# Secret Messages in Musical Pieces, need help.



## bamabhai (Aug 8, 2012)

Hello people.
The thing is, I plan to do a written presentation, kind of like an article on secret messages hidden inside classical music. I am looking for something like Bach's "The Musical Offering" which is full of ingeniously hidden messages against Frederick the Great. 
I need more examples of musical pieces which have messages like this one and they can be from any period of history.
I am not a student of music and I am only a recently converted classical music fan so I am unable to find relevant examples. 
Thank you.
(Sources would be helpful but I can do with just the name.)


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Alban Berg's Lyric Suite has a hidden message about his affair.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

There are quite a few. Often they are in mottos or quotes of other's music. It may or may not be secret, but just as with any music, there may be more meanings than one, or more meaning that we might think at first. Sometimes we don't know the meaning and we'll maybe never know.

Debussy in his solo piano pieces does this a lot. The 24 preludes have many hidden messages - from quoting other composers (Brahms, Stravinsky), to French and English national anthems, to putting in ragtimes and sounds of gamelan. So too the 'Children's Corner suite' which starts with a parody of Clementi's empty arpeggios and ends with putting Wagner's 'Tristan chord' between a ragtime in the final movement. It also has things like gamelan in between.

Shostakovich was another one, his motto theme (based on his name) DSCH can be found in works like Cello Concerto #1, Symphony #10, String Quartet #8. These are used to comment on what was going on in USSR and Europe at the time.

The book published after Shostakovich's death called 'Testimony' is controversial, some say he dictated it to the author Volkov, others do not believe it is authentic. A discussion of that and other related things here by Alex Ross: http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/08/the_popov_disco.html

Manxfeeder is right about Berg and another work like this by him is his 'Chamber Concerto' which starts with the piano, violin and horn playing motto themes based on the names of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg. It was written to celebrate Schoenberg's 50th birthday (he was Berg's teacher, as well as Webern's).

I didn't know of that re 'The Musical Offering' but I know there is a theory of sorts that the 'king's theme' in that was not really written by Frederick the Great but by Bach's eldest son, C.P.E. Bach. Its quite intricate and Bach needed to go back home to compose the piece, he was just visiting the Berlin court. Usually he could have well dashed off a piece there and then, but he need more time, since the theme was not easy to fit into theme and variations type form. But whatever its history its probably my favourite work by J.S. Bach right now.


----------



## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Schumann's music is filled with musical cryptograms, mostly pertaining to his wife.


----------



## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

How about Elgar's *Enigma Variations*, which supposedly referred to different friends of his?


----------



## Toddlertoddy (Sep 17, 2011)

samurai said:


> How about Elgar's *Enigma Variations*, which supposedly referred to different friends of his?


They're not really secret if the names are printed at the top of the score...


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Brahms' first symphony uses Schumann's cipher for Clara, then at measure 100 quotes the Astarte theme from Schumann's Manfred Overture indicating love which can never be. The Cambridge Companion on Brahms' 1st symphony gives the examples.


----------



## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

Toddlertoddy said:


> They're not really secret if the names are printed at the top of the score...


Oops, My bad! Never mind, then.


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

In Mike Oldfield's epic-length piece _Amarok_ there's a short Morse code message telling the executive in charge of the record company he was working for at the time to go **** himself XD


----------



## Toddlertoddy (Sep 17, 2011)

Sid James said:


> Shostakovich was another one, his motto theme (based on his name) DSCH can be found in works like Cello Concerto #1, Symphony #10, String Quartet #8. These are used to comment on what was going on in USSR and Europe at the time.


I believe Shostaskovich deliberately also used Jewish themes in his Piano Trio No. 2, String Quartet No. 8, Violin Concerto No. 2, String Quartet No. 4, etc. to represent his thoughts on the hardships of Jews in the Soviet Union at the time. Not surprisingly, the music was not published because of censorship.

Also, why would Shostakovich quote a bunch of works in his String Quartet No. 8 anyway?


----------



## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Toddlertoddy said:


> They're not really secret if the names are printed at the top of the score...


There is a secret, though. It's so secret that nobody knows what the answer is!


