Musical palindromes Full pieces, movements, or obvious and clear sections of a work that are a palindrome. If there is not a link to a score, I have not yet verified the reference. This is a work in progress. If you know of others, please let me know! General rules I followed for what to include in my list - Crab canons: yes Only one voice is a palindrome: no Retrograde-inversional symmetry only: no Is almost a palindrome: no C. P. E. Bach: Zwo abwechselnde Menuetten, C major, Menuet 1 (1770) score J. S. Bach: Crab canon from the Musical Offering (1747) score J. S. Bach: Kanon zu acht Stimmen BWV 1072 score Filippo Baroni: Canone a 2 dove il 2 soprano principia da piedi ritornando indietro fino al principio (1704) score William Byrd: Diliges Dominum score Domenico De Feraria, O dolce compagno score Karel Goeyvaerts: Nummer 5 (1954) spectrogram Francois Joseph Gossec: Canons en ecrevisse ou retrograde (3) imslp link Adalbert Gyrowetz: Trio al rovescio from the minuet of the String Quartet in G major, Op. 29/2 (1799) score Joseph Haydn: Symphony 47, Menuet (1772) score Johann Hiller: Polonoise (1770) score Friedrich Linder: Retrogradi Cantor gressus imitabere Cancri (1596) score Francisco Lopez y Capillas: Agnus Dei II from Missa Quam pulchri sunt gressus tui score Guillaume de Machaut: Ma fin est mon commencement (1370?) score Michael Meier: Jupiter e Delphis (1618) score Cristiano Miller: Canzone epitalamica (1763) score Conlon Nancarrow: Study no. 22 (1982) spectrogram Luigi Nono: Incontri (1955) first/middle/last page Luigi Nono: Canti per 13, n.2 Leonhard Päminger: Vexilla regis prodeunt score Leonhard Päminger: Tua cruce triumphamus score Hugo Reimann: examples 316+317 from Text-book of simple and double counterpoint including imitation or canon (1904) score Samuel Scheidt: Canon retrogradus a 3 Voc. (1624) score Samuel Scheidt: Canon Cancrizans (1624) score Ludwig Senfl: Crux fidelis / Ecce lignum / O Crux ave (1538) score Robert Simpson: slow movement of String Quartet 1 Robert Simpson: each variation of String Quartet 9 score John Stainer: Per Recte et Retro (1902) score Gregorio Strozzi: Non progredi in via Dei, est retrogredi (from Elementorum musicae praxis) (1683) score Joseph Waters / Roman de Salvo: Crab Carillon (2003) description Gregorius Joseph Werner: Der curiose musikalische Instrumentalkalende, Die Sonne im Krebs (1748) score Jan Dismas Zelenka: Canon Cancrizans 1 (1723) score Jan Dismas Zelenka: Canon Cancrizans 2 (1723) score Unknown: J'ay mis ce rondelet (Strasbourg 222 C. 22, no. 133) (1400-1450?) score Unknown: Tres douls amis (Strasbourg 222 C. 22, no. 131) (1400-1450?) score Unknown: II vient bien (codex Reina 1350-1400?) score Making decisions about what to put in this catalogue turned out to be more confusing than I anticipated. What constitutes a palindrome? In crab canons, pairs of voices are retrogrades of each other, so the composite is a palindrome, but each voice is not. In Charles Ives's Scherzo: All the Way Around and Back, most of the piece is a palindrome, except for a few measures at the beginning and end. In the middle of Alban Berg's Lulu, Act II, the orchestra plays almost a palindrome, but there are a few changes. In Luigi Nono's Incontri, the tempo changes are extremely close to, but not exactly, palindromic. In J.S. Bach's 8-voice canon, one could choose to play it as a palindrome, but one could also choose not to. For the rondeau J'ai mis ce rondelet, Virginia Newes disagrees with Willi Apel about if the cantus voice should be retrograded along with the tenor. La Monte Young's Dreamhouse installation is a single sustained chord, which by definition is the same backwards and forwards. Each phrase (separated by long silences) in La Monte Young's Trio for Strings is a palindrome. There are table-music pieces (or mirror-music), where the piece is a retrograde inversion of itself instead of a retrograde palindrome.