canon, musical form and compositional technique, based on the principle of strict imitation, in which an initial melody is imitated at a specified time interval by one or more parts, either at the unison (i.e., the same pitch) or at some other pitch. Such imitation may occur in the same note values, in augmentation (longer note values), or in diminution (shorter note values). Melodically, the original direction may be reversed, so that in imitation the tune is read backward (retrograde), or the intervals, while unchanged, are made to move in the opposite direction (mirror), or both (retrograde mirror).
The oldest known canon is the 13th-century English round Sumer is icumen in (also called the Reading Rota; “rota” was a medieval term for round). This unique six-part composition is based on a four-voice canon that can be derived from a single notated part according to verbal instructions, or canones (“rules”). Two canonic supporting voices forming a ground bass (repeated bass pattern) complete the six parts.
During the 15th century, canon became an important unifying device in settings of the mass. The Flemish composer Jean d’Okeghem composed his Missa prolationum (Prolation Mass) as a canon cycle in which a double canon is combined with a mensuration canon: two two-part canons proceed simultaneously at different rates of speed (i.e., mensurations).
In the 18th century, Johann Sebastian Bach created two monumental canon cycles in his Art of the Fugue and Goldberg Variations. Arnold Schoenberg, Anton von Webern, and Paul Hindemith employed the technique extensively in the 20th century.
Canons also occur in folk music—e.g., in the Balkans and in Africa. In western Europe, rounds (canons in strict imitation at the unison) such as “Frère Jacques” are a part of many community singing traditions, as were the English catches (wherein one part tries to “catch” the next) of the 17th and 18th centuries. Canons have also long been vehicles for inside jokes among musicians.