Although the German composer Johann Pachelbel is best known—indeed, only known—for his Canon in D major, he was best known during his lifetime as an organist and a composer of organ music. Many critics still consider him to be the finest composer of German organ music before Bach. Most of Pachelbel's organ music was unpublished in his lifetime, but rather circulated in handwritten copies. This makes dating his works difficult and in some cases, impossible. The Chaconne in F minor is one of the longest and most involved single-movement works. The chaconne theme is a four-bar chromatically descending bass line, repeated twice, and all succeeding iterations of the theme are similarly paired. For the purposes of analysis, the 4/4 iterations of the chaconne theme may be considered as paired units, thereby yielding 22 iterations. The mood is different from that of the Canon; there were several variation-like Baroque forms, based on repetitions of a single theme or bass line, and each had its own flavor. Yet the work should certainly be of interest to that fraction of the millions of Canon listeners curious about the rest of this composer's output.

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