Process versus Projection in Abrahamsen’s Schnee

and

Arithmetics

by

Noah Kahrs

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

Supervised by Professors Zachary Bernstein and Oliver Schneller

Department of Composition

Eastman School of Music

University of Rochester

Rochester, New York

2019
Noah Kahrs
Process versus Projection in Abrahamsen’s Schnee
MA Thesis
Composition Department, Eastman School of Music

Abstract
Hans Abrahamsen’s Schnee has become one of the few classic works of the early 21st century. Yet
despite its similarity to American minimalism in its orientation towards process, its fine gradations of
tuplets challenge many analytical tools. Although theories of rhythm and meter can be adapted by
finding a greatest common denominator of those tuplets, the resultant quantum is imperceptibly
small (24 subdivisions per eighth note), confounding analytical applications.
In this paper, I argue for the relevance of orchestration and compositional process to the
perception of metric projection. In particular, I present analyses of the first and last pairs of canons
of Schnee in which I compare underlying compositional processes to the details of rhythm and
orchestration at the musical surface in order to establish the interconnectedness of these factors. In
Canons 5a and 5b, different aspects of instrumentation separately highlight compositional aspects of
pitch processes and perceptual aspects of rhythmic processes, justifying the relevance of
orchestration to both perception and intent. By extending metric projection to encompass intervals
with slight offsets, as in David Lewin’s 1981 “Some Investigations into Foreground Rhythmic and
Metric Patterning,” I show that in Canons 1a and 1b, orchestration highlights specific interonset
intervals through which we might understand other projected durations.
Beyond Schnee, this work suggests some more general observations on listening to music with
a strong element of compositional process. Although perceiving basic precompositional structure is
seldom the end-goal of either listening or analysis, it can provide a useful lens through which to
interpret other aspects of hearing.
 Kahrs 2

1. Introduction
Hans Abrahamsen is a Danish composer who has become canonical in new-music circles.

Although he is often described in terms of the Scandinavian “New Simplicity” response to

Darmstadt-era serialism and Fluxus, 1 Abrahamsen is the only composer of this movement to have

made a substantial impression beyond Northern Europe. In North America, he is most often

grouped with other students of Ligeti, with whom he studied briefly in the 1980s. 2 Abrahamsen’s

output is marked by an almost total pause from 1988 to 1998, during which he arranged a number

of Bach canons for ensemble, planting the seeds for his landmark Schnee, which consists of ten

canons for nine instruments. 3 The first two canons having been premiered on their own in 2006,

Schnee was completed in 2008 and has become a new-music classic. Abrahamsen has since been

lauded for other works—his 2013 let me tell you for soprano and orchestra was awarded the 2016

Grawemeyer award—yet Schnee remains his most iconic piece. 4

Abrahamsen’s writings on Schnee explain many of the work’s formal concerns, while leaving

much of the surface material undiscussed. Abrahamsen writes of the first of Schnee’s ten canons, for

instance:

One idea for Canon 1a was to present a process where two phrases in canon are gradually
interchanged by means of an increasingly close stretto. So the initial phrase becomes the
closing phrase, and vice versa—rather like the world of Escher’s pictures, where a white
foreground on a black background on one side of the picture becomes a black foreground
on a white background on the other. 5
Abrahamsen continues in these notes to outline several other formal parameters of the work—for

example, that it consists of five pairs of canons, 6 each one shorter in duration than the previous,

interrupted by three “intermezzi” in which instruments retune in various microtonal schemes. After

1 Abrahamsen’s teachers in Denmark were more formally affiliated with the New Simplicity movement and its
predecessors; some historical perspectives on these transitions can be found in Ørum and Olsson, A Cultural History of
the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1950-1975.
2 Strictly speaking, Abrahamsen never formally enrolled in studies with Ligeti at the Hochschule in Hamburg, but he

nonetheless participated in seminars at Ligeti’s apartment; see Steinitz, György Ligeti, 270.
3 Liner notes to Abrahamsen and Ensemble Recherche, Schnee; Varga, The Courage of Composers and the Tyranny of Taste, 15.
4 Indeed, Abrahamsen has said in an interview that “a lot of let me tell you is direct from Schnee” (qtd. in Robin, “Hans

Abrahamsen: Fame and Snow Falling on a Composer”).

5 Liner notes to Abrahamsen and Ensemble Recherche, Schnee.
6 The canons are numbered in pairs: for example, the first two canons are 1a and 1b, and the third canon is 2a.
 Kahrs 3

a catalog of these and other relatively large-scale concerns, such as instrumentation, he concludes,

“perhaps these are rather cold, formal considerations, but for me they are bound up with the poetic

world of the piece: a representation of snow and white polyphony.” 7 Yet the initial impression of the

piece that lends it a resemblance to snow comes not from these large-scale concerns but instead

from many aspects of the musical surface. I will borrow Steve Reich’s distinction of material and

process, as explicated by Richard Cohn: in this context, “process” refers to Abrahamsen’s idea of

“exchanging two phrases by means of an increasingly close stretto,” whereas “material” is the “two

phrases” themselves. More generally, I will use “material” for specific pitches and/or rhythms that

are, at an atomic level, unchanged over the course of one or two canons, and “process” to describe

the shifting configurations thereof over the same timescale.

The initial “material” in Schnee can be read as on its own alluding to snow. The first sound a

listener encounters when hearing Schnee from the beginning is an eighth-note pulse played on A8 as a

harmonic in the violin, and superimposed upon this pulse a sixteenth-note triplet later is the first

theme, shown in Figure 1-1a. Its affinity to snow in terms of “color” may be entirely due to its

diatonicism (it is indeed entirely “white notes”), its extremely high register in the piano, or the sheen

of the piano’s resonance (the pianist is instructed to keep the sustain pedal down through the entire

canon). Yet snow is not static—it falls in time, and this theme’s peculiarly off-kilter yet precise

rhythm is a critical aspect of the movement’s character. At the beginning of a snowstorm, one might

first see just one flurry, after which the rate of snow steadily increases; the theme likewise gets faster

in each measure, with shorter and shorter distances between attacks. Such durations are consistent

within each half-measure, as delineated by dashed bar lines—each note in the first half of the fourth

measure, for example, spans exactly four sixteenth-note triplets. Their alignments with the

underlying steady eighth-note pulses facilitate perception of these durations as consistent.

The rhythm of this theme is rather evocative—in addition to the allusion to snowfall,

Abrahamsen compares it to his own limp when he walks 8—yet it also arises from a process of its

7Liner notes to Abrahamsen and Ensemble Recherche, Schnee.

8 Varga, The Courage of Composers and the Tyranny of Taste, 18.
 Kahrs 4

own. Figure 1-1b repeats the theme shown in Figure 1-1a, with each measure shown on a separate

line, and with consistent horizontal spacing so that vertical alignment is synonymous with beat-class

equivalence. 9 Gray vertical lines extending downwards from each measure’s note(s) show that each

measure’s beat-class set is a subset of the next measure’s—although new attacks are not entirely

predictable (each measure has a distinct proportion of new to old onsets), there is nonetheless a

strong resemblance to Steve Reich’s additive processes, such as the opening of Drumming. In this

surface-level “process,” the “material” is the final measure, from whose attack-point set the previous

measures are drawn. As shown in Figure 1-1, this final measure consists of two distinct tuplets—a

6:4 and an 8:5—and the subdivisions in the second are slightly faster, yet perceptibly so because they

align differently with the underlying eighth-note pulse. In the larger form of the canon, however, this

entire five-bar phrase, despite being “process” here, serves as the “material” for the “process” that is

the entire canon’s larger-scale form. 10

Despite capturing the attack-points’ steady buildup, this analysis does not capture the

theme’s characteristic lilt and perpetual unsettledness. In this paper, I attempt to analyze how the

theme’s rhythmic character interacts with the processes it is run through, and how that might help

us hear the theme in the first place. I will first explore the potential relevance both of theories

relating to the influence of Ligeti, Abrahamsen’s teacher whose work is also noted for rhythmic

innovation, as well as theories of metric projection by Christopher Hasty, John Roeder, and David

Lewin. I will then argue that Canons 5a and 5b display particular intersections of rhythmic surface

and larger-scale pitch processes, as highlighted by instrumental doublings and other details of

orchestration, to apply to Canons 1a and 1b. We can thus use the underlying process to better

understand the rhythm. The technical machinations that Abrahamsen finds “bound up with” the

representation of snow will prove useful for making sense of the rhythm with which his snow falls

and its place in “the poetic world of the piece.”

9 I am using “beat-class” in Cohn’s sense: two onsets share a beat-class if and only if they are offset by an integer
number of fixed-length measures.
10 In Reich’s Drumming, for comparison, these are simply two separate processes, one arriving at a plain statement of the

material and another departing from that same statement.

 Kahrs 5

Schnee is one of the most explicitly Ligeti-inspired pieces in Abrahamsen’s output. In

particular, Ligeti’s third book of piano etudes includes works such as “White on White” and

“Canon” that provide a clear link to the largely white-note canons of Schnee. 11 One might thus expect

Ligeti’s own rhythmic innovations, such as his use of small-division tuplets, to be relevant here.

Figure 1-2a reproduces a characteristic passage from the beginning of the eighth of his Ten Pieces for

Woodwind Quintet. Despite the density of tuplets, this passage gives an impression not of rhythmic

precision, as in Schnee, but rather of fusion. Jane Clendenning compares this piece to keyboard works

such as Continuum, which develops the same effect—“small units are repeated quickly enough that

the pitches almost fuse into a chord”—in a very different setting of incessant fixed-length

rearticulations. 12 Small rhythmic divisions in this context—that of Ligeti’s second-period, electronic-

inspired works—are not perceptible as rhythms, but as part of a texture, and thus bear little

phenomenological resemblance to Abrahamsen’s techniques.

Given that Abrahamsen studied with Ligeti in the 1980s, at which point Ligeti had moved

on to his “third way” (consisting of works from the 1981 Horn Trio onwards), 13 one might instead

consider Ligeti’s later rhythmic innovations, of the sort found in the Piano and Violin Concerti as

well as in the Piano Etudes. These rhythmic devices are often discussed, both by Ligeti and by

others, in terms of their African influences. Ligeti himself, in the foreword to Simha Arom’s tome

on African polyrhythm, writes (emphasis mine):

For composition, [Arom’s work] opens the door leading to a new way of thinking about
polyphony, one which is completely different from the European metric structures, but
equally rich, or maybe, considering the possibility of using a quick pulse as a ‘common
denominator’ upon which various patterns can be polyrhythmically superimposed, even richer
than the European tradition. 14

11 I will discuss in Section 2 a notable contrast between Ligeti’s canons and Abrahamsen’s, namely that Abrahamsen’s
processes are movement-length, whereas Ligeti’s either are shorter than a movement (and must repeat themselves) or are
substantially longer than the composition containing them, and are thus not completed.
12 Clendinning, “The Pattern-Meccanico Compositions of György Ligeti,” 195–96.
13 The term “third way” is Ligeti’s own, but has been explicated in full detail in Searby, “Ligeti’s ‘Third Way.’”
14 Arom, African Polyphony and Polyrhythm, xviii. It is worth noting that Kofi Agawu has criticized Arom’s discussions of

African music for largely ignoring the social context of musical practice, though he concedes that “Arom’s omission may
be productively strategic” for composers; see Agawu, Representing African Music, 189–91.
 Kahrs 6

In presenting an explicit pulse, such a rhythm is the opposite of Ligeti’s second-period

music—the smallest notated subdivisions are audible as rhythmic impulses, rather than being

deemphasized as part of a complex texture. Furthermore, the pulses’ discreteness is critical to these

rhythms, as audible asymmetries result from exact subdivisions being impossible. Steven Taylor, for

example, has discussed many of Ligeti’s rhythms of this era in terms of “maximal evenness”: Figure

1-2b reproduces Figure 2 from Taylor 2012, which shows how “the bossa nova clave rhythm [taken

as an example of an African rhythm that Ligeti works with] can be seen as an attempt to distribute

five onsets evenly against sixteen background pulses.” 15 Figure 1-2c reproduces Figure 6 from the

same article, showing a maximally even rhythm in the first movement of Ligeti’s Piano Concerto

articulated by accent marks and supported by beaming. The notated smallest pulse here is an eighth-

note, sounding at approximately 4 pulses per second, which is indeed a pretty fast clip, but very

much audible as a discrete pulse.

The rhythm of the opening theme of Schnee, in contrast, yields no audible common

denominator. As made clear by the notation of the last measure of Figure 1-1b, the rhythm is

obtained by taking ever-smaller divisions of a segment consisting of either four or five eighth-notes.

In Schnee, although there is an ongoing pulse—the violin plays on every eighth-note—it is explicitly

not aligned with the theme it accompanies. A common denominator is, however, mathematically

possible: dividing each measure into 216 pulses, an eighth-note is 24 pulses, each “6:4” division is 16

pulses, and each “8:5” division is 15 pulses; Figure 1-3 presents the opening theme in terms of these

units. 16 However, at the notated tempo of 108 eighth-notes per minute, these pulses would sound at

2,592 per minute, spaced at 23ms apart, about a quarter of the 100ms threshold for perceiving a time

interval metrically. 17 Considering this subdivision a “pulse” is therefore perceptually absurd.

The analytical problem can be reduced to relating the two subdivisions in the last measure of

the theme—after the dotted line 4/5 of the way through the bar, each note takes up 15 rather than

15 Taylor, “Hemiola, Maximal Evenness, and Metric Ambiguity in Late Ligeti,” 204–8.
16 Because 15 and 16 are relatively prime, 216 is the smallest possible number of pulses into which a measure can be
divided that allows both 6:4 and 8:5 divisions to be represented.
17 London, Hearing in Time, 27–29.
 Kahrs 7

16 pulses. These durations are very similar, 18 such that the “beat” in the second half of the bar might

simply be heard as a subtle acceleration of the first half. However, the different proportions create

audibly different alignments with the underlying eighth-note pulse, keeping the passage from being

heard as rubato—the fourth attack in the second part of the measure, for example, now anticipates

the violin’s pulse by a sixty-fourth note, rather than being simultaneous as in the first half. For a

language to describe such a turn, we might turn to the projection-oriented theories of Hasty and

Roeder. Hasty’s theory, however, is explicitly centered on precisely constant subdivisions: after

defining rhythmic projection as a process in which a “duration”—or interonset interval (IOI) 19—

between two notes’ articulations is repeated between further pairs of notes, Hasty requires that those

durations be unchanging in order for the metric flow to be continuous.

