Buxtehude & Pachelbel Chamber Music

Dietrich Buxtehude is known primarily as a composer for the organ (Johann Sebastian Bach famously walked several hundred miles for the opportunity to hear him play), while Johann Pachelbel is known today almost entirely for a brief canon he wrote, which is now a common feature of wedding processionals. But both of them wrote quite a bit of outstanding chamber music for strings, a program of which is presented here by the venerable period-instrument ensemble Musica Antiqua Köln. To modern ears this rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major (placed, almost grudgingly, at the very end of the program) may sound a bit thin and dry, but in the context of this program of suites and trio sonatas it makes a lot of sense.