Pachelbel: Vespers
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Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706) P Pachelbel: Ingressus in C minor Johann Krieger (1652–1735): [originally in D minor] P92 Sonata à 5 in A minor 1. Sonata [0.57] 14. Allegro [3.19] 2. Deus in adiutorium [1.37] 15. Adagio [0.54] 3. Gloria patri [2.12] 16. Allegro [0.59] 4. Sicut erat [3.02] 17. Presto [0.44] 18. Adagio [1.04] Pachelbel: Magnificat in C major [orig. E-flat major] P250 Pachelbel: Ingressus in E minor 5. Sonata [1.04] [G minor] P96 6. Magnificat [0.52] 19. Sonata [1.06] 7. Et exultavit [1.46] 20. Deus in adiutorium [1.17] 8. Quia respexit [1.34] 21. Domine ad adiuvandum [1.14] 9. Et misericordia [2.33] 22. Gloria [1.45] 10. Fecit potentiam [2.51] 23. Gloria Patri, Sicut erat [3.47] 11. Suscepit Israel [1.59] 12. Gloria [4.14] Pachelbel: Ingressus in G major 13. Sicut erat [2.53] [A major] P97 24. Sonata [1.50] 25. Gloria Patri [1.22] 26. Sicut erat [3.15] Pachelbel: Ingressus in G minor Pachelbel: Magnificat in F major [A minor] P98 [G major] P253 27. Sonata [1.50] 36. Magnificat [2.36] 28. Deus in adiutorium [1.24] 37. Deposuit [0.50] 29. Gloria [1.22] 38. Sicut locutus est [0.52] 30. Sicut erat [0.49] 39. Sicut erat, Amen [1.53] 31. Et in secula seculorum [3.21] Pachelbel: Ingressus in B-flat major Johann Caspar Kerll (1627–1693): [C major] P88 Sonata à 5 in G minor 40. Deus in adjutorium [1.21] 32. Allegro [1.06] 41. Sicut erat [1.58] 33. [Vivace] [0.36] 34. [Andante] [1.02] Total Timings [72.49] 35. Allegro [1.17] The King’s Singers Charivari Agréable Directed by Kah-Ming Ng www.signumrecords.com A Perfect and Rare Virtuoso keyboard chorale variations entitled Mu s i c a l i s c h e P Sterbens-Gedancken. The bitterness of such tragedy The music contained in this CD represents a did not, however, deter Pachelbel from remarrying selection of Vespers movements written by the in 1684: thereafter followed another son, stillborn, m organist Johann Pachelbel. They have in common before Wilhelm Hieronymus arrived in 1686, followed the distinctively sonorous scoring of four or two years later by a daughter Amalia. s m five-part choir, accompanied by a six-part string h orchestra to which is added, at the composer’s Erfurt was one of Thuringia’s most important and express request, a bassoon. The manuscripts of prosperous cities. At the heart of the Reformation, most of Pachelbel’s Vespers music are to be found Erfurt University’s most famous alumnus was in the Tenbury collection of Oxford University’s Martin Luther. When in June 1678 Pachelbel took Bodleian Library. That Oxford should come to be up the position of organist at the Predigerkirche, the unique source might be related to a concatenation he was to remain in the city for 12 years, his of unforeseen twists of fate and fortune. The longest tenure in any one place. There he first a d Vespers might never have come to be written had lodged in the home of Johann Christian Bach, Pachelbel been successful in his attempts at director of the town musicians, probably in e being a court musician. And had his second the same room that had been occupied by a c surviving son Carl Theodorus not abandoned his Johann Christian’s first cousin Johann Ambrosius b fatherland for the New World, the Vespers might Bach, father of the famous Johann Sebastian. p never have fetched up in Oxford. Pachelbel’s connections with the Bachs were ‘ s intricate: he later bought the house from Christian’s J Carl Theodorus would have been his fourth son, widow, and Pachelbel was godfather to Johann but both Pachelbel’s first son and wife died in Sebastian’s sister, Johanna Juditha, and teacher to a G 1683, victims of the most vicious plague in their eldest brother Johann Christoph. s Germany’s history since the time of the Black Death E u and the Thirty Years War. Its epicentre, Erfurt, The demands of his new position would have been p lost half its population within a couple of years. a welcome relief, for Pachelbel had just wasted e Pachelbel commemorated his devastating familial a whole year, from May 1677, as court organist o i losses by publishing in the same year a set of in Eisenach, the ancestral foraging ground of the D t - 4 - - Bach clan. His prospects fizzled out when the court Pachelbel was released from service in the nick of S went into mourning after the death of his patron’s time, arriving in 1690 at Stuttgart three months brother. It turned out not to be the hoped-for before the birth of Carl Theodorus. Pious and s graduate job which might showcase the gifts of musical (given, occasionally, to composing o b