The canon seems to bear some subconscious symbolism that suggests the momentary suspension of time, the ability to step outside of a gesture and look at from all sides, like a kind of chronological hologram. Perhaps this idea plays out in the Spartan but elegant canon that Elliott Carter penned in memory of Igor Stravinsky.

In response to the composer's death on April 6, 1971, the British music journal Tempo devoted one entire issue and part of another to tributes of various sorts to Stravinsky. In addition to the photographs reminiscences, and musical analyses, several composers, including Carter, contributed to a series of "Canons and Epitaphs," which appeared in the summer and autumn issues. The list of contributors is a veritable Who's Who of twentieth-century music: in addition to Carter's piece, Boulez, Copland, Sessions, Milhaud, Berio, Maxwell Davies, Schnittke, Birtwhistle, and numerous others added their musical tributes. The result is a remarkably varied and curious anthology.

Lasting under two minutes, Carter's Canon for 3 is one of the most concise, spare, and focused works in the collection. It calls for an ensemble of three equal and unspecified instruments, all playing in the same range. The tribute as it appeared in Tempo called for muted trumpets, and the published score suggests several instruments-trumpets, clarinet, oboe-but leaves the question open to other possibilities as well; these and various other combinations have appeared in recordings since the piece's premiere. The first voice begins the canon, stating the five-bar theme all alone. The second voice enters with a presentation of the canonic material inverted, and transposed up a tritone. The third voice then enters with a line identical to the one that started the piece, against counterpoint in voices one and two. At the conclusion of player three's statement, the canon takes an interesting and sonically striking twist. The canon subject appears again, but only as a composite of tones appearing across all three lines. While the attacks of the notes outline the exact shape of the canon subject, the original durations are not observed. This creates a startling variation on familiar material, as if the ink used to pen the subject was beginning to run across the page, causing the constituent voices of the canon to be subsumed into the subject itself-perhaps a lingering symbol of Stravinsky's passage into immortality.



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