Download (3) Charles Theodore [Carl Theodorus] Pachelbel [Perchival

(3) Charles Theodore [Carl Theodorus] Pachelbel [Perchival, Patchable, Bachelbel]
(b Stuttgart, bap. 24 Nov 1690; d Charleston, SC, bur. 15 Sept 1750). Organist,
harpsichordist, composer and teacher, son of (1) Johann Pachelbel. He settled in Boston some
time before 1734 (perhaps after a stay in England). In 1734 he was hired by Trinity Church in
Newport, Rhode Island, to assemble an organ given to the church by the eminent philosopher
George Berkeley; he served as organist there for a year. From 1734 to 1743 he taught the
organist and composer Peter Pelham. He performed harpsichord and chamber music in a
private benefit concert in New York in 1736, and later that year he moved to Charleston,
South Carolina, where in November 1737 he gave a St Cecilia’s Day concert. In February
1740 he succeeded John Salter as organist of St Philip’s Church. On 29 March 1749 he
advertised that he would be opening a singing school, but his health failed soon after this
notice (according to the vestry of St Philip’s he was ‘afflicted with a lameness in his hands’,
18 September).
Three pieces composed by Pachelbel survive. While still in Germany, probably under his
father’s instruction, he composed a Magnificat in C for eight voices and continuo (D-Bsb, ed.
H.T. David, New York, 1959). This early work makes effective use of double chorus, but
adheres somewhat naively to the tonic. A keyboard Minuet ‘from Mr. Bachelbel’ survives in
an anonymous American copybook of 1739 (US-PHff). His most important work is the da
capo aria God of sleep, for whom I languish (in Pelham’s manuscript copybook, 1744, M.
Myers’s private collection, Bloomington, IL), the opening ritornello of which demonstrates
Pachelbel’s knowledge of Baroque instrumental idioms; the lyrical vocal line is suggestive of
bel canto.
As the son of Johann Pachelbel and mentor of Peter Pelham, Charles Pachelbel served as a
vital musical and cultural link between Europe and the New World.