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Hi guys,
just started learning Pachelbel's Canon in D. I'm using the score from here:

http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/8/8b/IMSLP09320-Pachelbel_kanon_e.pdf

I have relatively small hands and only a 9th is playable. I'm having trouble with the third bar of the song, bass clef, where it has a A and C# played in the bass, and then a F# and A played together. How in the world am I supposed to play this, it seems like an impossible stretch.

sorry I can't help


but I'm using this opportunity, since is on-topic and might interest you, what is the best piano arrangement to play Pachelbel's Canon?


I have Lee Galloway's arrangement but since I'm only going to put the effort on one arrangement, I'd like to put it in the best one of course.



so, what do you guys think is the best arrangement?


PS: Hai Le, can you post a link where I can hear how you arrangement sounds? thanks

Well, I actually went to the piano and could play that A and C# but probably I couldn't reach further.


I think your hand span is not enough then, try playing one of the notes an octave higher/lower and see if it doesn't sound too weird.

You could try catching those upper LH notes with the RH when the stretch is too great.

It's early morning and I'm not at my piano, so I cold be mistaken, but aren't those melody notes 2 octaves above those bass note? If so, RH help will be impossible. I would roll the LH where the stretch is too much. (after the roll, rely on the pedal to keep that A from dying out too quickly).

If you don't like the way it sounds rolled, you could either move the A or move the C# to somewhere that fits within your LH's reach. One thing I wouldn't do is simply skip one of those notes, because it will lose the variety which is what makes this piece so beautiful.

About the Galloway arrangement, that is not a "traditional" arrangement, in particular the section before the last page (first where the LH starts playing 16th notes, and then the 2 pages where the LH and RH are playing 16 notes). Those sections are beautiful (IMO) but not like what you'd hear if you heard a traditional arrangement of this being played by an orchestra for example.

Because of that, it's kind of hard to say Galloway's arrangement is better or worse than some other arrangement. You'd play the Galloway if you wanted something a little different. Last year (IIRC) I took the end of the Galloway and the beginning of a traditional arrangement and put them together because I like the themes in the traditional arrangement and Galloway's ending sections, and I wanted to play both. The result of course is a very long piece...

The IMSLP arrangement linked in this threads looks pretty nice, I'm going to try to play through it later today (since I'm not that good with just looking) because there are some sections (themes) that are often excluded in piano arrangements, and I'm curious to see if this arrangement has those.

Edited to add: another arrangement that takes liberties with the original is George Winston's. This is actually in the key of Cmajor, so that's a big difference, and there are some melodic differences, but it is a really beautiful arrangement, and I highly recommend it. Search YouTube for "George Winston Kanon" and you should be able to hear him performing it.

crescendo, I've played the Galloway version and an extended version of it that I cobbled together with some excerpts from other arrangements--they're both in my YouTube channel. I like it a lot, and it was doable. I plan on keeping it in my memorized repertoire forever.

My favorite piano solo arrangement of Canon, though, is George Winston's:

[video:youtube]n5OTH3mj2Q8[/video]

It's a fair bit harder than the Galloway version, though.

Interestingly, the Winston version is the Canon in C rather than D, because he transposed it.

Hey Shiro... did you ever post a polished recording of your extended version? I remember listening to your work-in-progress and wanting to hear it again after you had it worked up.

Yes unfortunately RH help isn't possible for me in the parts I've listed. Crescendo I wish I had your hand strech! Will practice my rolls for this piece, but I'm still not very good with them. I tend to get depressed when I find something I can't actually play normally

Have been playing through the Galloway arrangement, relatively easy, sounds very nice and obviously different to the original. I like them both, so might learn the Galloway and hopefully move onto the one I listed in a couple of days. Hopefully I can blend them in somehow, great idea Shiro/Monika!

Ok, I just played through the IMSLP version... Several thoughts.

1) why in the heck is it written like that?? Andante is a "walking" tempo, right?? I no longer have a metronome with recommended tempi for each of these italian terms, but given the way this is written, I'd think you'd have to play it practically largo to get it right... The quarter notes should be half notes, the eighths should be quarters, and those 32nd notes should be 16th notes! Good grief, I think that makes it unnecessarily hard to read!!

2) having said that, this is a lovely arrangement with all the themes I'd want in a traditional version of the Canon. But at the same time, there's nothing "special" about this arrangement. You get what you pay for, as they say, and if I didn't already have several versions of the Canon and was looking for one, I wouldn't choose this one, because it's unnecessarily hard to read. I'd look around for a score that I might have to pay for, but that was more intuitively written and that maybe had some interesting elements in it, like the Galloway or the Winston arrangements.

3) I mostly played HS just now, but a casual look at the LH suggests there are lots of places where I couldn't play the score as written. Without actually playing the piece, I can't say for certain, but I would probably play most of those where they fit my LH, in the lower register. So for example where there's a B just below middle C, and then a G that is one octave below the G below middle C, in other words the music calls for a 10th in the LH (top of page 2) -- I would play that low G, and the B right above it, so instead of playing a 10th, you're playing a third. Oh wait, for that one, you could play the B with your RH. Anyway, what I mean to say is that, when the RH isn't available, I'd probably have as my default playing the lowest note in the LH and then playing the other note wherever it's in reach. Does that make sense?

So, that's my impression, for what it's worth. If you find a version that you like, but it's missing some theme, or the LH isn't interesting enough, it's really easy to take another version and incorporate elements of it into the one you decide to play.

Monica, I have never recorded my extended version, although I have it listed as repertoire on my practice menu now. I play it "out" all the time (i.e. when I play on a public piano, or when I play for family and friends) but I think I probably am still playing a little too sloppily for recording, but maybe that can be my next recording goal.