----------



## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

Klavierspieler said:


> There is a secret, though. It's so secret that nobody knows what the answer is!


Except Elgar, that is! :lol:


----------



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

People have found all sorts of supposed ciphers in the music of Thomas Weelkes indicating it was really composed by Sir Francis Bacon.


----------



## bamabhai (Aug 8, 2012)

Thank you for the wonderful examples guys! I will start researching them.
The more the better


----------



## Norse (May 10, 2010)

Shostakovich' 10th symphony has already been mentioned, but it's a good one, since it doesn't just have the DSCH theme, but also a theme that similarly spells out the name of a student Shostakovich was in love with at the time. (Elmira - "E La Mi Re A") If I remember correctly, the symphony was on the concert repertoire for quite some time before this was discovered through old letters.


----------



## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Hello Bamabhai, and welcome to TC! I'd like a reference for the hidden messages against Frederick the Great in Bach's _Musicla Offering_ if you have time. I know there are many unusual things like canons that may be playing indefinitely as the _da capo_ instructs to play every repeat of the canon up a whole step (at sight!), plus crab canons and other canons which may be 'solved' in more than one way, but I've never heard about anti-Frederick meanings...which, would be surprising since his son CPE Bach was Frederick's Kapellmeister. Very interesting post! 



bamabhai said:


> Hello people.
> The thing is, I plan to do a written presentation, kind of like an article on secret messages hidden inside classical music. I am looking for something like Bach's "The Musical Offering" which is full of ingeniously hidden messages against Frederick the Great.
> I need more examples of musical pieces which have messages like this one and they can be from any period of history.
> I am not a student of music and I am only a recently converted classical music fan so I am unable to find relevant examples.
> ...


----------



## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

The German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann working in Germany during the NS Regime imbedded musical messages in his compositions to bolster moral for the German resistance during WWII. However, these encoded messages were apparently rather obscure and accessible only to those "in the know". Since those "in the know" are now probably all long since dead, the substance of his musical messages and what form they took will probably remain a mystery forever.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Similar to the Musical Offering, Michael Marrisen has some similar observations his book in The Social and Religious Designs of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.


----------



## bamabhai (Aug 8, 2012)

NightHawk said:


> Hello Bamabhai, and welcome to TC! I'd like a reference for the hidden messages against Frederick the Great in Bach's _Musicla Offering_ if you have time. I know there are many unusual things like canons that may be playing indefinitely as the _da capo_ instructs to play every repeat of the canon up a whole step (at sight!), plus crab canons and other canons which may be 'solved' in more than one way, but I've never heard about anti-Frederick meanings...which, would be surprising since his son CPE Bach was Frederick's Kapellmeister. Very interesting post!


Sure, here it is
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/musoffcanons.html
I came across this when I was looking up the meeting between Frederick and Bach. See the fourth and fifth cannon.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

This was possibly done by Ravel as well:

_"The French composer, Maurice Ravel may have left a hidden message - a woman's name - inside his work.

A sequence of three notes occurring repeatedly through his work spells out the name of a famous Parisian socialite says Ravel expert David Lamaze.

He argues that the notes, E, B, A in musical notation, or "Mi-Si-La" in the French doh-re-mi scale, refer to Misia Sert, a close friend of Ravel's.

Well known in art circles, she was painted by Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec.

Ravel never married, but Misia was married three times. Ravel composed some of his work while staying on a boat belonging to Misia and her second husband.

"It has never been done before. To take one person and to place them at the centre of a life-long work," says Professor Lamaze of the Conservatoire de Rennes, who is working on a book about Ravel and Misia.

Professor Lamaze believes Ravel was romantically inspired by Misia. "To put the feeling of love at the very central point of the creation without us knowing it. That is typical of Ravel, I think." "
_

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7968024.stm


----------



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

This doesn't affect the thesis, but I've heard that it was fairly well "known" at the time that Ravel was gay.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

GGluek said:


> This doesn't affect the thesis, but I've heard that it was fairly well "known" at the time that Ravel was gay.