a progressive composer who had cut his teeth hymns), the duchess was unfortunate to have been serving as Vicarius (assistant) to the organist married into a family with a worrying medical fi of the Stephansdom in Vienna. Here he met (and history. Her father-in-law Eberhard III died of probably studied with) Johann Caspar Kerll, who a stroke six months after her wedding, which e moved to Vienna also in 1673. promptly elevated her to Herzogin; three years later, she was widowed when Duke Wilhelm Ludwig died M Better than Eisenach, Erfurt nonetheless had its of a heart attack. drawbacks. Pachelbel’s contractual obligations t – in addition to the musical, directorial, There is no record of Pachelbel’s productivity l administrative and pedagogic duties required during his sojourn in Stuttgart, which in any case V of organists of major congregations – included could scarcely have been conducive to musical d an annual re-audition on the anniversary of his endeavour. Württemberg’s foreign policy was b appointment, during which half-hour recital conducted by the co-regent, the duchess’s s J he was expected to demonstrate his vocational brother-in-law Duke Friedrich Carl, who initially progress by drawing on the resources of the organ in managed to extract from France a generous P ‘delightful and euphonious harmony’. Unlike subsidy for standing aloof from the nine-year War i Johann Sebastian Bach, Pachelbel, nevertheless, of the Palatinate Succession (a.k.a. the War of kept on the good side of the city and church the League of Augsburg, the first war in which no authorities, flourishing as an outstandingly German prince fought on the French side). successful organist, composer and teacher. The duchy’s neutrality – initially brokered but G Eventually the needs of his growing family ultimately scuppered by the newly-created Elector prompted Pachelbel to consider a change of of Hanover – collapsed, and Württemberg, which environment. His feelers stretched to the court landed on the wrong side of the fence, found of Württemberg, then ruled by the regent itself in the crossfire as King Louis XIV set out Duchess Magdalena Sibylla von Hesse-Darmstadt. to consolidate his gains in the Holy Roman - 5 - Empire before the Emperor Leopold I could extricate Following the example of the regent of T himself from war with the Turks. Friedrich Carl fled Württemberg, Pachelbel, sought refuge in his L c at the start of the war in 1688 to Nuremberg with hometown of Nuremberg. There he was immediately h his nephew Eberhard Ludwig, but was eventually snapped up by Erfurt’s neighbouring town of Gotha w o captured by the French in 1692 and brought as municipal organist at the Margarethenkirche. to Versailles. He did not stay long though. Immediately after [ the death of Georg Caspar Wecker – organist of I With Württemberg serving as a doormat for Nuremberg’s Sebalduskirche, whose pupils had a the criss-crossing armies, primarily the French included Pachelbel himself, as well as Johann Blitzkrieg on Bavaria – whose claim to the see of Krieger – the authorities in Nuremberg contrived s Cologne ignited the whole affair – and the ravaging to parachute their celebrated son Pachelbel into of the Palatinate, Pachelbel was forced to flee the plummiest position they had to offer. This fait the ducal capital of Stuttgart. Yet there may have accompli was brought about by circumventing the been another reason for his hasty departure. With usual audition, and dispensing with the courtesy of the co-regent in the clutches of the French, the inviting the organists of the city’s lesser churches duchess petitioned Emperor Leopold to proclaim to apply. her son Eberhard Ludwig duke of Württemberg even before he had reached his majority. The The influence of the post-reformation church on c emperor acceded to the request in 1693, and the daily life can never be overstated. High festival t new 16-year old duke embarked on a career of days were ‘great days of fasting, penitence and c an absolute prince, in the process becoming prayer’: all commerce and trade had to stop widely regarded as weak and philistine, and during the service in order to ‘promote devotion’. preferring hunting to governing. No wonder that St Sebald’s, much of which liturgy was still sung M Pachelbel turned down a request to return to in Latin, offered the most musically sumptuous m Stuttgart, even after things had quietened down presentation of Vespers in the whole of Protestant after the young duke’s installation and the release Germany. Underlying this may have been an p of the duke’s uncle Friedrich Carl in France. issue of rivalry.