The baroque era may not have had classical chart-toppers and bestseller lists, but audiences back then were certainly familiar with the idea of a “hit.” And on their program, the Freiburg Baroque Consort will perform the ultimate baroque evergreen: Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.”

Using just three violins playing a canon over a bass line that repeats over and over, the Nuremberg composer Johann Pachebel (who was born in 1653) fashioned one of the most famous compositions of the baroque. The string instruments glide playfully from one variation to another in a miracle of transformation. “Creation, transformation: the eternal recreation of the eternal mind”—to borrow a phrase from Goethe’s “Faust.”

Pachelbel then concludes the piece with a gigue that gives way to earthly pleasures and the sheer joy of music-making. The mood is somewhat akin to a country dance or the finale to a ball. The Freiburg Baroque Consort—a small ensemble from the acclaimed, prize-winning Freiburg Baroque Orchestra—has put together a wonderful program for March 23 to share the bill with this “top hit” of the baroque. They will include works by Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach, and the latter’s highly gifted pupil, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg: A musical menu for gourmets!

More about the concert