WoO 160 – Two Canons Without Words
WoO 160 No. 1 Canon – Allegretto – in G major (O care selve o cara)
WoO 160 No. 2 Canon – Moderato – in C major
WoO 160 No. 1 – Canon – Allegretto – in G major, without words, composed between January and March 1795. Hess 247 – Thayer 263/1.
The original manuscript of this canon, along with the following one, is preserved in the Archive of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna. It was already published by Seyfried (see his treatise on harmony, available on our website) on pages 327–329, and later by Nottebohm in Studien, pages 192–193. A modern edition appeared in the fifth issue of Supplemente zur G.A., edited by Willy Hess in 1962.
The first of these two canons clearly reuses the thematic idea from the canzonetta O care selve (see Biamonti 84), making it evident that both pieces served as compositional exercises rather than autonomous artistic works.
WoO 160 No. 2 – Canon – Moderato – in C major, for four voices in unison, without words, also composed between January and March 1795. Hess 248 – Thayer 263/3.
Like the first, the original manuscript is held in the Archive of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna. It, too, was published by Seyfried (see the treatise on harmony available on our website) on pages 327–329, and later by Nottebohm in Studien, pages 192–193. The modern edition by Willy Hess appeared in the fifth volume of the Supplemente zur G.A. in 1962.
As with the first canon, the second was clearly conceived as a study. The thematic link between the first canon and O care selve reinforces the idea that both belong to Beethoven’s academic exercises during his period of intense contrapuntal training.
[By Biamonti Giovanni – Catalogo cronologico e tematico delle opere di Beethoven comprese quelle inedite e gli abbozzi non utilizzati, Torino, ILTE 1968]
Original title: WoO 160 Zwei Kanons (G major, C major)
Dedication: — NGA XII/2 and XIII/1 – AGA – SBG V/25–26 (2nd edition: 26–27; Hess 247–248)
Origin and publication: These canons were written in early 1795. The first edition was published posthumously in 1832 in „Ludwig van Beethoven’s Studien im Generalbasse, Contrapuncte und in der Compositions-Lehre by Ignaz Ritter von Seyfried. (A complete edition of this treatise is available at the Beethoven Music Research Centre.) The autograph transcriptions of the canons are among the materials written by Beethoven during his studies with Johann Georg Albrechsberger, which spanned from January 1794 to early 1795.
For Canon No. 1, Beethoven reused the melody from the song WoO 119, which was also likely composed in 1794/95.
