Canon and Gigue in D Major

Composer: PACHELBEL, Johann
  • Pachelbel composed his Canon and Gigue in D for three violins and basso continuo.1
  • The canon (often performed alone as the famous “Canon in D”) is a strict canon at the unison in the three violin parts, but it is also structured as a chaconne: variations over a two-bar repeating bass line.2
  • Gigue: a gigue (derived from the English jig) is traditional Baroque dance suite movement, almost always the final movement of a suite. It is a fast dance in 12/8 or 6/8 time which was popular in national styles throughout Europe, the French and German versions called gigue, the Italian style called giga.3

Sources

  1. Ewald V. Nolte and John Butt,” Pachelbel [Bachelbel], Johann,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed December 11, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-6002278237. 
  2.  “Canon and Gigue in D Major, P.37 (Pachelbel, Johann),” IMSLP, accessed December 11, 2019, https://imslp.org/wiki/Canon_and_Gigue_in_D_major_(Pachelbel,_Johann). 
  3. Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4th ed., s.v. “Gigue” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).

Cut IDs

19385, 21629, 40156, 42029