2002 and Musical Palindromes

by Gail Smith

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2002 is a palindrome year. The next palindrome year will be 2112. I don't think anyone reading this will be around then! This will be an exciting year. Let's take a look at some palindromes. The words DAD, BOB, RADAR, MOM, and LEVEL are just a few. Backwards and forwards they are the same. Here are a few sentences that are palindromes:
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.
Sit on a potato pan Otis.
Madam I'm Adam.
Able was I ere I saw Elba.
Do Geese see God

There are benefits to reading something backwards. It is a positive brain exercise to increase your intelligence. It stimulates the brain cells. For a pianist it helps make you a better sight reader when you play music that is a palindrome.

It must be amazing to come up with a new sentence that is a palindrome. I've never created one, but I have composed over a dozen musical palindromes.

One of the first composers to write a palindrome was Guillaume de Machaut (1304-77). Machaut was the leading composer of the ars nova in France. His works are preserved in manuscript form. Machaut was born in northern France in the province of Champagne. He was educated for the clergy and took holy orders. At the age of twenty, Machaut became secretary to King John of Bohemia. Machaut was famous not only as a musician but as a poet. He introduced lists of instruments into his poems that proved valuable to scholars interested in the instruments of that time.Machaut's description of a concert listed 31 different instruments as part of the orchestra.

Machaut composed 23 motets which were based on the traditional form of the day: an instrumental tenor and different texts in the two upper voices. In one of these tenor lines Machaut demonstrated sophisticated musical ingenuity. Against the text "Ma fin est mon commencement et mon commencement ma fin" ("My end is my beginning and my beginning my end") a portion ofthe melody for the tenor voice is first played forwards then backwards, making a palindrome.

The most famous musical composition of the 14th century was Messe de Notre Dame (Mass of Our Lady) by Machaut. The decline in the production of sacred music in this period was in part due to the weakened state of the Church and the secularization of the arts. The Church had become critical of the use of elaborate musical settings and felt the music distracted the minds of the congregation and served to display the virtuosity of the singers. It was felt that the Mass was turned into a mere concert. It seemed that few were concerned whether the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei (the common parts of the Mass which do not change) were in the same church mode, based on the same thematic material, or unified in any way. Machaut, however, did regard the five divisions as one musical composition and remains a model composer of the period. He was the innovator for adding written accompaniment to his songs. Machaut ranks along with Josquin, Palestrina, Bach and Beethoven in that he represents the best of his own time.

Play the palindrome by Machaut for tenor voice or try singing it.

The following palindrome is from Book Three of the Celebrate the Piano Series. Enjoy playing it backwards as well as forwards. (The extra accidentals are there to make it correct when reading backwards.)

Happy New Year!