Virleandri – Canon I

In Retrograde – Canon Cancrizans

The entirety of Voice 2 (piano left hand) is the whole of Voice 1 (piano right hand) played backwards against itself – if you play the last bar of the Left Hand, backwards, it will be exactly the same as the first bar of the Right Hand, forwards – and so it continues for the entire Canon.

Virleandri – Canon II

In Mirror – Canon Motu Contrario

The entirety of Voice 2 (piano left hand) is the whole of Voice 1 (piano right hand) turned upside down and played upside down against itself (Voice 2 is an exact Mirror of Voice 1)

In a Mirror Canon, Voice 2 is not a general Inversion of Voice 1, but rather is an exact Mirror of Voice 1, in that the quality of the opposite interval remains exactly the same.

In a straight Inversion, Voice 1 may rise a sixth, and so Voice 2 falls a sixth – but the rise might be a major sixth, while the fall might be a minor sixth, so the quality of the intervals is not the same.

In a true Mirror Canon, the quality of the rising interval must be exactly the same as the falling interval – if Voice 1 rises a major sixth, then Voice 2 must fall exactly as a major sixth. 

Canon II is a strict Mirror Canon.

This is a studio screenshot of the note mapping of Canon II – the top half of the image is the piano right hand, the bottom half of the image is the piano left hand – the piano left hand is an exact mirror/reflection of the piano right hand