It’s not a march, but it’s one of the most popular songs used in bridal
processions — perhaps even more so than “Here Comes the Bride.”
It’s Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon in D,” scoffed at by some musicians as the
“Taco Bell Cannon,” but loved by brides, grooms, parents and guests.
“It’s something special,” said Robin Pike, who used it for her wedding nine
years ago and recommended it to her 28-year-old sister, Jennifer Chon.
Chon’s ushers and bridesmaids walked down the aisle to the Canon before she
tied the knot in Bayonne, N.J., in October.
“I didn’t want to do the traditional thing,” Chon said, referring to the
bridal chorus from Wagner’s “Lohengrin,” popularly known as “Here Comes the
Bride.” “It has more of a softer feel to it. And also, my sister gave me the
idea.”
Pike remembers hunting for a song for her own stroll to the altar.
“I went through all my classical CDs, just rifled through them all, and just
liked it. I liked the pace of the song for walking to. ... I like how it starts
and how it kind of works into the song.”
The song by Pachelbel, who was born in Nuremberg in 1653, begins with an
eight-note bass line. Another instrument joins in every four bars as the bass
repeats the same notes through the entire piece. The melody, played by the upper
voices, churns through a series of 28 four-measure variations (hence the title,
since a canon is music that is repeated).
Because there are so many cadences, the music can easily be timed to fit the
length of a procession. And because of the repetitious bass, a cellist can keep
an eye on the procession and give the signal to stop playing when the bride
reaches her destination. (But watch those F sharps!)
Pachelbel is believed to have written the “Kanon und Gigue in D-Dur” for
three violins and basso continuo around 1680. A year later, he married his first
wife (we don’t know if his Canon was played at the wedding). She and their baby
son died in 1683, and a year later he remarried.
According to his entry in Grove Music Online, Pachelbel wrote numerous church
compositions and hooked up with the parents of Johann Sebastian Bach. He even
taught the musician who taught J.S. Bach. Because of the close connection and
because Pachelbel’s name was sometimes abbreviated as “Bach,” there’s some
uncertainty about which Johann wrote the Canon.
Despite its beauty and conveniences, many musicians dislike the piece.
“When I was younger I refused to play it,” said Mark Giannini, 45, of Verona,
N.J., who has been playing the violin professionally for 27 years.
“I think the Pachelbel ‘Canon’ is like ‘The Nutcracker’; it’s like the
Beethoven ‘Fifth.’ It’s what everybody knows. ... Because it’s so familiar to
them, they think it’s a great piece. That’s not to say the Beethoven and
Tchaikovsky are not great pieces, but even Tchaikovsky said ‘The Nutcracker’ was
the least of his compositions.”
“It’s one of those pieces that it’s easy for nonclassical musicians to
understand because of its repetition,” he said. “A nonmusician can hear it once
and say, ‘Get it!’ When I first heard the Brahms ‘Fourth Symphony’ I didn’t get
it. Now, I think it’s one of the most beautiful pieces.”
But Giannini, who performed the Pachelbel on the viola along with this writer
— a cellist — at the Chon wedding, is more than willing to play it.
“Now I need the money,” he said. “And when I play it I try to play it well.”
(Giannini said that at his own wedding, somebody sang “Vocalise” by
Rachmaninoff, “a beautiful piece but ... very tragic”).
Many other people familiar with classical music have no qualms picking
Pachelbel, which has been recorded in numerous genres and was featured in the
Oscar-winning 1980 tearjerker “Ordinary People.”
“I know people think it’s trite. But I don’t know — it’s something that just
stirs my soul,” said Ellin Cohen, who played the piano as a child and first
heard the Canon when she was about 10. “Through the years, every time I hear it
I get teary.”
So Cohen was quite happy her daughter, Erica, chose the piece for her August
2004 walk to the wedding canopy in Maplewood, N.J.
“It has a magical quality, whimsical,” said her 29-year-old daughter, Erica
Rechtweg of East Rockaway, N.Y. “For me I wanted my wedding to be a magical
event and this helped make it magical. This song represented magic.”
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