<P> The canon was originally scored for three violins and basso continuo and paired with a gigue . Both movements are in the key of D major . Although a true canon at the unison in three parts, it also has elements of a chaconne . </P> <P> In his lifetime, Johann 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 . Little of his chamber music survives, however . Only Musikalische Ergötzung--a collection of partitas published during Pachelbel's lifetime--is known, apart from a few isolated pieces in manuscripts . The Canon and Gigue in D major is one such piece . A single 19th - century manuscript copy of them survives, Mus.MS 16481 / 8 in the Berlin State Library . It contains two more chamber suites . Another copy, previously in Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, is now lost . </P> <P> The circumstances of the piece's composition are wholly unknown . Hans - Joachim Schulze, writing in 1985, suggested that the piece may have been composed for Johann Christoph Bach's wedding, on 23 October 1694, which Pachelbel attended . Johann Ambrosius Bach, Pachelbel, and other friends and family provided music for the occasion . Johann Christoph Bach, the oldest brother of Johann Sebastian Bach, was a pupil of Pachelbel . Another scholar, Charles E Brewer, investigated a variety of possible connections between Pachelbel's and Heinrich Biber's published chamber music . His research indicated that the Canon may have been composed as a kind of "answer" to a chaconne with canonic elements which Biber published as part of Partia III of Harmonia artificioso - ariosa . That would indicate that Pachelbel's piece cannot be dated earlier than 1696--the year of publication of Biber's collection . Other versions are occasionally put forward, for example, suggesting the date of the Canon's composition as early as 1680 . </P> <P> The Canon (without the accompanying gigue) was first published in 1919 by scholar Gustav Beckmann, who included the score in his article on Pachelbel's chamber music . His research was inspired and supported by early music scholar and editor Max Seiffert, who in 1929 published his arrangement of the Canon and Gigue in his Organum series . However, that edition contained numerous articulation marks and dynamics not in the original score . Furthermore, Seiffert provided tempi he considered right for the piece, but that were not supported by later research . The Canon was first recorded in 1940 by Arthur Fiedler . </P>

Why did johann pachelbel write canon in d
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