Charles Theodore Pachelbel

Charles Theodore Pachelbel was born Carl Theodor Pachelbel in Stuttgart, the son of composer Johann Pachelbel and the result of the elder Pachelbel's second marriage. The family was living in Nuremberg when Pachelbel's father died when Charles Theodore was 16; nothing more is known about him until 1732, when notice of him is found in England, where he had probably already lived for some amount of time. The younger Pachelbel donated the manuscripts of his father's music he'd had to the Bodleian Library at Oxford and sailed to the American Colonies in early 1734; by the spring of the latter year, Pachelbel is found residing in Boston. Later that same year he resettled in Providence, RI, to assume the post of organist at Trinity Church there. Pachelbel only stayed a year, and after presenting a number of public concerts in New York City -- some of the first ever held there -- Pachelbel settled for good in Charleston, SC. Pachelbel married a local girl, helped organize musical events in the town, and was named organist at St. Philip's Church in 1740. An unknown ailment, described as "a lameness in his hands," ultimately carried Pachelbel away in 1750 at about the age of 59. Unfortunately, surviving compositions of Charles Theodore Pachelbel are few; many were doubtless lost when the church in which he served in Charleston -- St. Philips -- burned down sometime after his death. One of his American students was composer Peter Pelham.