William Hong wrote:

>In any case, the piece has created a bad taste in many older classical
>music lovers' mouths in recent years, because it has been so overplayed
>that people tire of it easily.  That's no fault of the piece itself, which
>is actually a very nicely done example of how this sort of music goes.
>It hasn't helped that most of the time it's heard in a sort of sappy
>"arrangement", with some of the stringed instruments plucking all the way
>through, which Pachelbel never specified.

The Paillard Chamber Orchestra performance (led by Jean-Francois Paillard)
would be the most famous rendition of the Canon with the pizzicato strings.
It's readily available in most music stores, probably on the RCA label.

>So if you want to hear it more, try listening to one of the
>recordings of the Canon and Gigue which play it in the form that
>Pachelbel originally wrote it, just the three violins and bass.

Three recordings I can recommend are all on old ("period") instruments.

1.  Christopher Hogwood/members of the Academy of Ancient Music
2.  Trevor Pinnock/members of the English Concert
3.  Reinhard Goebel/members of the Musica Antiqua Koeln (a very different
and exciting rendition; the toal timing for both movements is 4:36!)

All three recordings couple the Canon with the Gigue and are played
one-performer-to-a-part.

>[Bless you, Bill.  -Dave]

I concur.:)

Mark K. Ehlert