Most of the musical pieces that I’ve come to love and enjoy over the years I don’t ever listen to anymore, at least not intentionally. If I come across them on the radio, I might even switch them off. It’s not that I don’t like the songs anymore; it’s just that I’ve listened to them so much, that I know exactly how they go. I know every turn, every change, every note. I can recall the entire song in a few seconds, and be done. My experience with the piece is complete. Sure, years from now, I might have gone for so long without hearing the song, that I find it appropriate to fill my soul again to the brim with its orchestrations or rhythms. But until that time comes, I’m through.

With most pieces, I am that way. But there are a few that I can never quite let go of.

The Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel is just such a piece. This piece has never been one that I listen to all the time until I’m sick of it. Unlike almost any other music, I find that I will listen to it once, perhaps twice, and then lay it down for a month or so, and then listen to it once or twice more. Each time I am no less elated by its sound than the first time I listened to it.

What is it about this incredible classic? Why does it fascinate me so? Why does my hair stand on end every time I hear its climactic overtones?

The Canon in D is, more than any other piece of music that I know, a metaphor for life.

It begins with a simple series of notes, easy to grasp, easy to follow.

Before long, a new variable enters the picture, but falls quickly into harmony and mimics with the first.

A third stream manifests itself. It is a slight evolution of the originals. Instead of mimicking, it elaborates. It challenges the first movements to a slightly higher plain of thought and performance.

And yet the canon continues with ease of comprehension and pace.

Several more streams now enter the picture. Unlike the others, they are neither gentle nor tame. They have watched the others and built upon their shortcomings. They are highly evolved patterns of harmony, and they shine like the brightest stars in the galaxy.

How is it then, that the first streams are not down-played? Why can we still hear them? Why do they still sound so beautiful? These simple streams find a place of honor and reverence in the midst of the new flight. They are not destroyed nor put away; they are uplifted and enhanced. They are not despised; they are praised. They are not spit upon like the dirt; they are relied upon like a trustworthy foundation.

The whole piece climaxes when all the streams of thought and orchestration wind around and around one another in a flurry to the heights of purpose. They are not competing; they are working together, and they all arrive. All different. All beautiful. All complete.

And finally, a subtle and novel evolution takes shape as the younger and more complex streams begin to mimick their fathers. Before, it was all a flurry of the simple and complex working together for a common cause. Now, in an almost imperceptible shift, the simple is still simple, and the complex has now become simple. After all is done, the shortcomings of the fathers have become the strengths of the children. The foundation has saturated the whole structure with the solidity and serenity of what was from the beginning and, apparently, always will be.

For me, this song doesn’t end. How can it? It is too beautiful, too perfect, too eternal. To end would be to contradict its very premise: that life is not temporary and insignificant, but eternal and meaningful; that death is only a beginning; that we who come after will follow in the learned footsteps of those who came before, that we will build upon their foundation, and in the end, we will walk with them in contentment and peace. For, no matter what happens today, there will always be a tomorrow, and it will always be filled with new and incredible opportunities to fulfill the very purpose for which we were born.