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Fanfare Magazine: 44:4 (03-04/2021) 
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CPO 777707  



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The other day on social media I discovered a video in which someone recorded various train horns playing the earworm canon by Johann Pachelbel. It was quite inventive as a satire, but it brings to mind the countless weddings, junior orchestral recitals, and other things ranging as far afield as advertisements, where this canon has taken on the stature of icon (and yes, I know I’m being ironic here even mentioning it at the beginning of this review). Pachelbel himself, however, was regarded during his lifetime as one of the main figures of German composition, his stature akin to Didrik Buxtehude in terms of his advancement of Lutheran sacred music. Johann Mattheson regarded him highly, as did Johann Sebastian Bach, and his work in Erfurt, Eisenach (where he was a close friend of the Bach family), and Stuttgart raised his stature to such a level that he was even offered a professorship at Oxford in England. He chose to stay in Germany, eventually returning to his hometown of Nuremberg.
 

The music that has survived is slowly emerging from beneath the stifling shadow of the canon, and it shows him to have been an inventive and progressive composer of church music, one whom Bach found a model for his own work at times. This disc goes far along this road to revival, providing no fewer than four settings of the Magnificat, as well as a Mass and a pair of motet-cantatas. The sources are intriguing; the Magnificats come from a volume in Tenbury’s St. Michael’s College in England, where Pachelbel’s son Carl Theodor apparently gave them as a gift to William Boyce just prior to Carl Theodor’s emigration to the American colonies, where he served as an organist in several locations from Boston to Charleston. The settings range widely in terms of length and content. The most celebratory are the two C-Major ones, PWV 1502 and 1504, the first with a five-voice chorus, trumpet and timpani corps, and a large string orchestra (including a pair of gambas), and the second only slightly reduced in size. In contrast, the G-Minor Magnificat, PWV 1513, is scored only for solo voices and continuo, and at about four minutes in length is a model of compositional efficiency. The fourth work, PWV 1511, lies somewhere in between, with the chorus accompanied by a string orchestra, equally lengthy with the two larger settings, but more sedate in terms of musical content. The last rolls along quite easily, with the alto and tenor solos weaving languid lines, while the chorus enters and leaves with short expostulations, and the solo soprano in “Quia fecit” maintains the same graceful line, though with a more prominent rolling continuo line, with some nice solo contrasts coming in the “Sicut locutus” in imitative lines that complement each other. The energy of this Magnificat is not as palpable as in the first two works, and yet it moves right along up through the rather complex final fugue. The G-Major Magnificat is a compact work, with a brief chorale-like opening, and short sections that follow quickly in sequence, with the main focus on textural interchanges between the vocal lines; the “Fecit potentiam” is a bit more declamatory, while the final “Sicut erat” is a quasi-contrapuntal bit of imitation without devolving into a full-blown fugue.
 

The two C-Major works, on the other hand, display a wider variety of settings, with the outer movements featuring brilliant cascading or ascending swirling trumpet passages in the second, PWV 1504, clarion calls that lend it considerable power and brightness, especially when the chorus imitates the lines. This mood pervades the entire work; for example, the “Fecit potentiam” is an extended fanfare, where the solo portions flow easily through some impressive roulades. The first C-Major work, PWV 1502, begins with a powerful pronouncement, first in the tenor and then in the soprano before the texture thickens rapidly with all four solo voices tumbling over each other, and then the powerful brass corps enters with pronounced fanfares. This contrasts nicely with the other sections, such as the intricately contrapuntal “Suscepit Israel” where the strings revolve around the solo voice.
 

Of course, all four Magnificats are not enough to fill a disc, and so a couple of “cantatas” (actually noted as sacred concertos à la Heinrich Schütz) have been inserted, as has a three-movement D-Major Mass, PWV 1302. The last is short, almost to the point of being superfluous, but the soft, lyrical Kyrie has interwoven vocal entrances that likewise revolve around each other simply and easily, while the Gloria is a stately bit of homophony, almost chorale-like in tone. The Mass concludes with the Credo, which carries on the syllabic chordal homophonic motion up to the Et Incarnatus, where some soft suspensions indicate a more solemn and thoughtful musical context. The movement seems to end abruptly, with the Et resurrexit missing altogether.
 

The sacred concertos are equally reflective in tone, with Meine Sünde betrüben mich being outlined by thick-textured viols and a lyrical soprano solo. I find the final fugue, however, to be a masterful bit of counterpoint, something that certainly would have intrigued Bach. Much the same tone pervades the second work, Vergeh doch nicht, where musical solemnity of the opening viol introduction is replaced by a wandering tenor line. As the concerto progresses, the lines cross each other, and the voice has some impressive coloratura, yet still staying roughly in the middle ranges.
 

The performance by the Himlische Cantorey is quite fine, with good renderings of both voices and accompaniment that support Pachelbel’s sometimes florid, sometimes reticent style. The tempos move along enough to support the musical text, and the composer’s sometimes tortuous interweaving lines are nicely delineated. The diction of the chorus is clear, though the solos can sometimes be a bit thin. This may, however, be a function of the recording venue, as in many cases they come through just fine. In short, this is a wonderful disc, both in showing Bach’s musical ancestry and that Pachelbel deserves the esteem in which he was held during his lifetime. It will hopefully serve as a reminder that his music is well worth exploring.

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