The New International Encyclopædia/Pachelbel, Johann

PACHELBEL, Johann (1653–1706). An eminent German organist and composer, born at Nuremberg. First insfructed there by Heinrich Schwemmer (1621–96), he next studied at Altdorf and Regensburg, and in 1674 went to Vienna, where he became assistant organist at Saint Stephen's. Called to Eisenach in 1675, he was successively organist there, at Erfurt (1678–90), Stuttgart, Gotha, and finally (from 1695) at Saint Sebaldus in Nuremberg. With Butehude, one of the immediate forerunners of Bach, he contributed much to the improvement of Church music, and was the first to introduce in Germany the overture form on the pianoforte. The few of his compositions that appeared in print include: Musikalische Sterbens-Gedanken (1683); Musikalische Ergetzung (1691); Acht Choräle zum Präambuliren (1693); Hexachordum Apollinis (1699). The manuscript of his important Tabulaturbuch geistlicher Gesänge Martini Lutheri, etc. (1704), is in the grand-ducal library at Weimar.