The C Minor series: Bach aims his Canons at the King.

DAILY DOSE OF BEETHOVEN (September 28, 2020)

In the past few months, we wrote several episodes on the C Minor Series (March 31, April 8, May 17, May 19, June 27, 29, 30, July 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 15, 16, and 17). Starting from Bach, we extensively discussed the contributions made by Mozart and Beethoven, especially after Mozart discovered J.S. Bach’s work at the salon of Baron van Swieten. We can say that the C Minor Series has its beginning and continues the creative discovery in musical composition because of Bach’s “Musical Offering”.

We have already examined the “King's theme”, given to Bach by Frederick the Great, and how works by Mozart and Beethoven relate to it. The “Musical Offering”, which Bach presented to the KIng, included the requested 6 part Ricercar (fugue), but also developed the King’s theme in many different ways, including a set of puzzle canons. If Beethoven explored every possibility of a theme in his “Diabelli Variations”, Bach certainly did the same thing, although in a different way, in his “Musical Offering”.

The puzzle canons are designed to involve the reader in the compositional process. One voice is left out. Bach gives you clues as to how to realize that voice. Above one of them, he writes, "Quaerendo Invenietis" ("Seek and Ye Shall Find”).

Why would Bach do this? Even though King Frederick employed Bach's son Emmanuel as his music director, he had a penchant for French poetry and music, some of it fairly frivolous. French music theory was defined by Rameau's “Treatise on Harmony”, which reduces everything to chords, and is still taught in conservatories today, even though Bach rejected it. Bach may have been engaging the king, who played the flute, in the discovery of at least a taste of a more rigorous side of musical composition. The canons involve the geometrical transformations discussed on September 2,2020, in Bach's “Goldberg Variations”, and on September 15, 2020, on the fugues in Beethoven's “Diabelli Variations”, and Brahms' “Handel Variations”. Please feel free to review them before proceeding.

So, today we invite all of our readers who wish to do so, to participate in musical composition by solving 3 of the puzzle canons provided to us by Bach. We leave a blank space for the missing voice so you can print it out, and fill in the missing voice with a pencil (yes, pencil and paper, or software if you wish.) If you are convinced that you have got it right, send it to us and we will announce all of the readers who solve the puzzles!

1. We will start with an easy one—The Canon in unison for two violins.

canon 1.jpg

The bass line is the King's Theme. Violin 1 has the given voice.The asterisk marks where violin 2 should enter with a note for note repeat of violin 1, as an answer to the given voice, thus forming a canon at the unison. Once you discover the entry point, the rest is simple (except that the last bar of the answer goes one bar into the repeat), but please take the time to think about how it affects the other voices.

2. The next one is also fairly easy—The Cancrizan, or Crab Canon.

This one is in retrograde, backwards and forwards at the same time. Bach gives the clue at the end. We had to draw it. No software has it. Oboe 1 has the given voice. Oboe two should start at the last note, and play right to left at the same time as oboe 1 plays the first note and proceeds left to right.

3. The next one is more difficult—a canon in contrary motion.

The missing voice goes up by the same intervals as the given voice goes down and vice-versa. For instance, if the given voice rose C D E, the answer would descend C Bb Ab (two major seconds). Violin 1 has the KIng's Theme. Violin 2 the given voice, and violin 3 is left blank for you to fill in the answer. Since we cannot reproduce Bach's clue, we will tell you that the answer begins on the G below middle C.

The next one would be contrary motion in augmentation, or upside down and half the speed. They do get more difficult. When people complained to Bach that his music was too difficult (in this case to play), he responded "you have the same five fingers on each hand that I do.”