2 new books available - Previews

August 06, 2017

My devoted blog-followers (yes, both of you) will recall that I've been working on a new book for publication. I'm happy to announce that Suite of Mirror Canons in C and Treatise on Canonic Inversion with collected works demonstrating mirror canons, is finished. Weighing in at 163 pages, it includes a 47-page treatise, 7 Double mirror canons for string quartet, 7 mirror canons for keyboard, and over 30 additional works based on mirror canons for various instruments, written between 1995 and 1997. A live recording of the Suite is also available for download, with previews at the Zwillinge website. Below is a preview from the book, one of the double canons for string quartet, with audio. Click the image to download a PDF.

Check out the book at Zwillinge.

As I was preparing the additional material for that book, I realised that several of the more substantial works would be better off published in a separate volume. The result is the 123-page 32 Sacred Canonic Choral Works. This collection contains works based on direct canons as well as mirror canons. Many of the pieces come from a collection of Canonic Hymns and Preludes, written in 1994-95. For that project, I chose texts from the Lutheran Hymnal. Each text was set to a canonic melody, and at least two works were written, one a conventional four-part hymnal harmonisation, and the other a canonic realisation. Each set of works could also include one or more preludes for organ, implementing the canonic tunes in different ways. For example, the tune I composed for Judge Eternal, Throned in Splendor is a canon at the octave with a symmetrical mirror retrograde form. A 3-voice setting is shown below, with audio. Click the image to download a PDF.

This tune can be written as a puzzle canon in several ways. Here's one option. When you get to the end of the line, turn around and read backwards, following the dotted barlines and the mirrored note values.

With the text added, it looks like this:

Check out the book at Zwillinge.

A third book of my earlier music is also on the horizon. It will be a collection of 17 Festival Hymns for choir, organ, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, and timpani, from the years between 1999 and 2002.

Regards,
Aaron