Franz Raml - Pachelbel: Clavier Music, Vol. 1 (2009)

Anyone who has ever worked in any aspect of classical music retailing has been asked the question "Did Pachelbel write anything else besides the Canon?" The answer is yes, and some of it is just as pleasing to the general listener as the Canon in D major, originally for three violins and continuo. Finding recordings of these works has been the tough part, but with growing interest in German music of the late seventeenth century, more choices are beginning to appear. This release by German audiophile label MDG is somewhat geeky in looks, but anyone who's ever wanted a Pachelbel disc should check it out. Not least for the sound; MDG has devoted itself mostly to chamber music, but the results the engineers obtain from the organ at St. Peter's church in the German city of Freiberg are really startling. The final sections of the Fugue in C major (track 2), where the organ explodes into a shower of repeated notes that inspired the work's "Nightingale" nickname, are delineated in absolute clarity. Pachelbel was an organist, and the keyboard works presented here are typical of his surviving output. Raml in his notes (in German, French, and English) depicts Pachelbel as a transitional composer, not only between early and high Baroque, but also between Lutheran and Catholic spheres. Pachelbel had to serve both masters over the course of his career, and the program here includes a pleasing variety of works like toccatas and chaconnes (which had liturgical functions in German Catholic churches) along with pieces based on chorales. There is also one French-style suite, perhaps the weakest of the bunch. The quasi-improvisatory toccatas and chaconnes have the same striking use of musical space that makes the Canon so much fun, with the tonic chord spreading out over much of the piece into every available register. The chorale preludes and the more extended Partita über "Alle Menschen müssen sterben" allow Raml to display some very unusual organ registrations. The notes are detailed and not absolutely user-friendly for general listeners, but they contain a good deal of introduction to performance issues and to the resonances these pieces would have had for audiences in their own time. Raml traces Pachelbel's influence not only to J.S. Bach (through Bach's oldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach), but also hypothetically to Handel via the music of North German organist Johann Kaspar Kerll, a fascinating suggestion. Strongly recommended for anyone with the slightest interest in organ music.