Even in an analysis of music with a quite irregular rhythmic foreground, Hasty writes off the

possibility of projection with variable intervals. Hasty writes, for instance, that at the opening of

Webern’s Quartet Op. 22, “the projected duration of the quarter note […] is highly determinate. As

a result, the second constituent enters a sixteenth too late, creating a projective break.” 20 Having
previously defined a “break” as a “hiatus” distinct from deceleration, it is clear that this single

sixteenth-note offset is enough for Hasty to deduce a major metric division. Although this break

may exist in the context of this excerpt, Hasty references no further musical details to justify his

“projective break,” instead relying on an apparent axiom that even one offset of a “smallest value” is

enough to halt projective continuity. 21 However, this axiom ignores any possibility of rubato, which

regularly shifts durations by enough to constitute a break in projection. 22 In Schnee, this theory

cannot capture a natural hearing of last measure of the opening theme—although the first half has

18 The 23ms difference is just enough time for a listener to perceive two separate onsets and know which order they are
in, and if we imagine durations as indefinitely projected in a listener’s imagination, there will indeed be two such colliding
onsets; see London, 29.
19 Hasty, Meter as Rhythm, 84–85; London, Hearing in Time, 27.
20 Hasty, Meter as Rhythm, 259.
21 Hasty, 257.
22 Listener studies have shown that even with IOI differences as wide as 100ms, listeners will often split the difference

from rubato to a non-rubato rhythm when attempting to replicate what they heard, particularly when the rubato does
not align with other musical features; see Clarke and Baker-Short, “The Imitation of Perceived Rubato,” 65–67. Hasty
does briefly mention the possibility of written-out rubato in late twentieth-century music in his analysis of Babbitt’s Du,
but does not directly address any large-scale theoretical consequences.
 Kahrs 8

16-pulse IOIs and the second half has 15-pulse IOIs, this shift can be heard as a slightly faster

continuation of the same projected IOI rather than as a new duration.

John Roeder does have terminology for such an event: in describing the music of Thomas

Adès, Roeder defines the term “quasi-metric continuity” as “when a duration that is not equal to a

projected duration is nevertheless perceived as its realization.” 23 However, Roeder develops this

notion as a strictly descriptive term for phrase-level events in combination with other “continuities”

such as interval cycles, rather than as a grounding for a more formal theory of projective continuity.

Roeder’s other rhythmic and metric innovations, even if not assuming all projected durations to be

exactly equal, nonetheless rely on an audible small divisions. Roeder’s “pulse streams,” for example,

are simultaneous projections of multiple durations that all share a perceptible common denominator

at which they might align. 24 However, I will continue to use this notion descriptively (though I will
favor the broader term “projective continuity”) in cases where I hear a projection as realized despite

a small inequality between durations.

We thus find ourselves back where we started, with seemingly excessive precise subdivisions

of a measure that defy many theories. The rhythms here require an analytical tool that can

systematically account for distinct projective IOIs whose greatest common denominator might be

arbitrarily small. Such a system is available in David Lewin’s 1981 “Some Investigations into

Foreground Rhythmic and Metric Patterning,” which explicitly discusses criteria for notes of

different durations to be understood as metrically uniform, and the flow of them to be continuous.

Figure 1-4a reproduces a stimulus rhythm whose perception Lewin finds surprising, and Figure 1-4b

shows Lewin’s metric understanding of that same rhythm.

Figure 1-4c reproduces a figure from Lewin’s systematic and quantitative explanation for this

perception: note that the IOI between the first two notes is equal to the duration of the last note.

Likewise, as shown in Figure 1-4d, the IOI between the first and fourth attacks is equal to the

23 Roeder, “Co-Operating Continuities in the Music of Thomas Adès,” 123–24.

24 Roeder, “Pulse Streams and Problems of Grouping and Metrical Dissonance in Bartók’s ‘With Drums and Pipes.’”
 Kahrs 9

duration of the second perceived measure. 25 In particular, Lewin notes upon the termination of the

final note:

At this stage we experience for the first time recurring durations, d=5 and d=9, which
thereby predominate numerically over other experienced durations, giving rise to numerical
“peaks” in (5.4d) [a table listing all interonset intervals]. My theory presumes that the
numerical peaking at this particular motion of updating, t=14, models our perception of an
ictus at that moment. [...] I shall also presume that the specific durations whose values peak
will exert a structuring influence over one's metric response at the time of such updating. 26
Over the rest of this article, Lewin develops this observation into a quantitative theory, in which the

importance of a rhythmic “duration”—as with Hasty’s usage of the term, synonymous with IOI 27—

is measured by how many times it occurs among all IOIs in a given passage. The critical innovation

for our purposes, however, is that Lewin assumes baseline projective continuity at the foreground

level. Systematic changes in foreground IOI duration can be understood as projective continuations

on account of the middleground IOIs structuring them.

When applied to Schnee, this theory yields an abundance of data. Figure 1-5 presents every

IOI that occurs at least four times in a Lewinian parsing of the first theme. 28 At the top row, the gray
vertical lines are barlines, and vertical black lines are onsets. Below, each horizontal bracket

represents an instance of an IOI in its place; each distinct IOI has its instances laid out from left to

right. There are 21 distinct IOIs in this diagram, of which five have been highlighted and labeled for

a first analytical outline. 29 By far the most prominent, and highlighted in red, is 216, which is the

length of a measure: each of the 13 red brackets corresponds to one of the gray line segments

between consecutive measures in Figure 1-1b. The next few IOIs are basic subdivisions within each

25 Alternately, the IOI between the first and third notes is the same as that between the fourth note and an imagined
fifth note marked by the start of the rest following the fourth note. In a context where notes are explicitly sustained,
such as Lewin’s example, defining such a timepoint is meaningful, but in Schnee, where all notes are left to resonate
indefinitely under the piano’s pedal, it makes little sense to look beyond the last attack-point.
26 Lewin, “Some Investigations into Foreground Rhythmic and Metric Patterning,” 108.
27 Lewin and Hasty use “duration” a bit differently from one another: Hasty’s durations tend to be individual note

lengths, and thus shorter than Lewin’s durations, which often span multiple notes.
28 This figure, Figure 1-6, and later figures 3-5, 4-5b, 5-3a, 5-4a, 6-2, 6-4, and 6-5, were generated by computer program;

the source code is available online at https://github.com/nkahrs/lewin-rhythms. My work here is original, but many of
my functions bear a strong resemblance to those of Marsden, Representing Musical Time. In Figure 1-5, colors and
annotations are post hoc overlay.
29 The unit here is “pulses at the gcd of all IOIs”—the 23ms duration discussed above.
 Kahrs 10

half-measure: 30 is highlighted in orange and 32 in green, corresponding to the main pulses in the

second and first halves, respectively, of the theme’s penultimate measure. The next few most

common IOIs are not highlighted, but are integer multiples and divisions of these, again

representing basic divisions in each half-measure.

Some IOIs are less common, but are more intriguing in terms of their structural and

perceptual clarity. Highlighted in blue is 186, which occurs six times and is one of the most common

IOIs to not occur between any pair of consecutive attacks. It is particularly intriguing because it is

not firmly attached to either half-measure: its second and sixth appearances begin at the first attack

and end at the last attack in the fourth and fifth measures, respectively. Also occurring six times is

124, which is highlighted in purple. This IOI occurs exclusively between the distinct half-measures;

as notated, it requires a thirty-second-note triplet, which does not appear within the notated values

in the score but instead arises between the sixteenth-note triplet and duplet that form the two

attacks of the theme’s second measure. There is a particularly strong case for considering this IOI a

hidden projective interval—in addition to its early prominence as the work’s second IOI, it is on two

separate occasions immediately repeated upon its conclusion.

Despite the productivity of discussion thus far, I have already had to gloss over a few IOIs

and ignore several others. When also considering theme 2, or themes 1 and 2 in stretto, the sheer

number of distinct IOIs this approach reveals is far too many for any listener to track in any one

listening. In contrast, the analyses in Lewin’s article, such as of Schoenberg’s Piano Piece Op. 19 No.

6, focus only on a few IOIs, typically three or four, as opposed to the twenty-one in the figure. Even

looking only at those IOIs that Lewin identifies as a “peak” by an additional set of criteria, 30 as in

Figure 1-6, there are still eleven distinct IOIs just in the first theme alone. Consequently, it becomes

quite unwieldy to generalize this to all possible stretti of two distinct themes. In the discussion above

of Figure 1-5, I had to turn to other contextual clues in order to determine which IOIs to focus on. I

30 Lewin, “Some Investigations into Foreground Rhythmic and Metric Patterning,” 110.
 Kahrs 11

excluded two distinct IOIs between 186 (blue) and 124 (purple) that also appeared six times,

choosing 124 largely for its prominent placement in measure 2.

More generally, I have found that considering orchestrational cues helps filter particularly

salient IOIs from the sea of data. Other sections of the piece (particularly Canons 5a and 5b) show

that orchestration can aid the comprehension of both surface rhythms and underlying processes.

Returning to Cohn’s and Reich’s distinction of material and process, I am not necessarily seeking to

understand either the process or the material as a standalone entity. Rather, I am considering the

rhythmic material as heard through the lens of canonic process. The rhythms of Canon 1a are

presented in stretti and thus, as in the phasing music of Reich discussed by Cohn, are offset by

specific quantities—they are, in Cohn’s sense, transpositionally combined (albeit in beat-space rather

than beat-class space) 31 —but the orchestrational choices I consider do not act on either theme on
its own, but rather on their alignments. The specific IOIs I end up tracing are highlighted not on

account of any inherent property of either theme, but on account of the process that they are run

through. Furthermore, many orchestrationally highlighted IOIs become more salient over the course

of the process on account of their repetition.

My remaining analytical goals thus necessitate an investigation of process rather close to the

“analysis as a form of puzzle-solving” that Ian Quinn has critiqued, 32 but I hope that my overall aim

of reevaluating the perception of surface rhythm provides a meaningful context within which to

understand the puzzle. In Canons 5a and 5b, with simpler rhythms consisting entirely of eighth-

notes, rearticulations and doublings both clarify the underlying compositional process and provide a

significant textural change for a listener to follow; orchestration clarifies both process and surface. In

Canons 1a and 1b, similar considerations of orchestration not only clarify the underlying process,

31 Although bar-line equivalence is important to the construction of the theme, as discussed in the context of Figure 1-
1b, it does not meaningfully extend to this particular perceptual context. In Cohn’s analysis of Reich’s phase music, the
perception of bar-line equivalence can be assumed given the repetitive phasing process. A table such as Figure 1-6 could
be generalized to use IOI-classes (with bar-line equivalence), but it does not yield substantially different information: the
IOI-class version of Figure 1-6 displays generally the same hierarchy, with the distinction that it very heavily favors the
first few IOIs to appear chronologically, as the subset property of the theme ensures extensive IOI-class repetition (i.e. x
generates 216+x, 2·216+x, …), in addition to the preexisting IOI-repetition (an interval x from p1 to p2 will also exist
from p1+216 to p2+216).
32 Quinn, “Minimal Challenges,” 290–91.
 Kahrs 12

but also highlight specific rhythmic alignments that make certain IOIs more salient than others,

providing a lens through which to interpret a figure such as 1-5. The ultimate effect of any canon

(and of its process) reorients the perception of its material: by the end of the process, we hear the

material differently. The structure of the canon thus impacts how we might hear the theme.

In the rest of this essay, I discuss relations between orchestration, surface rhythm and meter,

and compositional process in both the fifth and first pairs of canons, in order to establish a

framework through which to interpret figures such as 1-5 and 1-6. In Section 2, I summarize

underlying similarities between Canons 1a, 1b, 5a, and 5b, justifying the relevance of an analysis of

one of these to understanding another. In Section 3, I present a close-reading of Canons 5a and 5b

and draw some general conclusions about the relations of surface details to compositional process.

In Section 4, I present a formal outline of Canons 1a and 1b without reference to specific

foreground rhythms, in preparation for Section 5, in which I revisit the relevance of Lewin’s 1981

theory in terms of the process from Section 4 and the interpretive axioms from Section 3. Finally, in

Section 6 I draw some general conclusions about how various aspects of the process might affect

our hearing of the material more generally.

2. Relating the First and Last Pairs of Canons

The first and last pairs of canons in Schnee are linked by basic pitch material and underlying

process, providing both structural and audible similarities that allow analytical principles from one to

be transferred to the other. Although these similarities are aurally obscured by differences in

intonation and rhythmic complexity, these distinct aspects trade structural roles—the microtonality

that is slowly introduced in in the first canons is a fixed parameter in the last canons, and the

consistent rhythmic lilt of the first canons is matched by a rhythmic shift in the last canons from a

constant sea of pulses to a texture with audible gaps. Through a comparison of Schnee’s beginning

and ending, we can justify using the fifth pair of canons as a guide to the analysis of the first pair. In

particular, as discussed in Section 1, the rhythms of the opening are resistant to many analytical

tools, but the fifth canons’ rhythmic surface is much simpler, consisting entirely of eighth-notes. By
 Kahrs 13

examining the relation of rhythm to other details of both orchestration and process in the fifth pair

of canons, we can establish analytical guidelines for making sense of the highly detailed rhythms of

the first pair through similar cues.

