Erster Theil etlicher Choräle

The only copy extant today is a Nuremberg edition by Johann Christoph Weigel, who also published Pachelbel's Hexachordum Apollinis (1699) and a reprint of his Musicalische Ergötzung.

[3] No other printed collections of chorale preludes survive from the period, making Pachelbel's Erster Theil unique in its choice of subject.

[4] Decades after its publication, the collection was singled out by Mattheson, who described the contents as "models [of chorale writing] not to be dismissed" in his Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739).

[9] The arrangement of voices and the white mensural notation, both derived from the German polyphonic song, are unique in Pachelbel's surviving oeuvre, as is the ornamentation used in Wir glauben all an einen Gott.

Fore-imitation is used throughout the piece in well-developed three-voice sections, resulting in what Pachelbel scholar Kathryn Welter described as "the most magnificent of the eight preludes [of Erster Theil] in its discipline of construction and richness of harmonies.

The style, which goes back to the time of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and Heinrich Scheidemann, was not wholly unknown to Pachelbel, for he would normally use ornamentation in his chorale variations.

Further modification of the classic bicinium form occurs when Pachelbel uses the technique of fore-imitation (for which he was particularly known), when the ornamental passages include motifs that anticipate the chorale melody.

For the last piece of the collection Pachelbel chose Martin Luther's famous Christmas hymn "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her."

Unlike Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern which uses the same arrangement, the upper voices do not provide mere fore-imitation, but engage in highly original figurations.

Pachelbel scholar Ewald Nolte suggested that these were probably intended as imitations of birdsong, a somewhat popular phenomenon in the instrumental music of the 17th century.