Pachelbel's Canon
musical composition by Pachelbel
Pachelbel's Canon (also known as Canon in D, P 37) is an accompanied canon by German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706). The canon was originally scored for three violins and basso continuo and paired with a gigue, known as Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso continuo. Both movements are in the key of D major. The piece is constructed as a true canon at the unison in three parts, with a fourth part as a ground bass throughout. Neither the date nor the circumstances of its composition are known (suggested dates range from 1680 to 1706), and the oldest surviving manuscript copy of the piece dates from 1838 to 1842.
Like his other works, Pachelbel's Canon went out of style, and remained in obscurity for centuries. A 1968 arrangement and recording of it by the Jean-François Paillard chamber orchestra gained popularity over the next decade, and in the 1970s the piece began to be recorded by many ensembles, while elements of the piece, especially its chord progression, were used in a variety of pop songs. By the early 1980s its presence as background music was deemed inescapable. The composition is famously used in weddings and funeral ceremonies in the western world.
Creation
In his lifetime, Pachelbel was renowned for his organ and other keyboard music, whereas today he is also recognized as an important composer of church and chamber music.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q689519. VIAF identifies the subject as 1158159478158927990001. The Library of Congress control number is n81073728. None of the 9 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1653, 1706, 1680 and 1838.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pachelbel's Canon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.