Quite possible, though there is a lot more evidence suggestive of Ravel being quite interested in the opposite sex. Perhaps he was interested in both sexes, perhaps neither. Not that it matters at all but I haven't been convinced of any of the gay speculation myself. Ravel was committed above all else by his own admission to his music.


----------



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

GGluek said:


> This doesn't affect the thesis, but I've heard that it was fairly well "known" at the time that Ravel was gay.


I'm somewhat inclined to think he was gay, but I think there is not enough evidence for supporting this in firm way (nor the opposite). I don't think that 'it was fairly well "known" at the time that Ravel was gay'.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Well Ravel was very private about his sex life & private life. Whatever he was, he comes across to me as tdc suggests as 'wedded' to his music rather than to any other person. But the info about the woman's name embedded in his music is interesting and although he never married and probably had no long term romantic partner, it doesn't mean he possibly couldn't have had a 'fling' or two. But to me he comes across as kind of asexual (like Bruckner, but Ravel was I think more socially skilled than him, much more) and Ravel's big relationship in his life was with his mother (and brother) they were I understand a very close-knit family.



KRoad said:


> The German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann working in Germany during the NS Regime imbedded musical messages in his compositions to bolster moral for the German resistance during WWII. However, these encoded messages were apparently rather obscure and accessible only to those "in the know". Since those "in the know" are now probably all long since dead, the substance of his musical messages and what form they took will probably remain a mystery forever.


I think in solidarity with the Czech people, there is a Czech tune in the famous 'Concerto Funebre.' I think that I've read that he also put in his music Jewish tunes, like Shostakovich.

The work I know by Hartmann best has many extramusical allusions, the 'PIano Sonata 27 April 1945.' Written after he saw a column of prisoners of war being marched to who knows where, in the final days of the war. It starts with a cryptic 'quote' of the opening of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring,' and ends with two alternative finales, one of them a neo-Baroque toccata, the other quoting popular American and Russian songs of the time (these countries where liberating Europe from the Nazis of course). In between there's a funeral march (slow movement), one of the greatest in the repertoire I think, with a sequence of notes reminiscent of the opening of Beethoven's 5th symphony (the famous 4 note motto) and also bells ringing, imagining the bells that would ring across Europe upon the moment of liberation.

That's the piece I know by Hartmann to any depth, but it does as you see have many 'messages' in it.


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

" In between there's a funeral march (slow movement), one of the greatest in the repertoire I think, with a sequence of notes reminiscent of the opening of Beethoven's 5th symphony (the famous 4 note motto) and also bells ringing, imagining the bells that would ring across Europe upon the moment of liberation."

It was a while back, but I remember VE Day. Fireworks and sirens at the east end of Main St. (town population ~1000). I was seven. My parents told me that my brothers would be coming home. The 1812 Overture wasn't in it.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Hilltroll72 said:


> ...
> It was a while back, but I remember VE Day. Fireworks and sirens at the east end of Main St. (town population ~1000). I was seven. My parents told me that my brothers would be coming home. The 1812 Overture wasn't in it.


I don't know about VE day in USA, but I know in Europe, bells rang out when liberation happened. & the same thing ironically happened when the Russians left many East European (former Iron Curtain) countries, they rang dem bells hard! I remember hearing radio broadcasts of the latter, and in the background as the reporter was talking, there where bells ringing (which he referred to).

But these where not small towns, these where the big cities.

I don't know about Australia, whether that was done here. I know there were VE day parades.


----------



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Re: Ravel. Didn't mean to derail the thread because it's ultimately immaterial, but my source was an ancient music professor I had in the early '70s who came across like he knew the entire European music scene in the '30s. But that may have been self-aggrandizement.


----------



## bamabhai (Aug 8, 2012)

Sorry, I accidently double posted and how do I delete a post?
(Read my reply below)


----------



## bamabhai (Aug 8, 2012)

I can't thank you guys enough for the help. But now I need help in understanding something. I mentioned The Musical Offering when I started this thread. I have been researching more on the messages inside and while I am pretty sure that Bach does not mean well for Frederick in the fifth cannon, I think I may have misunderstood the fourth cannon. Being a musical illiterate I cannot understand what the source says. I will paste it here.