For ease of discussion, I should first clarify my terminology regarding canons and pairs of

canons. The ten canons of Schnee are divided into five pairs, and the canons are thus numbered 1a,

1b, 2a, etc; indeed, Abrahamsen writes that “each canon has its ‘double’, where it is heard in a

different version.” 33 When referring to properties common to paired canons, I will use the

terminological shorthand “Canons x” (for integer x) to refer to “Canons xa and xb.” For example,

when I write that “Canons 5 are RI-symmetrical,” I am claiming that Canon 5a and Canon 5b both

individually have the property of RI-symmetry.

In light of this pairing of canons, one should be aware of the actual similarities and

differences between the constituent canons of a given pair. Discussing Canon 1b in relation to 1a,

Abrahamsen writes:

It is basically the same music, but with many more canonic levels superimposed. So the two
form a pair, and should be heard as such. They are like two big musical pictures which, heard
with distant, unfocussed ears, may produce a third, three-dimensional picture. 34
To help us make sense of this statement, Figure 2-1 shows the openings of Canons 1a and 1b. Note

that every sounding element of 1a is present in 1b: the violin’s initial pitch in 1a is replicated in the

same instrument the start of 1b, the violin’s rhythm in 1a is transferred to the percussionists’ paper-

scratches in 1b, and Piano 1’s alternating-hand figure is transferred, with no change in sound, 35 to

the right hand of Piano 2 in 1b. In this sense, they are “the same music” in that everything heard in

1a can also be heard in 1b. However, Canon 1b does contain several elements, or “canonic levels,”

that are not in 1a: these include the violin pitches beyond the first measure (which double the

piano’s right hand pitches with a different rhythm), the secondary voice in viola and piano left hand,

33 Liner notes to Abrahamsen and Ensemble Recherche, Schnee.

34 Ibid.
35 I have chosen not to undertake an analysis of the alternating-hand layout of the piano part, instead focusing only on

the aggregate rhythm as heard. However, some of the piano part’s notation later becomes more significant—a secondary
voice marked by upwards flags in Canon 1a is presented in an entirely separate piano in Canon 1b.
 Kahrs 14

piano 1’s “guiro” effect, 36 presented in dotted eighth-notes against an underlying eighth-note pulse,

and the inharmonic timbre of the percussionist’s paper-rubbing. In Section 4, I will discuss how

these elements clarify the underlying process that is already present in Canon 1a.

Likewise, Canons 5a and 5b share the same pitch material, rhythms, and subsequent process,

but differ in how these aspects align. Figure 2-2 shows the openings of both canons: note that each

piano plays the same seven dyads in both cases, but that the rhythms are swapped. Although this

commonality is aurally compelling, it is actually a byproduct of a more fundamental symmetry: the

two piano parts’ opening incipits are inversions of one another—indeed, in line with the canons’

titles of “rectus” and “inversus,” the two movements as a whole are inversions of one another.

Specifically, for the first seven dyads, the piano 1 part in Canon 5a, under inversion about the

notated D4-A5 (sounding D5-A7) axis in white-note pitch-space, 37 becomes the piano 2 part in
Canon 5b, and vice versa. This trend does not continue across the movement because the pitches

(but not rhythms) of the two pianos are in fact RI-symmetrical, as is discussed further in Section 3.

Canons 1 and 5 share similarities not only in pitch material but also in structure and process.

Most saliently, Canons 5 harken back to Canons 1 through a theme drawn not just from the

primarily white-note pitch collection of Canons 1, 38 but also from specific motivic fragments. Figure

2-3 illustrates specific commonalities: the theme of Canons 5, shown on the bottom staff,

recapitulates not only the four-note A-F-E-D figure that descends from the upper A, but also the

two dyadic figures leading to and from the lower A. Furthermore, both pairs of canons are

structured around a large-scale retrograde. As I detail in Sections 3 and 4, Canons 5 reverse the order

36 The “guiro” technique consists of dragging one’s fingernails against a series of white keys on the piano, to produce a
continuous procession of “click” sounds. This technique and its name are likely borrowed from Helmut Lachenmann’s
1969 Guero for solo piano. Abrahamsen’s notation, however, is very different from Lachenmann’s—Abrahamsen
indicates specific pitches where click-glissandi begin and end, whereas Lachenmann exclusively notates gestural
contours.
37 Diatonic inversion is a common technique in tonal counterpoint, but is not usually discussed in the symmetry-oriented

language of chromatic inversion in post-tonal theory. In this context, notated D4 and A5 map to each other, but so do
notated F4 and F5 (both two diatonic steps, or “a third,” inwards, but not the same interval-class of third). The axis
would more properly be stated as the notated B4-C5 axis, but in context, it is clearer to simply think of notated D4-A5
as a fixed dyad under inversion. Note that in the figure, the hands have different transpositions from one another; the
sounding fixed dyad is D5-A7, and the sounding axis proper is F6.
38 In Canons 1, the second theme, which will be discussed below, contains a C#; this is immediately juxtaposed with a C§,

perhaps as a sort of dramatized ficta in D.

 Kahrs 15

of seven notes within a single theme, and Canons 1 reverse the order of two themes. Although the

notion of retrograde acts on different musical objects—individual notes of a theme in Canons 5, but

entire themes in a two-theme group in Canons 1—it is still present in both pairs of canons.

Confounding any direct comparisons to Ligeti’s Piano Etudes as discussed above, each

canon concludes as soon as its retrograde process is over, but no sooner. Sara Bakker has noted that

many of Ligeti’s Études rely on processes that are not completed—that of Désordre, for instance,

would take over half an hour to complete, rather than the 2.5 minutes of the actual etude. Bakker

argues that Ligeti instead disrupts the process of Désordre to force early closure, and likewise uses

thematic techniques to end En Suspens only halfway through its process. 39 Such disruptions exist all
across Ligeti’s output, not just in earlier piano etudes but even in Schnee’s most obviously parallel

work, the third book of canonic white-note etudes. 40 In Schnee, however, formal closure is always

synonymous with the actual conclusion of the process that is initially set out: in the last pair of

canons, for example, the last seven dyads in either piano are in fact the retrograde of the first seven

dyads, and all intermediate steps are present.

In Jonathan Kramer’s terms, we might say that Schnee deals with endings as process—formal

closure is marked by the process running its course (the retrograde is achieved), whereas Ligeti’s

etudes present endings as products, substituting conventional cadential gestures for the process’

natural conclusion. 41 This distinction, however, is muddied by the surface-level rhythm and

intonation of Schnee, which often overpower the pitch material. Kramer defines “ending as process”

in the context of tonality, and thus assumes linearity, but the processes of actual “process music” are

quite different, in that their emphases are more on continuous changes than on the final goal.

Kramer writes about the process music of Reich and Rzewski: “because in such pieces the motion is

unceasing and its rate gradual and constant […] the temporality is more vertical than linear.” 42 Some

39 Bakker, “Ending Ligeti’s Piano Etudes,” 114–18.

40 A full discussion of some middle etudes can be found in Bakker, Playing with Patterns; the third book was discussed
specifically in Bakker, “What Makes a Study? Perspectives from Ligeti and Nancarrow.”
41 Kramer, The Time of Music, 143–44.
42 Kramer, 57. This discussion perhaps applies more to the fifth canons than to the first—Canons 1 do display a clear

phrase structure, which Kramer identifies as a key element of linearity, but the progression from phrase to phrase is still
somewhat nebulous.
 Kahrs 16

of Abrahamsen’s canons are similarly unceasing—much of the character of Canons 5 results not

from the process itself but rather from the severity of the constant eighth-note grid. Although these

Canons conclude when the process is over and the theme has been supplanted by its retrograde, a

listener might perceive closure more from the rhythmic motion simply halting. The aggregate pitch

content may be vertical, but other aspects of these canons, particularly its texture, can be construed

as linear.

In terms of microtonality and rhythm, Canons 1b and 5 exchange vertical (or at least

constant) and linear elements that are not always correlated with pitch processes. 43 Microtonality is

linear in Canon 1b—the canon begins in the usual 12-note equal division of the octave (12edo), but

just intonation is slowly introduced and takes on a prominent role in winds and strings halfway

through—but vertical (that is, static) in Canons 5, where many notes are doubled one or two sixth-

tones flat across all of both canons. Conversely, rhythm is linear in Canons 5—the first half of each

canon has an attack on every eighth-note, but the second halves are punctuated by occasional

silences—but fully symmetrical, and thus detached from goal-oriented linearity, in Canon 1b:

although the rhythms are not uniform throughout, the canon begins and ends with exactly the same

lilting rhythmic pattern. Microtonality and rhythm thus trade places between Canon 1b and Canons

5: what is constant or symmetrical in Canon 1b becomes teleological in Canons 5, and vice versa.

The first and last pairs of canons in Schnee, then, have enough underlying similarities that an

analysis of Canons 5 can help us understand Canons 1. Both pairs of canons have a grounding in

symmetrical process, with exists simultaneously with another layer that is given teleological

importance by some asymmetry. Critically, Canons 1 and 5 swap constant and changing elements:

microtonality in the Canons 1, which audibly becomes more prominent over time, is akin to rhythm

in Canons 5. Both pairs of canons inhabit similar intersections of predetermined processes and

separate post hoc choices. Although Canons 5 occur much later in the piece than Canons 1, and

43Canon 1a, unlike 1b, has no drastic linear changes in either rhythm or intonation, and is arguably more perfectly
symmetric. However, because the pitch and rhythmic material of Canon 1a is immediately reinterpreted in Canon 1b, the
asymmetries of Canon 1b might still be projected onto Canon 1a. Likewise, the principles from Canons 5 that apply to
Canons 1b might yield findings about pitch and rhythmic aspects that are in common with Canon 1a, and thus are
applicable there, in memory or upon a second listening.
 Kahrs 17

would likely be perceived as a recapitulation in the context of a full listening, this non-chronological

understanding is nonetheless revealing. An analysis of the distinct process-oriented and separately

intentional audible layers of Canons 5, then, can establish general underlying principles to bring to

an analysis of Canons 1.

3. Analysis of Canons 5

Although the vertically constant pitch process of Canons 5 can be clearly identified from the

role of winds and strings, much of the canons’ linearity comes instead from a separate and non-

aligned rhythmic process highlighted by piano articulations. In this section, I will separately unpack

these two processes, first discussing them abstractly and then examining how they relate to

instrumentation. To understand the rhythms in Canons 1, it will aid us to have a testing ground to

determine how instrumentation might highlight specific alignments either only in surface-level

rhythm or in connection with pitch processes. For a demonstration of such connections, Canon 5

provides an especially clear example: the piano and winds/strings serve very different roles with

regards to the domains of pitch and rhythm.

Figure 3-1a illustrates the beginning of the retrograde process that governs the pitches of

Piano 1 in Canon 5b (as discussed in Section 2, an equivalent process unfolds in Canon 5a): the first

seven dyads present the seven-note theme and are followed by six dyads presenting a segment of the

theme consisting of notes 2–7, then six dyads for notes 1–6. In this figure, open noteheads highlight

the first note of a given continuous segment of the theme (whole notes indicate the first segment of

a given length), and closed noteheads denote its continuation. In each hand, notes in a given

segment are linked under a dashed slur; segments of the same length are all under the same solid

slur. 44 Figure 3-1b summarizes the continuation of this process: the path shown provides the piano’s

full pitch material as related to the first seven dyads. In particular, for all segment lengths from 7 to

44This diagram focuses on notes of one hand, rather than on dyads—as the same processes apply to both, discussions
from one apply to the other. Note however that both right-hand parts do use notated A4 twice, and these can only be
distinguished as dyads (A-E vs A-F). Barlines here are synonymous with slurs and do not correspond to notated barlines
in the score.
 Kahrs 18

1, all possible contiguous segments are presented, moving from the end of the theme to the

beginning. 45 In particular, the final seven notes in each hand are exactly the first seven notes,

presented in retrograde.

This process occurs in reverse in the second piano; that is, Piano 2 in Canon 5b begins with

the theme played “backwards” and concludes playing that same theme “forwards,” in relation to

Piano 1. 46 Figure 3-2 illustrates the canon’s RI-symmetry by comparing the right hand of piano 1 to

its RI-equivalent, the left hand of piano 2, at the start and end of the canon (for clarity, the entire

middle stage of the process is excluded). Horizontal arrows show the process moving “forwards”

(i.e., from theme to retrograde), and other arrows show retrograde-inversion acting on the process’s

directionality. Note in particular that although the first and last seven attacks are inversionally

symmetrical without retrograde, this does not generalize: whereas material under the first full slur is

entirely in contrary motion, for example, the material under the second dashed slur in Piano 1 is

entirely in similar motion, and therefore not related under inversion. Furthermore, the theme is

marked as “forwards” only by means of this process—its orientation in the top staves of Figures 3-1

and 3-2 helps show motivic connections to Canons 1 in Figure 2-3, but all four orientations of the

theme are treated equally as Canons 5 unfold.

Winds and strings help clarify this process by doubling certain piano notes and pausing

between phrases. Figure 3-3 presents an excerpt of Canon 5b corresponding to the upper staff of

the second system of Figure 3-2. 47 Open and whole noteheads are analytic overlay, and slurs are

from the score on wind parts (but are my addition to piano parts); these symbols have the same

meanings as in Figures 3-1a and 3-2. There is a one-to-one relation between new thematic segments

(marked with open noteheads), and note changes in the woodwinds—every woodwind attack

45 It is not difficult to more formally encode this process computationally, e.g. a one-line rendition in Python is
[[[k+1 for k in range(j, j+7-i)] for j in reversed(range(i+1))] for i in range(7)]
46 As shown in Figure 2-2, the two piano parts are also related under inversion—as discussed in Section 2, the parts are
retrograde-inversions (in white-note space) of one another. I am using quotes to note that “backwards” and “forwards”
are with respect to the process, which only aligns with the theme’s orientation (as established at Figure 2-3) in Piano 1 of
Canon 5b.
47 The clarinet part is written as sounding, excepting its microtonal retuning. Throughout both Canons 5, piccolo and E-

flat clarinet are paired with the right and left hands of Piano 1, respectively, and likewise for violin, viola, and Piano 2.
The latter three instruments (violin, viola, and Piano 2) also play in this passage, are not shown in this figure.
 Kahrs 19

doubles a piano note, and a note is doubled if and only if it is the first note of a segment from the

theme. The woodwind parts’ eighth-note pauses, moreover, mark changes in theme-segment length,

corresponding to new columns in Figure 3-1b. Each new stage of the piano’s process, i.e. each new

cell in Figure 3-1b, is projected by the winds or strings.

