''Musicalische Ergötzung'' (English: Musical Delight,

PWC PricewaterhouseCoopers, also known as PwC, is a Multinational corporation, multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is one of the Big Fo ...

370a–375, T. 331–336, PC 348–353) is a collection of

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

Johann Pachelbel Johann Pachelbel (also Bachelbel; baptised – buried 9 March 1706) was a German composer, organist, and teacher who brought the south German organ schools to their peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secularity, secular music, and ...

. Published during his lifetime, it contains six suites for two

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

s and

basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...

. The exact circumstances of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

-titled work's publication are unknown. The only extant copy of the original print was published in or after 1699 in

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

, by Johann Christoph Weigel, a publisher who also issued several other works by Pachelbel. Yet

Johann Mattheson Johann Mattheson (28 September 1681 – 17 April 1764) was a German composer, critic, lexicographer and music theorist. His writings on the late Baroque and early Classical period were highly influential, specifically, "his biographical and the ...

, writing some decades after Pachelbel's death, claimed that ''Musicalische Ergötzung'' was first published in 1691. The collection contains six ''parties'', or suites: # Partie I in F major: Sonata (Allegro) –

Allemande An ''allemande'' (''allemanda'', ''almain(e)'', or ''alman(d)'', French: "German (dance)") is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach ...

–

Courante The ''courante'', ''corrente'', ''coranto'' and ''corant'' are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era. In a Baroque dance suite an Italian or French courante is typically pair ...

– Ballet –

Sarabande The sarabande (from ) is a dance in triple metre, or the music written for such a dance. History The Sarabande evolved from a Spanish dance with Arab influences, danced by a lively double line of couples with castanets. A dance called ''zara ...

–

Gigue The gigue ( , ) or giga () is a lively baroque dance originating from the English jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th centuryBellingham, Jane"gigue."''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. 6 July ...

# Partie II in C minor: Sonata –

Gavotte The gavotte (also gavot, gavote, or gavotta) is a French dance, taking its name from a folk dance of the Gavot, the people of the Gap, Hautes-Alpes, Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné in the southeast of France, where the dance originated, accordin ...

– Trezza – Aria – Sarabande – Gigue # Partie III in E major: Sonata (Allegro) – Allemande – Courante – Gavotte – Sarabande – Gigue # Partie IV in E minor: Sonata (Adagio) – Aria – Courante – Aria –

Chaconne A chaconne ( , ; ; ; earlier English: chacony) is a type of musical composition often used as a vehicle for Variation (music), variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line (ground bass ...

# Partie V in C major: Sonata – Aria – Trezza – Chaconne # Partie VI in B major: Sonata (Adagio) – Aria – Courante – Gavotte – Sarabande – Gigue These are not the exact titles in the original published edition but "normalized" into a more modern international terminology. For example, in the original German edition, "Chaconne" was spelled "Ciacona", "Gigue" as "Gigg", "Courante" as "Courant", etc. The technique of

scordatura Scordatura (; literally, Italian for "discord", or "mistuning") is a Musical tuning, tuning of a string instrument that is different from the normal, standard tuning. It typically attempts to allow special effects or unusual Chord (music), chords ...

(alternative tuning used for the open strings) is applied to the violin parts of all suites, but, unlike contemporary composers such as

Heinrich Ignaz Biber Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber correctly ''Biber von Bibern'' ( bapt. 12 August 1644, Stráž pod Ralskem – 3 May 1704, Salzburg) was a Bohemian-Austrian composer and violinist. Biber worked in Graz and Kroměříž before he illegally left ...

, Pachelbel used it sparingly, not to produce special effects but to teach the amateur performers (for whom the work was probably intended) the basics of this technique. The following violin tunings are given by the composer in the original print: # Partie: c' f' c ''f'' # Partie: c' g' c ''f'' # Partie: b♭ e♭' b♭' e♭ # Partie: b e' b' e # Partie: c' g' c ''f'' # Partie: b♭ f' b♭' e♭

References

* Kathryn Jane Welter. ''Johann Pachelbel: Organist, Teacher, Composer. A Critical Reexamination of His Life, Works, and Historical Significance'', pp. 173–209. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1998 (dissertation). * 1691 compositions Compositions by Johann Pachelbel {{chamber-composition-stub