Canon 4. a 2 per Augmentationem contrario Motu 
Bach's inscription, Notulis crescentibus crescat Fortuna Regis refers to rhythmic augmentation of the follower: "As the notes increase may the fortunes of the King do likewise." The upside down clef signals the follower to move in the opposite direction of the leader.

I cannot particularly understand the last sentence. Does it suggest that Bach was hinting that the fortunes of the king will decrease?
(source: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/musoffcanons.html)
If you have time, can you tell me if any more messages are hidden in the remaining cannons? Many of the words are just going over my head.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I don't know if this will help, but here are some notes I wrote down from some source - I didn't write down who it was:

First, the preface is in German, meaning it's published for a wider audience; the king would require a preface in French.

Frederick was an Enlightenment ruler, but the words used in the preface to the King is "webbe" (dedicated - or consecrated) an "offering." These are _religious_ terms.

The opening recercare is an _archaic_ mode of expression - it embodies a prevasively theological world-view wholly at odds with the king's enlightened modernity.

The canon perpetuus super thema reguiem: The canon was also an antiquated form; in the 1740s it was more criticized than the fugue. In a canon, all voices must follow the commandment of the first voice. There are 10 canons, just like there are 10 commandments. The law (i.e., the first voice of the canon) is to have you be aware of your sin and seek repentance and God's mercy.

Canones diversi super thema regium number four: "Per augmentatinem, contrario motu." The dotted bass rhythms are in French Baroque _court_ style with its majesty and glory. But in augmentation and contrary motion, the bass becomes_ de-regalized_. Its worldly glory now becomes spiritually glorified. Its melancholy affect links regal fortune not to might and fame but to the theology of the cross.

One source which gives a similar thought in general terms is James R. Gaines' Evening in the Palace of Reason, pages 236 and 237. He says the canons are a message to the king: "Beware the appearance of good fortune. Stand in awe of a fate more fearful than any this world has to give, seek the glory that is beyond the glory of this fallen world, and know that there is a law higher than any king's which is never changing and by which you and every one of us will be judged."


----------



## bamabhai (Aug 8, 2012)

Manxfeeder said:


> I don't know if this will help, but here are some notes I wrote down from some source - I didn't write down who it was:
> 
> First, the preface is in German, meaning it's published for a wider audience; the king would require a preface in French.
> 
> ...


That was really very helpful. Thanks! A source would have been good but I can do without it.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

bamabhai said:


> That was really very helpful. Thanks! A source would have been good but I can do without it.


Yeah, I always write my sources down, but in this case I slipped up. Oh, well, it's out there somewhere.

If you're interested in the secret references in Alban Berg's Lyric Suite, here's a link to the article: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/960274?uid=3739912&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21100973944263


----------



## bamabhai (Aug 8, 2012)

Manxfeeder said:


> Yeah, I always write my sources down, but in this case I slipped up. Oh, well, it's out there somewhere.
> 
> If you're interested in the secret references in Alban Berg's Lyric Suite, here's a link to the article: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/960274?uid=3739912&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21100973944263


Thanks for the link, the more content I get the better it is.


----------



## bamabhai (Aug 8, 2012)

I have prepared a very simple summary of some of the messages in the Musical Offering without the detail to submit so that the editors can get an idea what I am talking about before I get the clearance to write. I will paste it below. Please let me know if there are any wrong facts and any suggestions in improving this will be helpful. Please be patient with me, many sources I encounter use technical language so I am afraid I may be doing it wrong.

*Frederick the Great was a pretty strong proponent of the Enlightenment era ideas. This alienated some Christians including Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach then composes a fugue on a theme provided by Frederick. He includes subtle hints and riddles which make his distaste for Frederick clear. First of all Bach composes 10 canons, just like the 10 commandments with canon also meaning law. This was his foremost Christian theme. Then in the fourth canon, Bach inscribes that "As the notes increase may the fortunes of the King do likewise." However the notes move in an opposite motion to their leader and become "de-regalized" so that Frederick's fortunes are not increasing. Then in the fifth canon Bach inscribes "As the keys ascend so may the glory of the king also ascend", but Bach creates an illusion here by making it sound that the scale is rising but in reality it is not. So it means that Frederick's glory should not be increasing. 
*

I encountered another interesting source on the fourth canon but I cannot make much sense of a passage which seems integral. I will post it below.

