Crab Canon (Canon 1 a 2 from The Musical Offering, BWV 1079)

A Moment of Bach

A short, simple piece for a solo instrument -- only 35 seconds long. Yet it has captured the imaginations of so many people: musicians, philosophers, artists, mathematicians, and more. It's all because of the unique cleverness of Bach -- showing us here that he can construct a piece that can be played forwards OR backwards... OR both at the same time! Yes, this piece is actually for two instruments -- one playing it normally and the other playing it backwards in time.

Alex recounts the story of Bach composing this piece (and the rest of The Musical Offering), and our discussion turns to the monumental book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter (1979) as well as the recent Christopher Nolan film Tenet (2020). All these works are the result of authors striving to understand profound mysteries of the universe -- all by asking one simple question: what would happen if you turned time backwards?

Video of Shunske Sato performing "Canon 1 a 2" as a duet with himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29YwFjE2b1A

Overview of Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, the book we discussed in this episode: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/reviews/hofstadter-grodel.html

J. S. Bach's "Crab Canon" visualized on a Möbius strip (video by Jos Leys): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUHQ2ybTejU

Examples of M. C. Escher's art: https://mcescher.com/gallery/

Article about the philosophy of Tenet, the film we mentioned in the episode: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/plato-pop/202009/is-tenet-s-fatalism-excuse-do-nothing

More examples from The Musical Offering performed by the Netherlands Bach Society, all of which were played in the background of this episode:

Ricercar a 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv5A1gy2oys

Ricercar a 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjxKy3pP41w

Canon a 4 "Quaerendo invenietis" ("Seek and ye shall find"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRqoP-NdkDg