Bedtime Music: An Old Favorite

This lovely piece, the Canon in D major (in form, a canonic variation on a ground bass, for the repeated eight-note figure in the bass), by the German Middle Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) was fairly obscure as recently as the 1970s, but became a favorite when it was revived by guitarist Jean-Francois Pallaird. It gained its greatest theme, however, as the main theme from the 1980 Academy Award winning film Ordinary People.

When I was in college chorale, in the early eighties, we sang a choral setting of the Canon in D. I only remember the opening:

In the silence of our souls, O Lord, we contemplate thy peace,
Free from all the world's desires, free from fear and all anxiety. . .

Lovely music for bedtime, no?

PS Some of you may recognize that the portrait that accompanies this video is of Mozart, born more than a century later than Pachelbel. Pay no mind; just enjoy the music.