I find myself collecting versions (well, I'm up to three. Does that count as a collection?). I think I'm going to have to get my hands on the original score, and prepare my own reduction, to satisfy my mania for wanting it "as much like the original as possible." That way maybe I can get my hands on the Gigue that goes with it. Unless someone knows of an existing piano arrangement of the Gigue?

IIRC the original was composed for a string quartet, right?? It's funny that you mention the Gigue, because I had forgotten all about it! I've never seen a piano version, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't one. 

I think the IMSLP version is fine in terms of what's in it, it's just awful to read, in my opinion!! 

If you get the version for strings, please share  at least the first few measures, I'd be interested to see how it's written!

I should be able to get my hands on the score tomorrow. I'll post some measures, provided I can figure out how to do images here.

I'm hopeful, but not optimistic, that the Gigue will be included. I haven't been able to find trace of the Gigue anywhere except mentioned in the Wikipedia article on the Canon.

I'd like to track down the dissertation mentioned in footnote 12 of the article, the source of the given 12-variation analysis.

I think you can use the right hand. In the fourth measure (last beat) for example you see that bracket on the left side of the E which means you use the RH. You can do the same in the previous measure...

Hi, thanks for the replies regarding choosing piano arrangements.

since I already have the sheet music for Galloway's arrangement I decided to try it out.


I have a question about how to play the arpeggios with left hand at the very beginning.

I've seen some youtube videos and it seems people play 5 2 1 2 with the left hand

however, in my opinion, when you have to change the chord you are in an awkward position and too 'far' so you have to make last note a bit short therefore not sounding 'smooth'


I have been trying 5 3 2 1 and it gets better when changing chords but it is a bit harder and you have to slide your hand into the piano to make it possible

I don't know if it is bad for my hand, specially middle finger so I wanted to make sure before playing this hundreds of times the wrong way

my left hand span is a comfortable 9th and uncomfortable 10th


here's a video of a lady playing 5 2 1 2




thanks

To me 5 3 2 1 looks so unnatural (I wouldn't even be able to make the stretch but even still it looks unnecessarily stressed). 5 2 1 2 works really comfortably and easily for me if you roll your hand over for the last beat. Or you can play it 5 2 1 1 and just add more sustain to the 3rd. Can't you just use more damper if you feel you're shortening the note?

I play 5-2-1-2 and I pedal that sucker into submission.

I wouldn't like 5-3-2-1, as it would require me to twist my hand into position, and that doesn't feel right.

Ooooh, I have the strings+continuo score now. Sheer delight.

Some initial observations:

The piece is notated in 4/4 time, with quarter note = 63. Ground bass figure takes two measures; 57 measures total. It does use thirty-second notes, same as the version linked in the OP (which is only 41 measures). So ShiroKuro was right about taking it at Largo to make it work out right.

No other speed or expression indicators, except for "espr." for the violins, and "dolce, allmahlich steigern bis zum Schluss" for the continuo players. Anyone know what that means?

It starts out with 2 measures (one time through the ground bass, with chords) of continuo only, before the strings and variations start.

The wikipedia article is wrong. There are 13, not 12 variations. The missing one appears between variations 8, repetitive sixteenth notes, and 9, dotted rhythms, and consists of sixteenth and thirty-second note patterns. The next to last variation, syncopated quarter and eighth notes rhythm, lasts 6 measures, not 4 measures. (Or maybe lasts 4 measures, and then there's 2 measures of a filler variation before the final eight-note octave leaps variation).

I like the version linked to in the OP to the extent that it has the ground bass actually appear explicitly throughout the piece (neither of the two other versions I have does that.) Also I like that it starts out being very very faithful to the original.

I dislike that it leaves out several variations, including the final leaping eight-notes variation.

Transcription is hard! It would be lovely if the LH could play the continuo part and the RH could play all three violin parts. But the violins move too far apart for that to be always feasible, so you have to pick and choose.

I would like to know more about the continuo part in the score. I'm guessing it's a realization of a figured bass provided by Pachelbel. Drat, this score chasing is addictive: now I'd like to see Pachelbel's original (or a facsimile). I wonder where the original is housed?

According to Grove, the Canon and Gigue in D Major for three violins and basso continuo was first published in an arrangement by the German musicologist Max Seiffert in the 1920s as part of his Organum (an anthology of early polyphonic music). An earlier version of just the canon had appeared in 1919 in an article by Beckmann in Archiv für Musikwissenschaft (PDF here). Grove does not list a primary source for this work, but the Wikipedia article suggests that a single manuscript still exists in the Berlin State Library. However, I can't seem to find any trace of the existence of this source (or any other) in RISM.

The Seiffert version (republished by Kalmus and available on IMSLP here) contains the following introduction:



My German isn't very good, so perhaps someone could help us out. I do know that a lot of musical sources in Europe were destroyed or dislocated during the tumults of the 20th century, so I wonder if all traces of the manuscript are now lost (or if RISM is simply incomplete at this point). Next time I'm at the library, I'll check Eitner's Quellen (a 19th-century inventory of musical sources) to see if there is anything for this work.

Here's the incipit from the Seiffert arrangement of the Canon:



(I'm with you, PS88. I love chasing down old scores and sources.)

packa, WOW!!!

Thanks for linking to that score! I notice that it puts quarter note = 56, slightly slower than the edition I have, which is published by Schott, 1969, and edited by Helmut May. I suspect he is the same as the H.M. listed as the transcriber in the OP's link.

Plus your linked score includes the elusive Gigue! Hooray!

[ETA: thinking about it, of course the MM markings are after the fact for Pachelbel... reflect the suggestion of the editor.]

Sub-topic: I like the arrangement by Dan Coates.