One of the best-kept secrets about
Johann Pachelbel is his sacred music, both that he wrote it -- his omnipresent Canon in D and imposing output for the organ tends to obscure this point -- and that it is of such excellent quality as it is. Little of it has been recorded prior to British label Signum's
Pachelbel: Vespers, featuring the commanding talents of the
King's Singers and period instrument ensemble
Charivari Agréable under the direction of
Kah-Ming Ng, and the specific works on this disc have never been recorded by anyone. Most likely composed in Nuremberg for the church of St. Erfurt during
Pachelbel's last years, the manuscripts containing
Pachelbel's Vespers settings were deposited for safekeeping in the Bodleian Library at Oxford by one of
Pachelbel's sons,
Charles Theodore Pachelbel, shortly before his departure for the American colonies around 1733. These works have lain, practically untouched, until the advent of this recording.