There are 28 repetitions of the ground bass in total. The canon becomes increasingly dense towards the middle of the piece as the note values become shorter afterwards, the piece gradually returns to a less complex structure as the note values lengthen once more. The three voices then follow one another at two bars' distance until the end of the piece. Then the third voice commences the canon, whilst the second voice plays the third and fourth bars and the flute continues with the fifth and sixth.

At this point, the second voice enters with the beginning of the melody, whilst the flute continues with the next two bars of the canon. In the beginning, the flute plays the first two bars of the canon's melody. The actual canon is played by three voices over the ground bass. It became very popular in the late 1970s through a famous recording by the Jean-François Paillard chamber orchestra. The piece, whose score was discovered and first published in the 1920s, and first recorded in 1940 by Arthur Fiedler, is particularly well known for its chord progression, and is played at weddings and included on classical music compilation CDs.

Johann Pachelbel's most famous piece, the Canon in D was written around 1680, during the Baroque period, as a piece of chamber music for three violins and basso continuo, but has since been arranged for a wide variety of ensembles. Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D major, arranged for flute and strings

Canon in d musescore