Heard It in an Ad · Story 3
Weddings · a 1968 record
The wedding favourite that was forgotten for centuries
The canon that plays as the bride walks in is a Baroque piece rediscovered in the twentieth century.
The piece in this story
Pachelbel · about 5 min
Track info
「Canon」Performed by Michael Fischer v. Mollardrecorded 2015Wikimedia CommonsCC BY 4.0
Anyone who has been to a few weddings knows this one. A low line repeats the same eight notes at an easy pace, and the violins come in above it one by one.
Where you heard it
Pachelbel's Canon is a regular at weddings today, but its fame is fairly recent. It spread after a 1968 recording by the French chamber orchestra of Jean-François Paillard became popular, and it was used in the 1980 film Ordinary People.
The real story
Johann Pachelbel, born in 1653 and died in 1706, was a German organist and composer. The full title is Canon and Gigue for three violins and basso continuo. The three violins play the same melody, entering one after another like a round. Nobody knows when it was written. Pachelbel also taught Johann Christoph Bach, the eldest brother of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Tell a friend
That wedding canon is over three hundred years old, and it was largely forgotten until a 1968 record made it famous.