composition of Pachelbel’s Canon and Gigue. It’s essentially a hybrid work. The harmonic anchor owes its allegiance to the repeating patterns of the chaconne; while above it, staggered at two-bar intervals, three violins chase each other’s tails, the last two imitating what the first has just played. It may be that Pachelbel was trying to outdo a similarly structured work by Heinrich Biber published in 1696; another slightly fanciful theory suggests that it was a wedding present to his sometime pupil Johann Christoph Bach—Johann Sebastian’s older brother. Whatever the case, smoothly the canon slips the gears as the notes become progressively shorter before rhythmic and melodic spikiness invade a counterpoint that is seemingly effortless despite the heels-kicking complexity. It’s followed by an infectious little gigue by way of unpretentious, effervescent palate cleanser.