Enharmonic Perpetual Canon No. 2 for Choir and Orchestra.

Based on the same core concept as the last two canons, this one took roughly under four hours to complete (as time seems to fly once I finally get inspired) and is intended to incapsulate the essential technique employed in these more recent compositions with a greater measure of brevity and conciseness involved, for perhaps three minutes of the same nonstop iterations (as was the case in the previous one) may have turned out quite a bit too repetitive, I regret.

YouTube video link: 

Edited December 19, 2025Dec 19 by Fugax Contrapunctus
Revised the coda, replaced 2nd oboe part with an english horn and transposed the whole piece one whole step upwards to account for its playable range within the alto line.

Hi @Fugax Contrapunctus!

I like how you reinterpret the subject of the canon in the choir to allow you to fit in more syllables - that worked out quite well!  And the whole canon has a nice structure that is corroborated by the orchestration where every time the canon repeats (returns back to its original key) a new group of instruments (woodwinds) or choir is added to bring the repetition into more of a high relief.  It's a joy to listen to!  Also - did you mean the Oboe 2 part to be played by English Horn?  It seems to be too low for Oboe.  And a very nice rounded off ending.  Thanks for sharing!

The low A is not present on the Oboe .... You can score it for Oboe D'Amore which has a low A in the scale or as been said English Horn.

Maark

On 9/10/2025 at 5:12 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

[...] Also - did you mean the Oboe 2 part to be played by English Horn? It seems to be too low for Oboe. Thanks for sharing!

20 hours ago, MJFOBOE said:

The low A is not present on the Oboe .... You can score it for Oboe D'Amore which has a low A in the scale or as been said English Horn. [...]

Corrections have been made, both on this regard and the counterpoint of the coda. Thank you both kindly for pointing it out.

Edited September 12, 2025Sep 12 by Fugax Contrapunctus

Hi ... the English Horn is in F it is not a C instrument.  Did you transpose the part?

As written  it cannot be played ... the English is scaled to a low Bb similarly to the Oboe.

Mark

I actually quite like the strength of the motif for this minute and a half. It just really makes me want a B section. Often times in the renaissance, when there was a crazy polyphonic repetitions like this, they would do 1 of 3 things. Either have another polyphonic section in a different mode, have a more declamatory section of text, which would often be in a "double choir" setting which was back and forth between two homophonic sections, or an outright homophonic section. I think each of these would work really well. 

Heres an example of Lotti moving from a incredible thick reptitive canon-like polyphonity into a triple-ish choir: https://youtu.be/OZ9dXLmRlpo?si=LaAY263rsR4sFO6x
 

And Gesualdo into a more homophonic style: https://youtu.be/TBC-45-FfVQ?si=Kmqmee2Ldr9aPlYU&t=131
 

And most was just more polyphony.

On 9/12/2025 at 2:35 PM, MJFOBOE said:

Hi ... the English Horn is in F it is not a C instrument.  Did you transpose the part?

As written  it cannot be played ... the English is scaled to a low Bb similarly to the Oboe.

Mark

Greetings and apologies for my late response.

The entire piece has been transposed one whole step upward in order to accommodate for the English Horn's playable range without altering its melodic line, as any other change to the main motif would undermine the periodicity expected of strict canonic imitation.

Thank you for your patience in pointing out my mistakes. I hope this last modification has not negatively affected other instrumental or vocal ranges too much, though as far as I can tell every part is feasible now. Otherwise I'll have to apologize to The Sopranos as well. 😅

Edited December 19, 2025Dec 19 by Fugax Contrapunctus