Why are Bach and Vivaldi so much more famous than Pachelbel?

A simple answer here. Because they wrote better music. Pachelbel is known today only because of one piece: the Canon. This is wonderful and is justly famous. However, he wrote nothing that I know of that even compares to that. Bach and Vivaldi, on the other hand, wrote many pieces which are well known, and beloved. read more

Vivaldi’s claim to fame in modern times is, like Pachelbel, for one piece only: his Four Seasons, which has near universal appeal and is longer and more complex and varied than Pachelbel’s Canon (though Vivaldi certainly had many more reasons to be famous; that’s another discussion). read more

6. Pachelbel and the Bach family. Pachelbel has close ties to the Bach family, and his style of music played an instrumental role in influencing and enriching that of Johann Sebastian Bach indirectly. The thing is, Pachelbel was actually Johann Christophe Bach’s teacher. read more

Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Zelenka and Rameau, to mention only the greatest composers of the Late Baroque, are profoundly different composers, as different from each other as Stravinsky, Strauss, Prokofiev and Rachmaninov are in the 20th Century. read more