Beethoven wrote several canons on this text, including WoO 186 and Hess 264. Hess indicates that there is yet another setting of these words, but the condition of the pencil is completely indecipherable.

Hess 263, 264, WoO 186:

Te solo adoro,
mente infinita, 
fonte di vita, 
di verita.

Only you I love,
infinite mind,
source of life
and of truth. 

This barely decipherable musical joke can be found amongst the sketches for the String Quartet in Eb major, opus 127, and probably dates from 1824. The highly melismatic character of Hess 285 (every syllable of 'Tobias' is sung to 27 notes) is reminiscent of the first and last movements of the string quartet.

Even at the best of times Beethoven's handwriting is difficult to read, but here it's pretty bad: the stems of the notes are feeble vertical lines on the paper, and where they end we have to search for the heads. It is next to impossible to determine the exact placement of the heads (at least without electron microscope), so in many cases the intended pitch may be anything within the range of a third. In short, to make a calculated guess as to what Beethoven had in mind, we have to rely also on what makes sense from the point of view of musical syntax.

The treble clef at the beginning of the stave is oddly shaped, and seems to be badly placed; hardly noticable are three flats following the treble clef. All three flats appear to be placed one line too low, an inexactness which is odd for Beethoven, who is usually rather precise about key signatures at the start of a piece, when he thinks of putting them in. All this starts to make sense when we realize that Beethoven is using not the normal treble clef here, but the so called 'French treble clef', which is placed a third lower than the treble clef we know. With this in mind, we can identify the first note as an E flat, rather than a C, which makes also more sense from a syntactical point of view. The motif of the first bar is repeated in the next two bars in a descending sequence. This 3 bar sequence is repeated in bars 5-7 (but now starting a fourth higher) and in bars 9-11 (starting a sixth lower). These sequences, as well as the odd voice leading in bar 4, beg the question whether a canon on the prime with a two bar interval is possible. This turns out not to be the case, for the canon breaks down in bar 6. Any suggestions for other solutions as canon are welcome! With sincere thanks to the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, which provided us with a copy of the original manuscript in Beethoven's handwriting.

2-part canon, "ester Magistrat"

Published as single line in the Revisionsbericht of Hess Suppl.Vol. V.

'My dear Magistrate' no doubt refers to the same Viennese magistrate for whom also the canon 'Bester Magistrat, ihr friert', WoO 157, had been written, and who had chosen the side of the mother in the court case about nephew Carl. Probably written at the same time, 1820.

Hess calls this a "Musical Joke", so apparently the solution as canon had eluded him. That the present solution (2nd voice in the octave, at an interval of two bars) is correct, is indicated by one additional note in the 6th bar in the manuscript: a G sharp on the fourth count coincides with the G sharp of the second voice of this solution.

This is in fact a much more intelligent canon than WoO 157, because in bar 5 the melody modulates to the dominant. Combining different renderings of a melody which modulates is much harder than when a melody remains in the same key.

The drafts for this canon can be found amidst the sketches for the Credo of the Missa Solemnis. Although these drafts have been known to Beethoven scholars for more than a century, apparently no attempt has been made before to reconstruct the canon. An interpretation of the notes as written by Beethoven is somewhat difficult, because both clef and key signature are missing. However, all the pieces of the puzzle fall in place if we assume a treble clef and the key of E flat major, a reading which is also totally satisfactory from a musical point of view. The canon is scattered over four different places in the sketchbook. First we have a single line with the first 4 bars of the melody, and the word "Canon" written above the stave. Several pages later we find three attempts by Beethoven to work out the canon. The first of these is very sketchy, giving very few clues. The two last attempts on the other hand are more or less fully worked out, but differ from one another in detail. Three staves joined together in one system makes clear that Beethoven was working on a 3 in 1 canon (or actually a round, to be disgustingly pedantic). The present reconstruction is the result of combining the best elements from these last two attempts. Isn't it typical of Beethoven that after begging his friend Weissenbach to love him in the most gentle way for three bars, he commands to be loved every fourth bar?

Liebe mich, liebe mich, 
werter Weissenbach,
teuer Freund,
liebe mich!

Do love me, do love me,
my dear Weissenbach,
valued friend,
do love me!

Interpretation of the drafts and reconstruction of the canon by Willem.