Nonetheless, although a dedicated listener could be aided in hearing this process by focusing

on the wind and string parts—in particular, the two fully “backwards” themes both have every note

doubled by their respective wind or string instruments—they are more likely to focus on the overall

aggregate of rhythm and timbre. The winds and strings, though notated as if they double the pianos,

are actually off by microtonal intervals smaller than a semitone, having been retuned earlier in the

piece—in particular, the winds are a sixth-tone flat, and the strings are a third-tone flat. The

apparent doublings in the score are thus aurally blurred; the winds and strings occupy a somewhat

separate sonic plane from the piano. Likewise, the two pianos generally alternate attack-points: in the

opening measure shown in Figure 2-2, the two pianos can only be aurally separated by spatialization,

not rhythm. With few aural cues to separate out a single phrase in the piano, it is difficult to imagine

a listener tracing out the full detail of Figure 3-1b. Instead, a more experientially realistic analysis of

these canons may consider surface rhythms and other salient factors.

The most salient event in either Canon 5 is an unexpected rhythmic alignment. In both

canons, after a relentless eighth-note pulse is clearly established in the first half, it is broken just over

halfway through, with a simultaneous non-articulation in the pianos. Figure 3-4 shows the first three

such instances: just after B, an eighth-rest is shared by the two pianos, and the preceding attack,

played in both pianos, is highlighted with a sforzando and an accent. Because the process is so

relentlessly hard to follow—blurring into a static verticality—the most noticeable linear aspect of

either canon is the change in rhythmic texture, the introduction of silence. Notably, each of these

moments is marked with an eighth-note rest, the same device that previously clarified segment

lengths in the winds and strings. Although the piano’s rests are not actual silences (both sustain

pedals are down for each entire canon), there is a certain symmetry between the piano’s prominent
 Kahrs 20

articulation of a processual byproduct and the winds’ and strings’ quieter articulation of a larger

thematic division.

Figure 3-5 presents the complete rhythmic structure of both Canons 5. In Canon 5a, the

upper row is Piano 1 and the lower row is Piano 2 (consistent with the other inversions, this is

reversed in Canon 5b). Black bars indicates a eighth-note tacti on which that piano attacks, the gray

columns behind are underlying barline divisions, and the dark red line is the midpoint of the piece,

corresponding to rehearsal B. It is quite clear from this figure that all alignments of eighth-note

rests, highlighted by bright red arrows, occur in the second half of the piece. The overall resultant

rhythm is asymmetrical, and a listener will likely hear the linear progression of the canons as audibly

marked by these metric events. In each half of Figure 3-5, each piano plays the retrograde of the

other piano’s rhythm; if we consider switching rhythms between pianos to be a form of generalized

“inversion,” this is an RI-symmetry similar to that of the two pianos in pitch-space in either canon. 48
The rhythmic pattern’s RI-symmetry and teleological asymmetry are both results of an

underlying process, illustrated in Figure 3-6, distinct from that of the canons’ pitch material. In

Figure 3-6, upper and lower rows are the same pianos as in Figure 3-5: each cell contains a number

(3, 4, or 5) and a duration (eighth-note or quarter-note), and corresponds to the indicated number of

attacks, each with a length of the indicated duration, in the piece’s rhythmic structure. These

patterns are illustrated in Figure 3-5. There are two basic patterns of numbers of attacks—34554 and

its retrograde, 45543—and the durations alternate between quarter and eighth-notes. On either side

of the central red line, as in Figure 3-5, the two pianos have retrogrades of each other’s processes;

furthermore, the numbers of attacks have R-symmetry across the red line in the same piano, but the

durations of attacks have R-symmetry only when switching pianos.

Despite these symmetries, the result is the characteristically aligned non-attacks that make

such an impression in the second half of each canon. Because the numbers of attacks are R-

symmetrical but the durations are RI-symmetrical, the alignments of numbers and durations are

48I will continue to use the term RI-symmetry here; R-symmetry is misleading because it erases the distinction between
the two piano parts.
 Kahrs 21

switched. This discrepancy is the root cause of the holes in the grid that are subsequently marked

with accents, and that constitute the only meaningfully salient linear event in either canon. This

discussion, specifically in terms of alignments and non-alignments of eighth-notes, bears a strong

resemblance to Cohn’s discussion of beat-class sets in Reich—Cohn notes that in Phase Patterns,

“progression to a point of saturation [is ...] among the most immediate aspects of the listening

experience,” 49 and saturation is indeed the defining feature of the first half of each canon—but in

Canons 5 of Schnee, there are only 2 steps to the process, rather than 12, reducing the need for

Cohn’s heavier theoretical machinery.

Although pitch and rhythm in Canons 5 share a general RI symmetry (where inversion

involves a switch from one piano to the other), they diverge in their contributions to a listener’s

overall impression of the piece. As illustrated in Figure 3-7, the bipartite RI symmetries in each

canon are analogous to the pitch symmetries in the two-canon movement taken as a whole: Canons

5a and 5b are both separately RI-symmetrical, so the space between them is analogous to the

moment at B in each individual canon at which one RI-symmetrical rhythm concludes and another

begins. However, the rhythmic process yields a substantial change in texture—from a constant sea

of eighth-notes to occasional silences—that is fundamentally linear and asymmetrical, and which

makes the underlying pitch symmetries quite difficult to hear.

This final canon-pair provides a number of analytical lessons applicable to the first canon-

pair, specifically in terms of how orchestration and articulation project explicit symmetries and

asymmetries. Although the winds and strings could easily be dismissed as merely doubling the piano,

the specific doublings help clarify the process by which the piano parts move between a theme and

its retrograde. This process, despite being less salient than in the first movement, is still a crucial

element of the pitch organization of Canons 5. Meanwhile, a separate process governs rhythm, and

its explicit asymmetry with respect to the canon’s form—there are rhythmic gaps in the second half

of a canon, but not the first—is highlighted by accents in the pianos. A detail of articulation, rather

49 Cohn, “Transpositional Combination of Beat-Class Sets in Steve Reich’s Phase-Shifting Music,” 154.
 Kahrs 22

than clarifying a hidden process, emphasizes a clearer one. These two simultaneous yet non-aligned

processes yield the canons’ conventionally cadential closing: because the rhythmic alignments

between hands flip midway through the canons, the D5-A7 dyad presented simultaneously at the

opening is instead staggered between the pianos at the closing, as shown in Figure 3-8. Although this

dyad could be considered a cadence simply by stating a consonance as the last sonority of the work,

its rhythmic repetition marks it as explicitly cadential.

This closing moment, however, is perhaps the only sense in which rhythmic (non-)alignment

contributes to perception of symmetry. As discussed above, the most salient aspect of the canons’

surface rhythm is not the wind rearticulations that delineate meaningful landmarks in process, but

rather the series of non-articulations on eighth notes in the second half of the piece. Highlighted by

accents, such rhythmic alignments are an explicit priority, despite only sometimes intersecting with

aspects of pitch symmetry. If the basic musical material is defined as the succession of eighth-notes

and eighth-rests in the piano parts, there are three distinct elements of orchestration to focus on:

doublings of piano notes by the winds and strings, rests in the winds and strings, and sforzandi in the

pianos. Each of these choices in orchestration and articulation highlights a distinct rhythmic

alignment and implies a perceptually distinct structural prominence, but each is essential to clarifying

either process or surface.

4. Large-Scale Structure in Canons 1

Canons 1 demonstrate similar orchestration-process relations to those of in Canons 5. In

particular, in Canon 1b, winds and strings again often double their piano’s pitches, clarifying

thematic groupings; Canon 1a shares an underlying process, so is retrospectively clarified by these

doublings. However, although these cues allow us to infer the canons’ basic precompositional

structure, they also reveal a number of asymmetries—after the midpoint of Canon 1b, the logic of

wind/string doublings disintegrates. In Canons 5, surface asymmetry is governed by rhythmic

alignments, leading us to the middle section of Canons 1, where the process first starts to unravel. In
 Kahrs 23

Section 5, I will show that the rhythmic alignments therein allow us to focus on a few critical IOIs.

As with Canons 5, then, large-scale processes have foreground rhythmic consequences.

Like Canons 5, Canons 1 are structured around a retrograde, as shown in Figure 4-1a for

Canon 1b. 50 Each piano’s right hand repeats the same theme for the full duration of the movement:

Piano 2 plays the same theme that opened the work, shown in Figure 1-1a, and Piano 1 plays a

contrasting theme shown in Figure 4-1b. As noted above, Abrahamsen writes of this movement that

“two phrases in canon are gradually interchanged by means of an increasingly close stretto.” 51 Since

each piano part projects one of those two phrases/themes, this process is clear in the upper region

of the figure. Rehearsal marks that correspond to a new statement of the two-theme group, rather

than only one theme, are shown in larger print. As noted prior, Canon 1a contains exactly the same

pitch content as the right hands of these two piano parts, and is therefore generated by the same

process.

As in Canons 5, each statement of a theme in Canons 1 is linked to a specific

instrumentation: Canon 1b uses the winds and strings as in Canons 5, while Canon 1a shifts more

subtly within a small strings-and-one-piano group. Figure 4-2a shows a bar before and after A in

Canon 1a, where Piano 1 presents both themes and the underlying pulse moves from one string

instrument to another. In contrast, Figure 4-2b shows that at the analogous moment in Canon 1b,

instrumentation flips from Piano 2 to Piano 1 and from strings to winds, as well as within one

percussion part. Abrahamsen specifies the locations of instruments on the stage—Piano 1 and

strings on stage left, Piano 2 and winds on stage right, so the sound moves both right to left in the

pianos and left to right in strings and winds, giving this moment a visceral sense of motion even

while the axis of symmetry is constant. Canon 1b additionally differs in its use of strings and winds:

rather than the steady pulsations of Canon 1a, they now present their own material. As shown in the

middle row of Figure 4-1a, the strings generally double Piano 2, and the winds double Piano 1.

50 If we replace “Piano 1” and “Piano 2” with “Theme 2” and “Theme 1,” respectively, and remove the attendant colors,
the upper row of this figure shows the formal structure of Canon 1a. For details on the differences between these
Canons, refer to Section 2, particularly the discussion of Figure 2-1.
51 Liner notes to Abrahamsen and Ensemble Recherche, Schnee. Abrahamsen’s “phrases” are what I call “themes.”
 Kahrs 24

These doublings are reduced to one instrument at a time (in separate repetitions) at F/G, and are

completely omitted at H/I—Canon 1b ends with just pianos and percussion (quietly rubbing

paper), creating audible gaps that were not present in Canon 1b’s opening texture, just like the

sudden non-attacks in the second half of Canons 5.

Canon 1b also demonstrates a structural change in orchestration in a shift from high to low:

whereas in Canon 1a, the fermata-denoted pauses between theme statements are all marked by high

notes, Canon 1b shifts from extremely high harmonics in violin and viola at B, D, and E to very low

notes in cello, on the open C-string retuned down a fourth to G1, at F and H, adding a new

asymmetry relative to Canon 1a. Figure 4-3 shows the full progression of such moments: the two

longest fermatas (lunga and lungiss.) exactly frame the particularly close stretti of Part 2. 52 The D/E
middle section, marked by numerous harsh rearticulations, trills, and tremolos found nowhere else in

this canon, is thus intertwined with the salient divergences from process—it is framed by a dramatic

shift from high to low and is followed by a further collapse of the first half’s orchestrational norms:

the piano’s left and right hands shift in intervallic relations, and the wind/strings doublings diverge

from the piano to become microtonal and then fade away.

The piano parts are themselves already asymmetrical elaborations of the Canons’ themes.

Although the right hands always repeat the two themes defined in Figures 1-1b and 4-1b, the

rhythmically aligned left hands differ in pitch content. Figure 4-4 summarizes the dyads between

each piano’s two staves, as presented in the first half of Canon 1b (preceding E). Each staff shows

the relevant pitches in the order presented in the score, and the left side of the barline happens to

present all pitches in descending order. 53 Notably, each right-hand pitch is harmonized the same way

in each system, with either a major 10th or perfect 12th below, and the harmonizations are always

different between the two systems. Each right hand pitch (with the exception of C#) is thus

harmonized simultaneously by different intervals in the two systems, and the left hand pitch-sets are

52 Footnotes in the score define both “long” fermatas as lasting “until the piano has died out completely”; the second
endures further “until complete calm is present.”
53 The E in the lower staff is parenthesized because it does not actually occur there, but has been added for visual

consistency with the upper system.

 Kahrs 25

entirely disjoint. When both themes are heard simultaneously, the effect is a sort of staggered

fauxbordon.

These mappings are only loosely attached to specific themes. To show this, both systems of

Figure 4-4 are enclosed with colors that correspond to those of Figure 4-1a. The right hand-interval

connections are consistent in the first half of the work, and in the pianos—they switch at E, which

is the exact structural midpoint: the “red” harmonization always precedes the “blue” one, regardless

of which theme comes first. The strings’ harmonization, despite following the pianos at E, shifts

back to its original theme alignment at F, just after the conclusion of the closest stretti—

consequently, the same note in a given phrase is harmonized quasi-simultaneously with both

systems.

