The Corruption of One is the Generation of the Other: Interpreting Canonic Riddles

The composition of enigmatic canons reached a high point in the last three decades of the fifteenth century; many composers were moved to try their hand at them, but the outstanding exponents were Antoine Busnoys, Jacob Obrecht, and Josquin des Prez. Instead of the straightforward Latin instructions that accompanied canons of the earlier fifteenth century, enigmatic inscriptions became favoured, often taken from the Bible or classical literature. An examination of the large corpus revealed that canonic compositions fall into fourteen categories: addition, augmentation, diminution, extraction, interval canon, inversion, mensuration, omission, ostinato, rearrangement, retrograde, substitution, tacet, and transposition. The more enigmatic types are discussed, including some that resist understanding.