*Then, Bach, in the "Canon a 2 per Augmentationem, contrario Motu," adds a sort of stretching of the material [See Figure 4]. In the earlier canons, one voice always repeated the same material, only entering a short time later-like an echo singing with its source. But this was not a mere acoustical event. One voice mirrors, or acts on, part of itself, examining itself; and if the material is constructed properly, it will be appropriate to bringing out otherwise hidden, internal relations in its construction. But now, Bach presents an upward, stepwise figure, reversed and proceeding at a rate twice as slow as the source. ("Augmentation" refers to the doubling of the musical time for each note.) Certainly, this is a different type of method for the voice to investigate itself. How should the lower voice act, if each step it takes comes back to it delayed, twice as slow, and reversed in tonal direction, and its own future steps will co-operate with this delayed transformation of its own past? *

Please be understanding about this, I kinda feel ashamed for asking so much help and I love the help given to me so far but in this one I have ran into difficulties as each detail is important to make it interesting, and I am unable to decipher the technical language in some sources.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

bamabhai said:


> That was really very helpful. Thanks! A source would have been good but I can do without it.


Finally found the source: _Oxford Composer Companions, J.S. Bach_, edited by Malcolm Boyd. The Musical Offering is pages 308 through 311 in an article by Michael Marissen.


----------



## Krisena (Jul 21, 2012)

I was at a lecture with the Norwegian violinist Terje Tønnesen where he went into Bach's Chaconne. Bach wrote it (and the rest of the six partita/sonata set) after his first wife Maria Barbara Bach died, and the title *Sei solo* can mean both *"Six solos"* but also *"You are alone"* in Italian/Latin. That's pretty harsh.

The Chaconne itself is structured in such a way that if you translate the length of the phrases into letters in the way of gematry, you get messages saying *"Joh. Seb. Bach"* and *"Maria Barbara"*, *"Jesus Christus"* along with the often encountered *"BACH"* motif. Then there's the fact that he hid a certain Lutherian psalm melody inside one of the voices of the opening theme, while all the variations has a picture associated with them, like the chromatic "double A" motif near the end symbolizes the church bells at the funeral and that the D major segment is Bach looking back at all the happy memories he and Maria Barbara had together (and in which way it actually works as a sort of musical retrospective technique, very interesting).

All this makes me feel as I'm intruding upon someone's private mourning when listening to the Chaconne.

There's lots more, but you know what, you can do your own goddamn paper yourself.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Krisena said:


> I was at a lecture with the Norwegian violinist Terje Tønnesen where went into Bach's Chaconne.


I had forgotten about that one. The Hillier Ensemble's Morimur CD has liner notes and a recording highlighting the hidden hymns.


----------



## bamabhai (Aug 8, 2012)

Wohoo! Thanks!


----------



## bamabhai (Aug 8, 2012)

I am back again after a lot of research. However I need to confirm something from you guys. I have a source which says that a musical cipher was developed and papal spies used the cipher to communicate with each other. http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2007/interact/puzzles/musicalcodes.shtml
I am unable to find anything relevant on this. So was this cipher used in any musical composition?


----------



## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

C is the first letter of "cake", therefore Symphony No. 5 by Beethoven is about cake because it is in C minor. Note how the opening motif that is repeated in various guises throughout the piece fits the syllables "I want some cake" and "give me the cake", clearly this is a reference to Beethoven's love of cake and his desire to consume more of it.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Those BBC guys come up with some obscure things. I hadn't heard about that papal stuff. But it reminds me of an old Sherlock Holmes movie, where different music boxes had the same tune, but one note was wrong at the same place in each of them, which turned out to be a code. Fast-forward to 43:00, and Sherlock figures it out.


----------



## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Most of the themes quoted are from his own works. It is an autobigraphic composition.


----------