Even in the first half of the canon, the winds and strings are not literally “doubling” the

pianos: although they match the pitches of the piano parts, they never align rhythmically. Figure 4-5a

illustrates this discrepancy at the very opening of Canon 1b, in which red lines connect the strings’

entrance on a dyad to the piano’s first articulation of the same dyad. The strings never rearticulate a

dyad, and are strictly quantized to a dotted-eighth-note grid; together, these two characteristics yield

a very different rhythmic feel than the piano’s metrically complex lilt, which I discussed in Section 1

and will return to in Section 5. Figure 4-5b shows such alignments over the scale of each entire

theme. In each system of the figure, the upper row is a piano part, with red highlighting used to

show articulations of new pitches and slanted gray lines connecting to the winds’ and strings’

articulation of the same dyad. With the sole exception of the first note of theme 1, all such lines

have positive slope, meaning that the strings and winds reach a given dyad before the respective

piano. The slope’s magnitude is generally very large for the first attack, which is almost

simultaneous, then is quite small for the second attack, in which the strings and winds arrive well

before the piano. The slope increases as the theme progresses: the pianos gradually catch up to the

winds and strings, via a more substantial acceleration.

The strings, then, align with a piano’s pitch material quite closely in a given section, but not

with its rhythm. In the first four stretti, from the start of Canon 1b until F, the pitch
 Kahrs 26

correspondence with the piano part is one-to-one as above, and all pitches are represented in every

statement of the theme. At H, the strings and winds are completely silent. In between, at F/G, is

where the structural correspondence breaks down in the aftermath of stretto, creating the first

substantial asymmetry in all of Schnee. Numerous formal correspondences are simultaneously broken

here, shattering audibly visceral continuities that had thus far been in place for all of Canon 1b, and

which had even been anticipated in Canon 1a.

First, the lower string voice no longer corresponds to the piano left hand: although the

upper string voice still matches the pitches of the piano right hand, the opposite interval set is used

relative to the piano in the same section. Second, the individual wind and string instruments no

longer work in parallel: rather than simultaneously doubling both hands of a piano part, the winds

and strings double only the left hand, and take turns doing so. Previously, violin and piccolo doubled

the right hands, while the viola and clarinet matched the left hands. As shown in Figure 4-6a,

however, the right-hand part is not doubled, the left-hand part is passed from instrument to

instrument, and thus the “repetition,” although marked by repeat signs, is not exact. 54 The two-
theme, two-part unit is no longer indivisible.

Third, untempered intonation is for the first time introduced into the main statements of

material—although the viola had presented a bit of microtonality in its seventh-partial F (33 cents

flat) on the G string at the fermatas shown in Figure 4-3, F/G is still the first intrusion of

microtonality into the actual thematic material. Figure 4-6b shows the entrance of the winds, which

closely resembles that of the strings: the two wind parts sound at the same pitches as each other, as

do the two string parts, although only one plays at a time (as discussed above). Microtonal deviations

from 12edo, following the 7th and 11th partials of the harmonic series, are explicitly marked in the

score; Figure 4-6c summarizes the subsequent pitch content of the microtonal entrances. Note that

the succession of pitches is the same as in the left-hand parts of Figure 4-4, with repetitions

removed. Underneath are the implications of Abrahamsen’s labeled 7th and 11th partials: each entire

54Note that as in Figure 4-1a, colors represent left-hand harmonizations, and vertical alignment still implies right-hand
themes.
 Kahrs 27

microtonal melody can be interpreted as residing within a single harmonic series, with unstated

fundamentals C2 and G2 resembling the cello’s extended G1. 55

As with Canons 5, then, audible changes in texture after the Canon’s midpoint focus a

listener’s attention on a process previously taken for granted. Although the middle of Canon 1b is

marked by trills, tremolos, and other surface decorations, these are overlaid atop the same thematic

material in winds and strings, whereas F/G actually completely changes the structural relation of

those instruments to the underlying piano parts. The shift in texture in Canons 5, enabled by a

change in rhythmic process, was caused by rhythmic alignments, but made us aware of pockmarks in

the eighth-note grid. The conclusion of Canon 1b is similar: doublings disintegrate, and we become

aware of them because of their microtonal deviations away from the piano’s tempered pitches. For

an underlying cause, rhythmic alignments are again relevant, in this case preceding the conclusion at

D/E.

The discussion above is tied to orchestrational concerns unique to Canon 1b, but Canon 1a,

also contains its own teleological asymmetry, which in fact aligns with the shared underlying pitch

process. In particular, Canon 1a, like 1b, has a fermata-marked string harmonic between each stretto;

unlike 1b, however, each harmonic in 1a is in a high register. Figure 4-7 summarizes these

harmonics: each stretto is followed by harmonics at the final two pitch-classes of whichever theme

was presented second. Furthermore, Abrahamsen writes of the process governing the first two

canons:

We start out with an answering Vorsatz, followed by a questioning Nachsatz. Throughout the
time of the piece, these two are intertwined more and more, as more and more dicht geführt
[tightly guided] canons, until, at the end, they are interchanged. Now the question and then
the answer. 56

55 There is a single obstacle here, which is the Ab in the lower system. This is presented in equal temperament in the
score, and not as an 11th partial. However, by interpreting the Ab as an 11th partial, I am not introducing a new level of
abstraction, but rather am following the logic established by the explicitly notated 11th partial in the upper system as well
as the explicit 14th partials (labeled as 7th partials to better communicate intonation) and the implied 9th partials in both
systems. This discrepancy may be an omission, mirroring the likely typo of Figure 2-2, or simply an approximation that
is not inherently relevant to performance, following in a long tradition of “tone representation” as in Hasegawa, “Tone
Representation and Just Intervals in Contemporary Music.”
56 Program Note from “Hans Abrahamsen - Schnee (2008), - Music Sales Classical.”
 Kahrs 28

This distinction between an “answer” and “question” is matched by the tonality of the movement:

the “answer” cadences on i, and the “question” on V. The harmonics sustain this final tonality.

Looking only at the fermatas, then, Canon 1a moves via the process from V to i, from question to

answer. The asymmetry closest to those of Canon 1b is synonymous with the underlying process.

In my preceding analysis, I relied on orchestrational cues when inferring structure, just as in

Canons 5. In particular, my reading of the process before F was indebted largely to the alignment

between specific piano parts and winds/strings as is clearly visible in the upper rows of Figure 4-1a.

As with Canons 5, doublings clarified the canons’ particular notion of retrograde. The asymmetry of

the movement, rather than being highlighted by piano accents as in Canons 5, was highlighted by the

winds’ and strings’ divergence from the doublings they had thus far been following. The resulting

gap in sound is similar to the holes in the grid of Canons 5, suggesting that the root cause should be

a rhythmic alignment. As it turns out, within the close stretti at D/E themselves, rhythmic

alignments are again highlighted by accents, and just as the above orchestrational cues clarify aspects

of process and (a)symmetry, these alignments will shape metric aspects of the themes themselves.

5. Rhythmic Alignments and Highlighted IOIs in Canon 1b

As discussed above, the close stretti at D/E are critical to establishing linear asymmetries in

form, and are therefore a good place to look for characteristic simultaneities. Indeed, orchestrational

details in this middle section relate to both precise and just-off rhythmic alignments, as well as to

broader notions of rhythm and meter in the movement. Specific pairs of attacks are sometimes

highlighted in ways that might focus the listener’s ear on a specific IOI, allowing us to trace new

paths through IOI-oriented discussions such as those surrounding Figure 1-5. As with Canons 5,

then, details in orchestration can shape our interpretations of surface phenomena. In particular, the

highlighted IOIs will shape our impression of projective continuity within the canon’s individual

themes. 57

57I defined projective continuity in Section 1 as when a projected duration continues to be perceived as realized, so that
two durations are perceived as metrically uniform even if they might not be mathematically equal.
 Kahrs 29

The middle section of Canon 1b opens with articulations that immediately push rhythm to

the foreground. Figure 5-1 shows trills and tremolos at the opening of D: both of these forms of

constant rearticulation are confined to strings and winds, whereas the piano parts have the same

notes, rhythms, and articulations as in the rest of the canon. Colored arrows show correspondences

between piano notes and wind/string notes, with colors corresponding to the harmonization

systems of Figure 4-4, and purple used for the common right-hand parts. The tremolos in viola,

piccolo, and clarinet all oscillate between the pitch-classes of their piano’s respective hands, each

with a constant speed.

The violin and cello are more explicitly rhythmic, toggling between triplet and quadruplet

divisions of eighth-note pulses, 58 from half-measure to half-measure. In terms of the 1/216-of-a-

measure pulse used in Section 1, where an eighth-note is 24 pulses, a triplet division is 8 pulses, and

a quadruplet is 6. Taking either the difference or the greatest common divisor, we arrive at a unit of

2 pulses. Earlier, I noted that 1/216 of a measure is too fast to be clearly heard as a pulse, and is

stated nowhere in the actual themes (which, at their fastest, have notes 15 pulses apart), but in this

middle section, this hidden pulse is nonetheless approached through these foregrounded tremolos.

Furthering this passage’s opening focus on rhythm, the oboe highlights notes that are just

off between the two pianos. 59 As shown in Figure 5-1, the oboe doubles the left-hand part of each

piano when the two parts are off by just a sixteenth-note triplet. Instead of just being a near miss

from opposite sides of the stage, the non-alignment is instead explicitly taken up as a rhythm to be

stated by a single instrument, elevating it to the foreground. Three, instruments, then—violin, cello,

and oboe—have distinct roles in articulating important aspects of rhythm.

When the two themes actually do align precisely, with simultaneous attacks, the moment is

marked in all relevant instruments. Figure 5-2a shows such an instance a few bars after D: marked

with vertical purple rectangles are two attacks shared between the two pianos. These onsets are

highlighted not only by oboe, linking them to the previous near-alignments, but also by violin and

58 The triplet divisions contain notated dotted-eighths, but the dots are within the triplet, so that the overall duration is

just an eighth-note.
59 At E, the clarinet and oboe switch roles, as do violin and viola.
 Kahrs 30

cello, the other instruments involved in rhythmic underscoring, and even by flute; these three all

disrupt their trills and tremolos in order to join the simultaneous articulation. All four non-piano

instruments have a marcato accent at both attacks, highlighting the parallels to the alignments

preceding simultaneous rests in the pianos in Canons 5. The last attack before this simultaneous one,

marked in red, is also highlighted, albeit only in the strings. Figure 5-2b traces out a similar line of

analysis one stretto later, at E: a few instruments shift roles—in particular, viola and violin trade off,

the oboe’s alignment-highlighting doubling goes to the clarinet, and both flute and oboe flutter-

tongue on a single note instead of tremoloing between two notes—but simultaneous attacks in the

two pianos are again marked by numerous instruments with marcato accents, and the preceding attack

is again noted only in the strings.

At both D and E, because multiple attacks are highlighted, and because all trills and

tremolos pause between these notes, the IOI between the two simultaneous attacks is itself an object

of focus. What is common between the two themes is not just a pair of timepoints, but a particular

IOI extending from one timepoint to another. Neither IOI is simply a note-to-note pulse; rather,

there are other attacks with shorter-term regularities within the larger timespan. These IOIs, then,

are understood as governing units that contain shorter pulses, as in Lewin’s theory discussed in

Section 1. As with Canons 5, then, articulation focuses attention on rhythmic structures broader

than the note-to-note level. We can thus be aided in making sense of the shorter-scale note

durations by hearing them within the IOIs that structure them more broadly. In Section 1, when

discussing Figures 1-5 and 1-6, I noted that the sheer density of distinct IOIs made it difficult to

meaningfully parse the theme into a reasonable hearing. With the additional context of

orchestration, however, a few particularly salient IOIs can be prioritized, enabling newly clear

considerations of projective continuity within a theme’s metric interior.

Figure 5-3 presents a close-reading of D through the lens of these highlighted IOIs. Figure

5-3a shows the IOIs in a schematic proportional representation as in Figure 1-5, establishing a color-

coding for the 3 distinct IOIs. Because 30 (in blue) is short enough to be easily recognized as a

prominent pulse within only two short segments of the theme, rather than as more broadly inclusive
 Kahrs 31

duration, it will not be discussed further. Figure 5-3b traces out each of the orange (80) and brown

(110) IOIs in the context of the actual score. As a first step in interpreting these diagrams, we might

note the basic multiplicities of the IOIs highlighted in the score. It is clear in Figure 5-3a that at the

fifth bar of the stretto, one orange bracket is shown four times, meaning that both its initial and final

points occur in both themes. In Figure 5-3b, this fifth measure is the second bar of the second

system, and the four orange alignments as above extend from the first note of this bar—D4 in the

upper staff or A3 in the lower staff—to the first C#4 in the upper staff or the sole A4 in this bar of

the lower staff. One brown bracket is likewise shown twice, spanning mm. 4–5 of the stretto, from

an initial point only in one theme (the A in the lower staff at the end of m. 4) to the same C#4/A4

final point in both themes as above.

To account for the themes’ broader rhythmic character, however, it is valuable to consider

these IOIs as more general structuring intervals of relevance elsewhere in the stretti. A few IOIs are

repeated at regular intervals within one staff, and are divided equally, reflecting their place within a

series of precisely projected durations within one theme. For example, the orange IOI discussed

above is immediately repeated one note later, because it is equally divisible by the duration of five

sixteenth-note triplets repeated there. An analogous situation exists concurrently in the bottom staff,

but with an individual note duration of just two sixteenth-note triplets. The last system has a similar

series of overlaps: the same duration is projected from notes 1, 2, and 3 to 5, 6, and 7. Although

these equal divisions tell us the relative proportions of constant pulses, this information is not

especially new, and resembles the additive process analysis of Figure 1-1b; for establishing projective

continuity among unequal pulses, it would be more useful to have IOIs divided unequally.

We can find such unequal divisions within a single theme via the brown IOIs in the bottom

staff of the second system, which establish some brief hints at projective continuity. Two brown

IOIs are staggered, and the second, being later in a passage that only gets faster, contains a few more

notes. The larger structure provided by these two IOIs, which overlap from the second to sixth

attacks of the second measure, allows the region spanned by them to be retrospectively perceived as

an acceleration. More precisely, there are two separate instances in which the projected duration
 Kahrs 32

speeds up within the larger IOI: first at the barline, from a 16th-note plus a 32nd-note (1½ 16ths) to

two 16th-note triplets, then halfway through the bar, from two 16th-note triplets to three 32nd-notes.

