Canon in D (easy version)

The piece

Johann Pachelbel, an organist in Nuremberg, wrote this canon for three violins and basso continuo, probably in the late seventeenth century. Forgotten for two hundred years, it was first published only in 1919 and became famous after the 1968 recording by Jean-François Paillard's chamber orchestra. The idea fits in one line: over an eight-note bass, repeated from start to finish, the three violins play the same melody, each entering two bars after the last. This easy version, arranged for Noctave, keeps the bass and the first violin's line.

The left hand plays the first two bars alone: D, A, B, F-sharp, G, D, G, A. Learn it by heart, since it returns every two bars until the end. The right hand comes in with quarter notes stepping down; mind the key signature, two sharps, for F and C. Then the eighths arrive and the melody traces arpeggios: keep them even, without hurrying, at 56 beats per minute. The last bar, a held D over the open fifth D–A, is played without slowing down first.