Ich Bin der Herr von Zu, Musical Joke WoO 199 (worked out as two-part canon)
This brief musical joke on the words, "Ich bin der Herr von Zu; Du bist der Herr von von" (I am the man for you; you are the man for me) is contained at the end of a letter to Archduke Rudolph which makes reference to the Academie of November 29, 1814, and thus is probably from about that time. The piece is presented here both as a two-part and a three-part canon.
To get good counterpoint, a very important trick is to give every voice a rhythm that is different from the rhythms in the other voices. It is therefore remarkable that in both these canons the rhythm is identical in all voices, without making the canons sound like mere successions of chords. The three-part canon incorporates the mirror image of the theme. Willem has worked it out as follows:
voice 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 m1m2m3m4m5m6m7m8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 voice 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 m1m2m3m4m5m6m7m8 1 2 3 4 voice 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 m1m2m3m4m5m6m7m8"m1m2m3..." indicating the mirror image.
WoO: 199