The first and last of these three durations actually have a precise 2:1 proportion—this is theme 1, so

as shown in Figure 1-1b, this shift is from 4:5e to 8:5e. This strict doubling of speed would not be

felt as an accelerando if these two sets of pulses were directly adjacent, but the 16th-note triplets

serve a clear and audible role as a bridge.

The IOIs discussed thus far all occur within a single theme, and therefore do not inherently

depend on the particular rhythmic interval of the canon—although I have read them as

orchestrationally articulated due to their positioning at a particular moment, the same IOI could be

found within just one theme, as in Figure 1-5. The particular IOIs highlighted, however, also occur

between the two themes, as shown by the lines between the staves in Figure 5-3b. However, these

IOIs complicate our current paradigm of analysis, in which IOIs are a gateway to monotonic tempo

changes. The composite rhythm of the two themes is not a constant accelerando as the individual

themes are; instead, one theme’s attack might come off as a shadow within a nearby attack of the

other theme. For example, consider the first two IOIs that lead from the upper staff to the lower

staff. The first of these, from the third to fourth measure, begins just one sixteenth-note after the

last note in the lower staff, making it not quite simultaneous, but still much closer together than

other attacks at this point. This IOI then extends to the second note of the next measure in the

lower staff: it contains two constituent durations, first two eighth-notes (48 pulses) from the upper

staff to the barline, then four sixteenth-note triplets (32 pulses) to the second E in the lower staff.

The lower part, in an accelerando from five sixteenth-notes (60 pulses) to four sixteenth-note triplets

(32 pulses), thus takes on the 48-pulse duration as a critical intermediate step in maintaining

projective continuity. Note also that this particular inter-staff IOI is repeated exactly one measure

later, establishing a similar continuity where the lower staff moves roughly twice as fast.

For a more striking impression of metric continuity between the two separate thematic

components of the composite rhythm, we can turn to the three overlapping IOIs from the

penultimate measure of the bottom staff to the last measure of the top staff. The last of these, a
 Kahrs 33

brown IOI extending from the last note in the lower staff, is easily explained as a one-measure-later

clone of the original accent-marked brown inter-staff IOI. The preceding two lower-to-upper inter-

staff IOIs, one brown and one orange, are completely new within the metric structure. They end

simultaneously on the second attack of the last measure, providing a resemblance to the highlighted

pair of IOIs not even a full measure earlier, but because the offset is not an entire measure, the

metric alignment here is perhaps unfamiliar. Projective continuity is established here not within one

theme, but between themes: a 15-pulse unit (spanning a duration of two and a half 32nd-notes) in the

lower staff gives way to a similar-duration 20-pulse unit (spanning a duration of two and a half

sixteenth-note triplets). These IOIs could also be interpreted as linking to lower-staff notes that

share a shadow with the upper-staff eighth-notes, in which case they aid continuity from the eighth-

note (24-pulse) units in the upper staff’s penultimate measure to the 20-pulse units in the final

measure.

The first duration of the last measure might thus come across almost as an average, at 20

pulses, of the two preceding 15-pulse and 24-pulse streams. The 12-pulse conclusion, with sixteenth

notes, thus presents a marked step in the opposite direction from this process; this reading supports

a hearing of the sixteenth-notes as a more abrupt gesture that establishes formal closure for the

phrase by breaking continuity, in line with the second theme being a “question” rather than an

“answer.” This reading is also supported by the IOIs above—an orange IOI earlier in the measure

would contain four full notes, but the final IOI, containing one old note and five new notes, has a

total of six notes—the difference in pacing, accounting for the shared old-duration note, is not just

five or six in the space of four, but rather five in the space of three, which is likely too drastic to

immediately be perceived as continuous with no assistance from another theme as described above.

Figure 5-4 presents a similar analysis of prominent IOIs in the second stretto, focusing again

on the orange IOI (80) from Figure 5-3, and also on the analogous IOI of the second stretto, shown

here in green (156). From the onset, the orange IOIs persisting from the previous stretto are

immediately useful even as the themes are just starting to accumulate—we see orange IOIs even in

the second and third measures, about a bar earlier than before. They mark the first point at which
 Kahrs 34

the theme’s attack-points become dense enough to be metric—at 1800ms, the pulse given by these

IOIs is just fast enough to be perceived as a tempo 60—and its span remains constant as the theme

becomes more unambiguously metrizable. In the fifth bar, the green IOIs, especially prominently

highlighted in this stretto, support a previously unavailable reading of metric continuity at the

conclusion of the upper theme. In particular, the four simultaneous green IOIs span the upper

theme’s transition into straight sixteenth notes, which I described above as an abrupt shift that

simultaneously closes the phrase and leaves it hanging as a question, like a half-cadence. In this

stretto, however, there is still one measure remaining, now in the lower theme. The shared IOIs

anticipate this continuation by making the sixteenth-notes less shocking—because the highlighted

green IOIs contain the preceding slower durations before the sixteenth-notes, we might perceive the

intervening span as metrically continuous.

This reading, in which the sixteenth notes of the fifth bar of the second stretto are a

continuous rather than abrupt accelerando, is supported by a number of other IOI-based cues.

Consider, for example, the orange IOI leading from the third note of that bar in the lower staff (D4)

to the third sixteenth-note of the upper staff (A3). The orange duration, having been established in

the previous stretto and reaffirmed at the start of this stretto, will still be a prominent structuring

interval at this point. This orange IOI begins just a 32nd-note triplet after a note in the upper part,
essentially heard as its shadow, and spans the transition to sixteenth-notes, thus facilitating the

perception of an accelerando as in the previous example. The same shift into sixteenth-notes is

heard differently through interrelations of both IOIs and shorter-timescale near-misses between the

themes.

In both Canons 5 and Canons 1, then, simultaneities between the pianos are critical to both

establishing and breaking rhythmic and metric continuity. In Canons 5, continuity was fairly

simple—with a constant eighth-note grid, the only possible break was the absence of an attack on a

given grid-point, synonymous with the two pianos having simultaneous rests. In Canons 1, the only

60 London, Hearing in Time, 28.

 Kahrs 35

suitable grid relies on an inaudibly precise division of time, complicating the notion of continuity,

but simultaneities between the pianos—in this case precisely shared attack-points—still govern

broader flow. Those IOIs whose attack-points occur in both pianos become audibly prominent, and

subsequently provide useful structural paradigms through which to understand shorter-timescale

rhythms. The same rhythm might be interpreted as different metrically: when the projected duration

changes, it might or might not be metrically continuous from the previous depending on what other

rhythms are heard around the same time.

6. Conclusion: Context and Time-Variance in IOI Salience

At the outset of this essay, I separated Schnee into ostensibly separate “material” and

“process.” The “material” consists of the diatonic pitch content of Canons 1 and 5, and the rhythms

with which these notes are articulated; the “process” consists of the stretti within which the material

is sounded. The above analyses have used the process to interpret the material: broad formal

parallels have justified the focus on IOIs, which in turn are highlighted in the material as apparently

post-hoc results. 61 In particular, specific IOIs have gained prominence because of how the material

shapes the process at some point in the middle of the piece. However, these IOIs, and their

constituent rhythmic alignments, can hardly be perceived “out of time” in the manner of my

analyses above. Rather, these IOIs slowly accumulate over time: they are intertwined with Schnee’s

broader form not only because they are highlighted, but also because they are shaped through

extensive repetition. The material is not shaped by the process in a single way; rather, the same

material might be heard differently at each stage in the process.

IOIs, then, will vary in prominence as the themes are sounded and re-sounded, and this is

consistent with the theory this essay draws from. Lewin 1981, in introducing the IOI-oriented theory

discussed in Section 1, specifically interprets IOIs not as interpreted once at the end of the piece, but

61I have tried to avoid excessive speculation into Abrahamsen’s compositional methods, and how he might have actually
come up with the themes. It is likely not a coincidence that the themes of Canons 1 have exactly two shared attack-
points when either is shifted by one bar, but the purpose of this essay has been to see how that might shape our hearing
of the themes, not how they might have been composed with the process in mind.
 Kahrs 36

as shifting in significance as a passage unfolds. 62 In adapting Lewin’s approach for my analysis of

Schnee, the IOIs I have accounted for thus vary in salience over time. This leads to different

perceptions of metric continuity over the course of the canons.

Although Section 5 focused on Canon 1b on account of its particularly clear highlighting of

IOIs, many such emphases can also be found in Canon 1a. Figure 6-1 shows an analogous situation

to Figure 5-2a, but now in Canon 1a rather than 1b: where the two themes align (that is, where the

piano has dyads), the viola contributes a marcato sff accent, much like the oboe in Canon 1b, as

marked in purple. The preceding note, marked in red, is neither accented nor doubled (unlike in

Canon 1b), so only the critical shared IOI, marked here in orange, as in Figure 5-3b, is made salient,

and the leadup to it is not. Nonetheless, a listener’s ears might still be attuned to the two particularly

central emphasized IOIs—80 1/216-measure pulses in the first stretto (such as in this figure) and

156 in the second.

When hearing Canon 1b, then, these two IOIs are not entirely unfamiliar. In particular, the

156-pulse IOI from the second stretto of Canon 1a (E) might still be aurally in play when we hear

the first stretto of Canon 1b (D). My previous discussion of the first stretto in Canon 1b assumed no

previous priming, and this IOI was not included in Figure 5-3. However, if this IOI is still in

memory there, then it might be returned into consideration. Figure 6-2 presents the first stretto as in

Figure 5-3a, but with the addition of d=156 from the second stretto (Figure 5-4), again shown in

green. This “new” IOI, 156, quickly proves useful, allowing us to note certain projective continuities

that the more immediately salient IOIs of 80 and 110 bypassed. For example, 156 appears

substantially before any other IOI discussed in this passage, from the second to the third measure,

demonstrating metric continuity over the slight accelerando from the third to fourth notes of the

lower theme.

The 156-duration IOIs prove increasingly useful as the theme plays out, often supporting

previous observations drawn from some stretto-specific alignments. In particular, consider the green

62 Lewin, “Some Investigations into Foreground Rhythmic and Metric Patterning,” 117.
 Kahrs 37

IOI extending from measure 3 to measure 4. In the previous section, I discussed how the orange

IOI within the same measure-pair helps to establish continuity across this barline in the lower

theme, dependent on the quasi-alignment between the two pianos. The green IOI is entirely within

the lower theme, yet establishes continuity within the same theme at the same place, supporting our

prior observation. Going forward, the next green IOI—entirely within measure 4—spans the slight

accelerando in the lower theme halfway through the bar. These two green IOIs overlap, with one

note contained in the initial IOI before the shared passage, and two notes in the later IOI after. The

resulting effect is that of a gradual accelerando, in which the doubling of speed is not discrete as in

Figure 1-1b, but rather is mediated by the medium-tempo pulse and the IOIs bracketing it.

Although this green IOI (156) is significant within the first stretto of Canon 1b as discussed

above, its salience is heavily time-variant. The first stretto in Canon 1a contains no hints of this IOI,

which is only highlighted in the second stretto; consequently, on a first listening to Schnee, this IOI

will not apply to this first stretto at D, as in Figure 6-2, until Canon 1b. The same combination of

“material,” then—that is, the same two themes under the same stretto—might be perceived

differently the second time around, at a different stage in the “process,” on account of other IOIs

becoming salient over the intervening time. Returning to the earlier material/process distinction, it

matters not just how the themes are combined at a single instant, but also just what order they are

presented in.

According to this reading, the same features of the musical surface will be interpreted

differently under repetition, as a result of increased familiarization with specific events. David Lewin

comments on this phenomenon in his analysis of Schubert’s “Morgengruß.” In particular, discussing

a reduction of Schubert’s song reproduced as Figure 6-3a, Lewin writes:

Now, as one plays over the third-level reduction through the four strophes, an interesting
phenomenon emerges, at least to my ear. Over the first strophe, one focuses very much on
the α-gesture f–e. […] However, once the e has been established at measure 16 within the
first strophe, the f at 9’ [in the second strophe] loses a good deal of its shocking accent: it no
longer comes out of the blue, but can be heard more as a neighboring ornament to the e
 Kahrs 38

already established earlier. […] The initial shock gradually fades away as the steady
neighboring alternations of e set in. 63
Crucially, Lewin argues not just that the F becomes less shocking over time, but that it is

fundamentally interpreted differently over time as the piece’s broader form unfolds. Whereas at its

most shocking it is heard as in Figure 6-3b, it gives way to a series of other interpretations. Figure 6-

3c summarizes how the F and its three repetitions might be heard in the context of the piece’s full

form: with each repetition, it becomes more and more assimilated into a larger structure (in this case

an Urlinie), and we hear it in terms of what else has happened in the intervening time period. In

Schnee, the analogical broader structure is the succession of IOIs brought out by repeatedly accented

simultaneities.

To further explore how IOI salience might vary chronologically, Figure 6-4a surveys how a

number of different IOIs might play out over the course of a few repeated hearings. This figure

includes not only the four IOIs discussed above, which are orchestrationally highlighted by stretti,

but also a few that are highlighted simply by appearing early in the statement of an individual theme.

In particular, these IOIs are d=186 and 124, introduced early in Theme 1 (see Figure 1-5), and d =

192, 168, and 128, introduced early in Theme 2 (see Figure 6-4b). These latter five IOIs are marked

by precedence, not by any orchestrational focus.

Figure 6-4a presents all eleven of these IOIs at every appearance throughout the entire

structure of Canons 1. 64 In this figure, the six IOIs that are orchestrationally highlighted are marked

with the same colors as in Figures 5-3 and 5-4, and the other five are simply in black. However, we

might imagine these colors as slowly coming into focus, or this picture emerging into color from

greyscale, as the Canons unfold. Looking at this figure left-to-right, we might imagine a first hearing

of Canon 1a as starting out entirely in greyscale: in the first hearing of the first/lower theme, before

A, IOIs such as 124 and 186 will be especially prominent on account of their early salience and

63Lewin, “Morgengruß,” 116.

