 Pachelbel alludes to the "friendly nature" of Buxtehude and Richter, which might indicate that he knew one of them or both, perhaps through correspondence.Another topic discussed in the preface is the nature of music.Pachelbel writes that music is the finest of the arts, governing human emotions and desires, and expresses the "belief of many" that music comes from the "Dreymal-Heilig" sung by angels and from the movement of celestial bodies (a belief, Pachelbel points out, shared by Pythagoras and Plato).