The piano duet or music for piano 4 hands version has a playback tempo of 100 quarter note (crotchet) beats to the minute. A canon arises in the description of a musical piece simply because musical ideas are imitated by another voice or instrument. It doesn’t necessarily describe the overall form or structure of a piece. The Study in Canon No. 5 is in three sections ABA’ with Section B beginning at bar 37 and the varied repeat of A at bar 83. Understand that the canonic element in Schumann’s time references all the musical elements and not just pitch: dynamics, articulation, ornamentation are all part of the canonic process. The crushed notes or acciaccaturas are a prominent musical feature. This is essentially a study in the articulation of short notes and occasional longer notes. Compositional process is evident from bar 49 where the canonic element involves inversion. This is a challenging music setting to engrave and prepare for print mainly because the score has so much detail which is not easy to represent with clarity on the sheet music page. Accompaniments are available featuring the primo part sounding on one side of the stereo channel and the secondo on the other. They play at 92, 96, 100 and 104 quarter note (crotchet) beats to the minute enabling the pianists to incorporate ensemble practice as part of their routine.

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