64Immediate repetitions of a stretto, as marked by a repeat-sign, are not shown; although my argument does suggest that
there would be salient differences under repetition, the same IOIs will still be there, so we can imagine reading this
Figure as we would a score with a repeat-sign. In Canon 1a, however, the most crucial IOIs will be highlighted the first
time around, and thus might persist more deterministically the second time around, within a single stretto.
 Kahrs 39

immediate repetition. (Recall that 156 gains prominence retrospectively, in light of the second

stretto, as illustrated in Figure 6-2.)

The second/upper theme, at A, will reinforce the extant IOIs such as 192 and perhaps 168;

128 will also gain salience from its initial appearance. There is relatively little overlap at B/C, so

these same few IOIs will remain prominent. The close stretto at D, then, is the moment when color

is added—orange is highlighted by orchestration, snaps into focus against the background, and

persists through the second repetition. At E, green likewise becomes visible, and persists through

repetition. Towards the end of Canon 1a, then, we hear the same two themes in isolation, but now

with orange and green highlighted against the fray.

With the onset of Canon 1b, we return to reread Figure 6-4a, from left to right, but with our

memories of orchestrational emphasis coloring IOIs that had previously been uninterpreted. Now,

orange and green are already visible from the beginning; at D, we gain brown; and at E, purple. The

final two stretti, at F and H, are perhaps governed primarily by the color-marked IOIs of the close

stretti, rather than the unmarked ones from the opening. In the piece, these final two stretti of the

two-canon movement are where orchestrational logic starts to break down; perhaps because

orchestration has become so influential on how we perceive the more “essential” metric content of

the piece, specific instruments are no longer as essential and can begin to fall away.

Both stretti, then, distinctly shape how we might perceive the two initial themes. Figure 6-5

summarizes the hearings suggested by the above double-pass through Figure 6-4a. 65 Figure 6-5a

shows only the IOIs that are salient at the opening, representing the experience of the beginning of

Canon 1a. In general, the openings of both themes are scattered attacks. As they accelerate, they

more clearly hold together, but it is difficult to clearly hear an accelerando; the distinct alignments

against a grid are still quite salient, and the most frequently repeated IOIs group together only those

notes that are related under barline-equivalence. Figure 6-5b models how we might hear salient IOIs

near the completion of Canon 1a. Two IOIs that were useful for both themes at the outset, 124 and

65The three subfigures each show the two themes in the “lower-then-upper” order from the start of either canon. They
may not be heard as a two-theme unit in this exact form; these subfigures simply show the IOIs separately for the two
themes.
 Kahrs 40

168, remain in the figure; the others, whose usefulness for one theme is balanced out by their

irrelevance to the other, have been eliminated. This figure also contains the green and orange IOIs

that are orchestrationally highlighted in the close stretti of Canon 1a. The themes now take on the

characteristics of Figures 6-2a and 5-4b, even outside of the context of the stretti.

Figure 6-5c shows the two themes as they might be heard at the very end of Canon 1b. 66

From the stretti in Canon 1b, a few more IOIs have been brought into focus through orchestration,

and they have now displaced the IOIs that were most prominent during the first hearing of the

themes. The newest IOIs, 110 and 180, extend exclusively from the fourth to fifth measure of either

theme. 67 The opening of each theme will be heard much more cleanly within a metric context,
because it is clearer which IOIs might govern those entrances. The end of either theme will be more

unambiguously continuous: compared to Figure 6-5a, Figure 6-5c presents IOIs that cover just

enough of the theme to establish a continuous hearing, but not so much of the theme that there is

too much to focus on. The IOIs of Figure 6-5a tend to highlight barline regularities apparent on a

first hearing, whereas those of Figure 6-5c present subtler cross-barline structures.

With such changes in hearing in mind, we can return to Abrahamsen’s description of how

we might perceive paired canons. A fuller quotation fleshes out his views on the subject:

When I saw these novel, quasi three-dimensional pictures at the start of the nineties, I was
very interested, and especially by the old stereoscopic technique from the late 19th century,
where two almost identical pictures, photographed with just a small spatial displacement
between them (like two stereo microphones), are placed next to one another. If one looks at
them in an unfocussed way, one sees a magical three-dimensional picture in the middle, as
the sum of the other two.

So now I played with the idea of whether this was also possible in music, given that it already
happens naturally through our listening with two ears. But might it also arise when one hears
a repeated figure (as in Bach’s C major prelude from the Well-Tempered Piano, part I), or
perhaps within a large-scale formal repetition (such as Bach’s Contrapunctus 13a and 13b
from the Art of Fugue, where the second is an inversion of the first)? If one laid two ‘times’
over one another, would a deeper, three-dimensional time be created?

66 They would be in the opposite order at the end of Canon 1b, but the original order is retained for visual consistency
with the rest of Figure 6-5.
67 For completeness, the incidentally highlighted IOIs 24 (red) and 30 (blue) are also included, despite being omitted

above due to space constraints.

 Kahrs 41

At any rate, that’s what I attempt here, partly on a small scale, as in the repetitions of Canon
1a, and partly on a large one, since Canon 1b is a ‘double’ of 1a (which is for Group 1), but
this time for all nine instruments. It is basically the same music, but with many more canonic
levels superimposed. So the two form a pair, and should be heard as such. They are like two
big musical pictures which, heard with distant, unfocussed ears, may produce a third, three-
dimensional picture. 68
At the “small scale,” the “three-dimensional time” emerges from the alignments highlighted only by

the theme’s superimposition. At the “large-scale,” we might imagine the “distant, unfocussed ears”

as analogous to looking at various colorings of Figure 6-4a, or subfigures of 6-5, through different

eyes. In the distance are those objects whose images are most similar, such as the themes

themselves. In the foreground are the elements that are most different between the constituent

figures, namely the IOIs. The small-scale three-dimensionality—the IOIs being highlighted under

stretti—gives way to the large-scale impact of repetition.

A listener proceeding chronologically will not hear the piece as according to my broader

argument, however; in particular, I relied on the final canons in the piece, Canons 5, to interpret

Canons 1. Although I view the connections between these canon-pairs, both in structure and in

rhythmic alignments, as integral from an analytic standpoint, they do not match the experience of a

first hearing of the work. It is also relevant to mention that Canons 1 were premiered substantially

prior to the rest of Schnee, and are even available for performance separately. 69 My analysis, then,

treats the first movement based on axioms from years after its composition, yet still reflects its final

context. 70

We might wonder, then, how we might hear Canons 5 in terms of Canon 1, extending the

experiential argument of this section to the structural argument of Section 2. A proper answer would

require a survey of the intervening canon-pairs and intermezzi, and is thus beyond the scope of this

essay. 71 But if, in the manner of the preceding argument, we interpret Canons 1’s IOIs as structurally

68 Liner notes to Abrahamsen and Ensemble Recherche, Schnee.

69 “Hans Abrahamsen - Schnee, Canons 1a & 1b (2006) - Music Sales Classical.”
70 In Cone’s terms, it might be not even a second or third hearing, as those terms could have applied to Canons 1 in

isolation, but rather a sort of nth hearing; see Cone, “Three Ways of Reading a Detective Story—Or a Brahms
Intermezzo.”
71 To my knowledge, the most detailed description of Schnee as a whole, including all canons, is that of Richard L. Powell,

“Articulating Time: Listening to Musical Forms in the Twenty-First Century” (University of York, Music York, 2016),
140–56, http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/17150/.
 Kahrs 42

critical, and the accented rhythmic alignments as clearly foregrounded, then the rhythmic alignments

of Canons 5 will provide a clear link back to Canons 1. Over the intervening 30–40 minutes between

Canons 1 and 5, a listener might become progressively defamiliarized not only with the white-note

sound world but also with the particular salience of these articulations. Canons 5, then, recapitulate

the shock that characterizes the linearity of Canons 1.

 Kahrs 43

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———. “What Makes a Study? Perspectives from Ligeti and Nancarrow.” Paper presented at
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———. “Some Investigations into Foreground Rhythmic and Metric Patterning.” In Music Theory:
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›
Quiet but mobile (e = 108)

9 ‰ ≈ œ ≈ Œ Œ Œ™
3 3 3

&8 ‰ ≈œ≈Œ Œ ≈ œ ‰ ‰ ‰ ≈œ≈Œ œ ≈ ‰ ≈ œ ‰ ‰

› 3 3 3
3:4e 4:5e 6:4e 8:5e
3 3 3 3
≈≈≈ ≈≈≈ ‰
& œ œ œ œ œ œ≈® ≈≈ ≈® ‰ ≈ ≈ ≈
œ ≈ œ ≈ œ≈ œ®Ù ®® œ®Ù ≈ ®Ù ®® ‰
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
Figure 1-1a: the opening theme in Abrahamsen’s Schnee, Canon 1a

› e = 108 3
& ‰ ≈œ≈Œ Œ Œ™
› 3

& ‰ ≈œ≈Œ Œ ≈ œ ‰ ‰
› 3

& ‰ ≈œ≈Œ œ ≈ ‰ ≈ œ ‰ ‰

› 3
3:4e 4:5e
3 3

& œ≈≈≈œ≈≈≈œ‰ œ
≈ ®
œ
≈ ≈
œ
≈ ® ‰
œ
›
6:4e 8:5e
3 3 3 3

& ≈ ≈ ≈œ≈œ≈œ≈œ®Ù ®®œ®Ù ≈ ®Ù ®® ‰

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

Figure 1-1b: the above theme presented with every measure on a separate line,
with gray lines highlighting metric alignments
Figure 1-2a: the opening of the eighth of Ligeti’s Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet, reproduced
from Clendinning 1993, Example 1 (p. 196)

Figure 1-2b: maximally-even quantized rhythms as approximations of precise unquantized

divisions, reproduced from Taylor 2012, Figure 2 (p. 204)

Figure 1-2c: a maximally-even rhythm from the first movement of Ligeti’s Piano Concerto,
reproduced from Taylor 2012, Figure 6 (p. 208)
›
9 ‰ ≈ œ ≈ Œ Œ Œ™
3 3 3

&8 ‰ ≈œ≈Œ Œ ≈ œ ‰ ‰ ‰ ≈œ≈Œ œ ≈ ‰ ≈ œ ‰ ‰

32 248 372 464 528 588

› 3 3 3
3:4e 4:5e 6:4e 8:5e
3 3 3 3

& œ≈≈≈œ≈≈≈œ‰ œ ≈® œ≈≈ œ ≈® ‰ ≈ ≈ ≈ œ ≈ œ ≈ œ≈ œ®Ù œ®® œ®Ù ≈ ®Ù ®® œ‰

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
648 680 712 744 774 804 834 864 880 896 912 928 944 960 975 990 1005 1020 1035 1060

Figure 1-3a: Theme 1 from Canon 1a, as in Figure 1, with onset time after downbeat indicated
below each note in 216ths of a measure

Figure 1-3b: a proportional representation of Figure 1-3a—the grey lines are barlines (i.e. time-
points 0, 216, etc), and black lines are attack-points

Figure 1-4a: Figure 5-1 from Lewin 1981, Figure 1-4b: Figure 5-2 from Lewin 1981,
showing the original stimulus showing the perception of Figure 5-1

Figure 1-4c: Figure 5-5a from Lewin 1981, providing an

explanation of why Figure 1-4b is the perception of Figure 1-4a

Figure 1-4d: Figure 5-6 from Lewin 1981: a companion to Figure 1-4c
providing an alternate segmentation
13 × 216 (h._q.)
9 × 30 (e_y)
8 × 32 (e_Kx )

6 × 186 (h._e_x.)

6 × 124 (q._q_ Ky )

Figure 1-5: a computational brute-force analysis of Abrahamsen’s first theme, as in Figure 1-3b,
using the Lewinian methodology of Figures 1-4cd, with some annotations

16 30 32 60 64 124 184 216 248 276 340

32
248 1
372 1 1 1
464 1 2 1
528 1 1 2 1
588 1 1 2 3 2
648 2 1 2 1 3 1 2
680 1 2 1 2 1 4 1 2
712 2 2 2 3 2 4 1 1 3
744 3 2 3 3 2 5 1 1 3
774 1 3 2 3 3 2 5 1 1 3
804 2 3 3 3 4 2 6 1 2 4
834 3 3 4 3 4 2 6 1 2 4
864 4 3 5 3 4 3 7 1 3 4
880 1 4 3 5 3 4 3 7 1 3 4
896 2 4 4 5 3 4 4 8 2 3 4
912 3 4 5 5 3 4 4 8 2 3 4
928 4 4 6 5 4 5 5 9 3 3 5
944 5 4 7 5 5 5 5 9 3 3 5
960 6 4 8 5 6 5 5 10 4 3 5
975 6 4 8 5 6 5 5 10 4 3 5
990 6 5 8 5 6 5 5 11 4 3 5
1005 6 6 8 5 6 5 5 11 4 3 5
1020 6 7 8 6 6 6 5 12 4 4 6
1035 6 8 8 7 6 6 5 12 4 4 6
1050 6 9 8 8 6 6 5 13 4 5 6

Figure 1-6: the above analysis in tabular form, with certain entrances and interonset intervals marked
in bold according to Lewin’s criteria for a metric “peak”
 (1. Part)
9 (�1)
8 Ruhig aber beweglich () = 108, J. = 36)
,., V r, V l"I
!"" .- :--, r- r- s,m.

Violino

9 (�1)
2)
8 Ruhig aber beweglich () = 108, J. = 36)
m.d.scm

-- -- pochissdim.
sempre 151. (with resonance)

b---

3) Paper (normal AJ paper)

00 .. :i�, e:) e:) e:) . e:) e:) e:) e:) e:)

ft verysoftaccentsmthep11lse,legato
sim.

