Solutions to monthly puzzle canons
2015
January 2015
February 2015
March 2015
April 2015
May 2015
June 2015
July 2015
August 2015
September 2015
October 2015
November 2015
December 2015
Johann Sebastian Bach, Canon dedicated to Mr. Hudemann, BWV 1074
Score available via IMSLP
http://imslp.org/wiki/Canon_in_A_minor,_BWV_1074_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)
Recording available on youtube (Musica Antiqua Köln, Reinhard Goebel)
Johann Sebastian Johann Sebastian Bach, Canon a4, BWV 1073
Score available via IMSLP
http://imslp.org/wiki/Canon_in_A_minor,_BWV_1073_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)
Recording available on youtube
Giovanni Battista "Padre" Martini, Canon from Storia della Musica (1762), volume 1, page 14
Score in PDF
Recording not yet available
Giovanni Battistz "Padre" Martini, Canon from Storia della Musica (1762), volume 1, page 25
Score in PDF
Recording not yet available
Felix Draeseke, Kanonische Rätsel #1 from Op. 42 (1888), four hands, piano
Score not yet available
<TBA>
Recording of a suitable performance is not yet available. Stay tuned!
Ludwig van Beethoven, Das Schweigen (Silence is Golden • 1816), WoO 168a
Score in PDF
No recording of the correct solution is available yet. Stay tuned!
Teodoro Riccio (a.k.a. Brixianus Italus), Canon a2 in subdipente
Score in PDF
Dietrich Buxtehude, Canon duplex per augmentationem a4 (BuxWV 123)
Score in PDF
Franz Joseph Haydn, Menuet al Roverso from Symphony No. 47
PDF Score available via IMSLP here
Andreas Romberg, Canon "An die Freunde" for Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass
PDF Score on grand staff, SATB chorale style
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), canon for Heinrich Scheidemann (ca. 1595-1663), eventually organist of St Katharinen in Hamburg. This canon uses the planchant "Ave, maris stella" as cantus firmus. A PDF of the solution can be found here. It appears in the catalog of Sweelinck's works as SwWv 193. The canon was written to Scheidemann to commemmorate the end of Scheidemann's studies with Sweelinck and his departure from Amsterdam in 1614.
Johann Samuel Endler (1694-1762), Canon triplex a 3 (No.3 from 5 Canons)
News Flash (5 February, 2016)
It seems this canon is closely modeled on another by Johann Theile. See the post about this: "Endler's canon is derived from Theile's."
Solution
The solution is formed by continuing to augment the motive with each successive entry. It can be found by completing the harmony with a familiar chain of bass suspensions, thereby redeeming the harmonic fourths between the given voices on the third beats of the sixth and seventh measures. Here is a PDF.
Puzzle
Some canons score high in contrapuntal artifice, and others such as this one score high in the puzzle category. Extra points for originality and novel combination of textual descriptors.
My hint was aimed toward Bach's Canon number 14 [Canon a 4. per Augmentationem et Diminutionem] from the Golberg-ground set (Verscheidene Canone, BWV 1087). Endler's is similar in that the most augmented of the voices is composed of such long note values that all extraneous notes are pared away leaving only the motive itself.
The term 'canon triplex' makes sense, albeit in an unorthodox sense, because each voice stands independently; each voice is involved in the relation which forms the increasing augmentation of the motive, marked below. Notice how the term 'canon' is also used correctly, à la Tinctoris, in that a missing voice is supplied through hints, but the modern notion of canon is not observed: There is nothing resembling stretto here.
Counterpoint
The resulting musical trio is highly competent, but not all that remarkable. Points off for using a scale as a motive. However, that feature is intricately related to the musical hints at the solution as described above.
Still, the top line could have been more elegantly crafted. One can see the erasure under the final note, where the composer graciously reconsidered using yet another C in the soprano voice.
