Johann Pachelbel - Baroque composer

I composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and my contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned myself a place among the most important composers of the middle Baroque.My work enjoyed massive popularity during my lifetime; I was like a young Tom Cruise (but not as crazy). I had a large number of pupils and my music became a model for the composers of south and central Germany. However, I did not have much influence on the most important composers of the late Baroque such as Johann Sebastian Bach. Today I am best known for my Canon in D; it is the only canon I wrote, and is somewhat unrepresentative of the rest of my oeuvre. In addition to the canon, my most well-known works include the Chaconne in F minor and the Toccata in C minor for organ, and a set of keyboard variations called Hexachordum Apollinis.My music was influenced by south German composers such as Johann Jakob Froberger and Johann Kaspar Kerll, Italians such as Girolamo Frescobaldi and Alessandro Poglietti, French composers and the composers of the Nuremberg tradition. I preferred a lucid, uncomplicated contrapuntal style that emphasizes melodic and harmonic clarity. My music is less virtuosic and less adventurous harmonically than that of Dieterich Buxtehude, although like Buxtehude, I experimented with different ensembles and instrumental combinations in my chamber music and, most importantly, my vocal music, much of which features exceptionally rich instrumentation.