9 Das selbe Tempo() = 108, J. = 36)

8 fast immer sehr zart und stille (1. Part)
(�1) 4)
i--- 2:5J -,

in Mi�

Figure 2-1: openings of Canons 1a and 1b. Note that the aggregate rhythmic material in the
pianos is identical
{
› œCanon 5aœ (rectus) j œ
Canon 5b (inversus)

& œœ ‰ ‰
œ
œ ‰ œJ ‰ ‰ œ ‰ œj ‰ œ ‰ œ œ œ
‹ œ œ ‰ œ
œ ‰ œ ‰ œJ ‰ œ ‰ œ œ
& œœ œ‰ œ‰ J ‰ Jœ
œ

{
› œ œ
‰ ‰ j‰ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ ‰ œj ‰ œJ ‰
& œ œ œ œ
‹
& œ ‰ œ ‰ œJ ‰ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ ‰ œJ ‰ œj ‰
œ

Figure 2-2: openings of Canons 5a and 5b—as a result of several levels of inversional symmetry, the
same pitches are assigned different rhythms and opposite positions in the process. Both dashed and
solid lines indicate sequential white-note pitch-inversion; solid lines additionally preserve rhythm.
Note that the 7th note in the left hand of Piano 1 in Canon 5a is a B in the score, but should be a C
according to the process as established both by other piano parts and the rest of the same hand in
the same movement.

› œ œ
œ œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ
&

› œ œ
œ œ œ œ œ
&

Figure 2-3: primary themes of Canon-pairs 1 (top staff) and 5 (bottom staff), annotated to show
primary motivic elements.
 {
› w œ œ ˙
& œ œ œ œ w œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

‹
Pno. 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6

œ œ œ œ œ œ w œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
& w ˙

Figure 3-1a: pitches from the beginning of Piano 1 in Canon 5b, showing start of process

1234567 234567 34567 4567 567 67 7

123456 23456 3456 456 56 6
12345 2345 345 45 5
1234 234 34 4
123 23 3
12 2
1

Figure 3-1b: a summary of the pitch process that governs Canons 5, as above. Note progression
from “forwards” to “backwards” statement of the 7-note theme.
 › w ˙
œ œ œ œ œ œ w œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
{
Pno. 1 &

‹
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6

˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ œ œ ˙ œ
{ w
Pno. 2 & ˙ ˙ ˙ w
œ ˙ ˙ œ œ ˙
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 6 7 5 6 4 5 3 4 2 3 1 2

› œ ˙ ˙
œ ˙ ˙ œ w ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
{
Pno. 1 & w œ ˙ ˙ œ œ

‹
6 7 5 6 4 5 3 4 2 3 1 2 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

w œ œ œ œ œ œ œ w œ œ œ œ œ œ
{
Pno. 2 & œ œ ˙ œ
2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Figure 3-2: In Canon 5b (also in 5a) piano 2 is the RI of piano 1, and the process is consequently

{
presented in retrograde

› j ˙ œ ˙ j‰ ˙ ‰ ˙ ˙ ˙
9 œ ˙ œ
& œw 8 ‰ ‰ œ‰ ‰ ˙ ˙ œ ‰œ‰w ‰ ˙ ˙
Pno. 1 ‹ œ
œ 9 œ ‰ ‰ œJ ‰ ‰ œ œ œ ‰ œ ‰ œ ‰ œ‰
J œ‰ œœœ
& 8 œ œ œ œ œ œ
“”
° j 9 œ œ™ œ™ œœ
œ œ
J ‰œ œœ œ œ œœ
Picc. & ‰ œ 8œ J œ JJ J J Jœ
“”
œ 9œ j œ œœ œ jœ
Eb Cl. ¢& ‰ J 8 œ œ™ œ™ JJœ j‰ œ œ
œ J J œ œ œœ
Figure 3-3: rearticulations in winds (also in strings) reinforce piano notes that begin a new segment
of the theme. Pauses in winds (also in strings) mark new lengths of segments. Piano 1 in this
example aligns with the second system of Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-4: when a rest is common between two pianos, the preceding note is highlighted with
an accent and a sf

Figure 3- : a summary of all tacti of either Canon 5. Grey indicates background barline divisions, the
red bar is B, the middle of either canon. Black indicates an articulation on a given eighth-note.
Marked by red arrows are simultaneous rests, which occur only in the second half. Dashed arrows
show that each half of the rhythmic structure is RI-symmetric.

e q e q e q e q
q e e qq e qee q e q
3 4 5 5 4 3 4 5 5 4 4 5 5 4 3 4 5 5 4 3
4 5 5 4 3 4 5 5 4 3 3 4 5 5 4 3 4 5 5 4
q e q e q e q e q eq e q e q e q e q e

Figure 3-6: a summary of both shift-symmetric and RI-symmetric rhythmic patterns that govern
placement of eighth-rests. The numerical pattern has retrograde symmetry that does not align with
the overall alternation of quarter- and eighth-notes.
 rhythm

pitch

Figure 3-7: a summary of the RI-symmetries of the movement consisting of Canons 5a and
5b in sequence: note that the rhythmic structure of either Canon 5 is isomorphic to the
pitch structure of the aggregate movement, but that symmetries are non-aligned within
each canon.

Figure 3-8: the conclusion of Canon 5a (and likewise of 5b) is marked by the two pianos
articulating the opening dyad, now in immediate eighth-note succession. This rearticulation
of an open fifth serves as a cadential gesture.
 (1. Part) (2. Part) (3. Part)
A B C D E F G H I

Piano 1
Piano 2

-≤ -≥ ææ -≤ -≥ ææ K
> . ææ > . ææ K
Strings
Winds

Vln/Vla High Harmonics

Cello low G

Figure 4-1a: a formal outline of Canon 1b (colors show alignments

of intervals to constituent pitches of the upper-voice themes)

› 3 3 3

& ‰ ≈≈œ‰ ‰ ‰ Œ Œ ‰ ≈≈œ‰ ‰ ‰ Œ œ ‰ ‰ ≈≈œ‰ ‰ ‰ œ ‰ œ ‰

› 3 3
3:5e 6:5e

≈ ® ≈ ≈ ≈™ ≈ ≈ ® ≈ ≈ œ
3 3
3 3 3 3
& œ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ œ ‰ ≈# œ ≈ ‰ # œ œ n œ œ™ œ œ œ œ
≈
œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ>

Figure 4-1b: the second theme of Canons 1, played by Piano 1 in Canon 1b

Figure 4-2a: instrumentation at theme change in Canon 1a

Figure 4-2b: instrumentation at theme change in Canon 1b

 Figure 4-3: the progression of inter-section fermatas

{
Theme 1, Piano 2/Strings
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
& œ œ œ
œ bœ œ bœ bœ
12 12 10 10 10 12 10 12 12 10 10 12 10
œ bœ bœ œ œ bœ
? œ œ

{
Theme 2, Piano 1/Winds
œ œ œ œ #œ nœ œ œ œ œ œ
& œ œ œ œ
œ b12œ
10 12 12 10 12 10 12 10
bœ
10 12 10 12 10 12
? œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

Figure 4-4: a summary of first-section dyads, all major 10ths and perfect 12ths
colors indicate alignments of intervals to upper-voice pitches as in Figure 4-1a
 Figure 4-5a: the opening phrase of Canon 1b, with pitch correspondences marked

Pno 2
(Theme 1)
Vln/Vla

Pno 1
(Theme 2)
Fl/Cl

Figure 4-5b: alignment of piano theme to wind/strings producing same pitches

with a different rhythm; red bars indicate new pitches in piano
 F G F’ G’

Piano 1
Piano 2

Violin
Viola

Piccolo
Clarinet

specific instrumentation at both statements of F

Figure 4-6b: first entrance of microtones at F in winds

Kœ Jœ Jœ
œ œ Kœ œ Kœ œ Kœ œ œ œ ?
winds & w
partial: 14 11 8 9 7 8 7 11 9 7 8 7 9 (1)

œ Jœ œ Jœ bœ œ œ Jœ œ œ Jœ
œ œ ?
strings &
w
partial: 18 14 16 14 (11) 9 16 18 14 14 16 9 14 (1)

c
™™ › œ
› œ
Piano, Theme 2, “Question”

&
Piano, Theme 1, “Answer”
V V
œ œ
“U”
Viola œ

& J
V
œ
o

™™ ™™
E

› œ
Piano, Theme 2, “Question”

&
d: V V
œ œ

› œ
Piano, Theme 1, “Answer”
Cello
U
œœo
& J

b
? O
Oj
œ
J
i

sul A

sul D
™™
& œ œ & œ œ
d: V i V i

Figure 4-7: Tonality and Process in Canon 1a

Figure 5-1: instrumentation of rhythmic and thematic conflict at the close stretto at D in Canon 1b
Figure 5-2a: orchestration highlighting rhythmic alignments after D
Figure 5-2b: orchestration highlighting rhythmic alignments after E
 15 × 80 (q._ x
K )
11 × 30 (e_y)
K )
5 × 110 ( q._e_y_y.

Figure 5-3a: the stretto of Canons 1a and 1b at D, with only orchestrationally highlighted IOIs shown

›
5+4
3 3
∑ ‰ ≈≈œ‰ ‰ ‰ Œ Œ ‰ ≈≈œ‰ ‰ ‰ Œ œ‰
19

& 8

›
4+5 ‰ ≈ œ ≈ Œ Œ Œ ™
3 3 3

& 8 ‰ ≈œ≈Œ Œ ≈ œ ‰ ‰ ‰ ≈œ≈Œ œ≈‰ ≈œ‰ ‰

› 3 3 3 3
& ‰ ≈≈œ‰ ‰‰ œ ‰ œ ‰ ≈≈≈≈ ‰ ≈ ≈‰
22

œ œ #œ #œ œ nœ œ

› 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

& œ≈≈≈œ≈≈≈œ‰ œ ≈® œ≈≈ œ ≈® ‰ ≈ ≈ ≈œ≈ œ≈ œ ≈œ ® Ù œ®® œ®Ù ≈ ®Ù ®® œ‰

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

›
≈™
3 3
3 3 3
≈ ® ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ® ≈ ≈ œ œ ≈
24

& œ™ œ œ
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ >

›
& ∑
Figure 5-3b: a tracing-out of above IOIs in musical context at D, with colors corresponding to
durations as in Figure 5 (orange = q._ xK , brown = q._e_y_y.
K )
 16 × 24 (e)
16 × 80 (q._ x
K )

15 × 156 (h._x)

11 × 30 (e_y)
11 × 180 (h._e.)

Figure 5-4a: the stretto of Canons 1a and 1b at E, with only orchestrationally highlighted IOIs shown

›E
5+4 ‰ ≈ ≈ œ ‰ ‰ ‰ Œ Œ
25 3 3 3

& 8 ‰ ≈≈œ‰ ‰ ‰ Œ œ ‰ ‰ ≈≈œ‰ ‰ ‰ œ ‰ œ ‰

›
4+5 ΠΪ
3 3

& 8 ∑ ‰ ≈œ≈Œ ‰ ≈œ≈Œ Œ ≈œ‰ ‰

›
™
3 3
3 3 3 3 3 3
≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ‰ ≈ ≈ ‰ ≈ ® ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈® ≈≈ ≈
28

& œ œ #œ #œ œ n œ œ œ œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ >œ

› 3 3 3 3

& ‰ ≈œ≈Œ œ ≈ ‰ ≈ œ ‰ ‰ œ≈≈ ≈œ≈≈≈œ‰ œ

≈ ® ≈≈ ≈® ‰
œ œ œ

30 ›
& ∑

› 3 3 3 3

& ≈ ≈ ≈ œ ≈ œ ≈ œ ≈ œ®Ù ®®œ®Ù ≈ ®Ù ®® ‰

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

Figure 5-4b: a tracing-out of above IOIs in musical context at E, with colors corresponding to
durations as in Figure 5 (orange = q._ xK , green = h._x )
 Figure 6-1: highlighted simultaneities in Canon 1a

15 × 80 (q._ Kx )

12 × 156 (h._x)
11 × 30 (e_y)
K )
5 × 110 ( q._e_y_y.

Figure 6-2: a parsing of the first stretto, as in Figure 5-3, with

additional resources from the second stretto as in Figure 5-4
 Figure 6-3a: from Lewin, Morgengruß, p. 116: a reduction showing a
common motive under repetition

Figure 6-3b: from Lewin, Morgengruß, p. 116: an initial hearing of the above gesture

Figure 6-3c: from Lewin, Morgengruß, p. 117: a perception of Figure 6-4a

accounting for familiarity after repetition

(Figure 6-4a on next page)

13 × 216 (h._q.)
9 × 24 (e)

7 × 80 (q._ Kx )

6 × 192 ( h._q )
6 × 168 ( h._e )
6 × 128 (q._q_Kx )

Figure 6-4b: a basic reading of the second theme resembling Figure 1-5
 A B C D E F G H I

71 × 80 (q._ x
K )

69 × 156 (h._x)

61 × 168 ( h._e )

55 × 192 ( h._q )

51 × 124 (q._q_ Ky )

49 × 128 (q._q_Kx )

40 × 186 (h._e_x.)

34 × 180 (h._e.)

K )
15 × 110( q._e_y_y.

Figure 6-4a: IOIs across all of either Canon 1

 8 × 168 ( h._e )
8 × 124 (q._q_ Ky )
6 × 192 ( h._q )
6 × 128 (q._q_Kx )
6 × 186 (h._e_x.)

Figure 6-5a: IOIs in the two themes at first hearing

10 × 156 (h._x)
9 × 80 (q._ x
K )
8 × 168 ( h._e )
8 × 124 (q._q_ Ky )

Figure 6-5b: IOIs in the two themes at the end of Canon 1a or the start of 1b

10 × 156 (h._x)
9 × 24 (e)
9 × 80 (q._ x
K )
9 × 30 (e_y)

K ) 3 × 180 (h._e.)
2 × 110 ( q._e_y_y.

Figure 6-5c: IOIs in the two themes at the conclusion of Canon 1b