Music palindromes

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Every cancer canon or mirror canon is a musical palindrome . There are hundreds of palindromes, among others by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (e.g. Spiegelkanon in G major) and by Johann Sebastian Bach ( Canon a 2 from the Musical Offering ).

In Symphony No. 47 by Joseph Haydn there is a minuet al roverso , the second part of which and the trio have not been notated; the music here is given by the addition of al roverso : the second half is created by playing the first backwards. Haydn used this minuet again in his Piano Sonata No. 26 in A major, of which there is also a transcription for violin and piano by Charles Burney .

Paul Wetzger composed two musical jokes as Opus 32 :

  • Avant et Retour , Vor und Rückwärts , Forwards and Backwards No. 1, Tempo di Valse, G major
  • Avant et Retour No. 2, Tempo di Polka, G major

Ludwig Schlesinger from London composed the Scherzo for piano, Presto, A major in Vienna on December 26th, 1832 , which sounds the same when you turn the sheet of music upside down.

Paul Hindemith's approx. 15 minute long opera sketch Hin und zurück op. 45a, composed in 1927, has a plot that is played first forwards and then backwards. The exact turning back of time is shown by reversing the order of the text.

Anton Webern's music in particular is rich in palindromes, such as his Symphony op.21.

In 1982 Robert Simpson composed his String Quartet No. 9, which consists of 32 variations and a final fugue on Haydn's palindrome minuet mentioned above. The variations, kept in an extended tonality, are sometimes far removed from the form of the theme, but all follow it structurally with their strictly palindromic structure. As early as 1948 Simpson had dealt with the Haydn theme in a work of variations for piano. Parts of this composition flowed into the 9th string quartet. Simpson's String Quartet No. 1 and the Symphonies No. 2 and No. 9 also use palindromic structures.

The progressive metal album "The Beast Of Left And Right" from 2014 by the American band Lazer / Wulf is also conceived as a palindrome.

literature

  • Mark S. Drexler: Longing for Symmetry. Palindromes in Science, Music, and Language . VAS, Bad Homburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88864-455-9 .