Canon in D

Submission 6,335

About

Canon in D, also known as Pachelbel's Canon, is a composition by 17th-century German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel.

Origin

The exact date and circumstances of the composition is unknown, although the year of composition has been estimated to fall between 1680 and 1696. The oldest extant copy of the score, currently in the Berlin State Library, dates back to the 19th century.^[1]

Rediscovery and spread

After remaining in obscurity for centuries, German church musician Gustav Beckmann published an article on Pachelbel's chamber music in 1919, where he included the score of the canon. In 1940, the Boston Pops Orchestra under Arthur Fielder was the first to record their rendition of the piece.^[1] However, it was the 1968 recording by the Jean-François Paillard Chamber Orchestra that gained considerable fame for the composition when a San Francisco classical radio station broadcasted it in 1970.^[1]^[2] Ever since, it became a staple in weddings and other events, and parts of it, especially the chord progression, are reused in other compositions.

Various Examples

Pachelbel Rant

Comedian Rob Paravonian did a routine at Penn State University in 2007 called the Pachelbel Rant. In this piece, he starts by playing the said composer’s “Canon in D” on acoustic guitar. It starts out like he likes it, but as he goes into his story he mentions that he hates it (with a passion). He then goes on that the song is always following him because the song is sampled in many pop hits such as Vitamin C’s “Graduation”, Blues Traveler’s “Hook”, and others while still playing the song on the guitar in perfect synchronicity with each song sample.^[3]

Canon Rock

Canon Rock is a classical/metal instrumental piece composed by the Taiwanese musician and songwriter Jerry Chang (aka JerryC). The guitar arrangement is based on Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, a well-known classical masterpiece.

JerryC’s arrangement was subsequently covered by Lim Jeong-hyun, a South Korean guitarist better known as Funtwo, which became viral and went on to receive over 4 million views and inspired over 2,000 video responses.^[4]

The video footage of Jerry’s performance was initially uploaded on his band site (jerryc.tw), but later spread over to other video-sharing sites like YouTube, where it has received almost 19 million views [as of October 2015]^[5]. But Canon Rock recitals didn’t quite go viral until Funtwo, a guitarist from S. Korea, uploaded his own rendition of Canon Rock on a Korean musicians’ site called Mule.co.kr. Simply titled “guitar”, it gained overnight exposure and quickly spread over to YouTube, where it became the 18th most watched video on YouTube [as of March 2010].^[6]