A musical cryptogram is a cryptogrammatic sequence of musical symbols which can be taken to refer to an extra-musical text by some 'logical' relationship, usually between note names and letters. The most common and best known examples result from composers using musically translated versions of their own or their friends' names (or initials) as themes or motifs in their compositions. These are not really rigorous

cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...

algorithms in the formal sense, but more like musical monograms. The methods used historically by composers were either too incomplete (i.e., did not include all of the letters of the alphabet) or too simplistic to meaningfully encrypt long text messages. There is a separate history of music ciphers utilizing

music notation Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proces ...

to encode messages for reasons of

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

or personal security that involved

encryption In Cryptography law, cryptography, encryption (more specifically, Code, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode. This process converts the original representation of the inf ...

and/or steganography. Because of the multitudinous ways in which notes and letters can be related, detecting hidden ciphers in music and proving accurate decipherment can be difficult.

History

From the initial assignment by Western music theorists of letter names to notes in the 9th century it became possible to reverse the procedure and assign notes to the letters of names. However, this does not seem to have become a widely recognized technique until the Romantic period. From the mid-19th century it has become quite common. Sporadic earlier encipherments used solmization syllables.

Systems

Syllables to solmization names

It is believed that this method was first used by

Josquin des Prez Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez ( – 27 August 1521) was a composer of High Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the ...

in his ''Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie''. It was named Soggetto cavato by the later theorist Zarlino. Under this scheme the vowel sounds in the text are matched to the vowel sounds of the solmization syllables of

Guido of Arezzo Guido of Arezzo (; – after 1033) was an Italian music theorist and pedagogue of High medieval music. A Benedictine monk, he is regarded as the inventor—or by some, developer—of the modern Staff (music), staff notation that had a massive ...

(where 'ut' is the root, which we now call 'do'). Thus the Latin name of the dedicatee 'Hercules Dux Ferrarie' ( Ercole d'Este, Duke of Ferrara) becomes re-ut-re-ut-re-fa-mi-re, which translates as D-C-D-C-D-F-E-D in modern notation with C as 'ut'. This is used as the cantus firmus of the mass setting. Josquin's method was imitated by several of his contemporaries and successors, including Adrian Willaert and Costanzo Festa.

Letters to note names

Since the note names only cover letters A to G (reflecting the octave repetition of these names), the problem arises as to how to cipher the rest of the alphabet. Historically there have been two main solutions, which may be labelled for convenience the 'German' and the 'French' methods.

German

Because the development of note names took place within the framework of modes, in the German-speaking world ''B'' was named 'B' and ''B'' was named 'H'. The most common musical cryptogram is the B-A-C-H motif, which was used by

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (German: Help:IPA/Standard German, �joːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque music, Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety ...

himself, by his contemporaries and by many later composers. Other note names were derived by sound, for example ''E'', 'Es' in German, could represent 'S' and ''A'' the digraph 'As'. Composers less fortunate than Bach usually seem to have chosen to ignore non-musical letters in generating their motifs. For example,

Robert Schumann Robert Schumann (; ; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic music, Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber ...

, an inveterate user of cryptograms, has just S-C-H-A (''E, C, B, A'') to represent himself in '' Carnaval''. Sometimes phonetic substitution could be used, Schumann representing Bezeth by B-E-S-E-D-H.

Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period (music), Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, oft ...

used B-A-H-S (''B, A, B, E'') for his surname in the A minor organ fugue, and the mixed language Gis-E-La (''G, E, A'') for Gisela von Arnim, among many examples.Sams, Eric 'Cryptography, musical' in Sadie, Stanley (ed.), ''The New Grove dictionary of music and musicians'', Macmillan, 1980, (6th ed. of the Grove dictionary), vol.5, p. 80

French

The 'French' method of generating cryptograms arose late in the 19th century and was more akin to normal encipherment. The most popular version involved writing out the letters H–N, O–U and V–Z in lines under the original diatonic notes A–G, as follows: so that A, H, O, and V are enciphered by note 'A', B, I, P and W by 'B' (flat or natural) and so on. This scheme was used by Jules Écorcheville, editor of the journal ''S.I.M.'', to solicit centenary commemorations of

Joseph Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( ; ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...

in 1909, except that he diverted the 'H' to B, presumably to avoid too many repeated notes. Writing to Gabriel Fauré about the invitation,

Camille Saint-Saëns Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (, , 9October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano ...

said he was writing to Écorcheville asking him to prove that Y and N could signify D and G as "it would be annoying to get mixed up in a farcical business which would make us a laughing stock in the German musical world." The many-to-one mapping of this method makes it more difficult to extract possible motifs from the musical score than the

one-to-one correspondence In mathematics, a bijection, bijective function, or one-to-one correspondence is a function between two sets such that each element of the second set (the codomain) is the image of exactly one element of the first set (the domain). Equivale ...

(apart from 'As') of the German system.

20th century

A French tradition of celebratory uses developed from the Haydn centenary, with tributes to Gabriel Fauré by

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

, Florent Schmitt, Charles Koechlin and others in 1922 (added to later by Arnold Bax, 1949) and to Albert Roussel by Francis Poulenc,

Arthur Honegger Arthur Honegger (; 10 March 1892 – 27 November 1955) was a Swiss-French composer who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. Honegger was a member of Les Six. For Halbreich, '' Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher'' is "more even ...

, Darius Milhaud and others (using various ciphering schemes) in 1929. Honegger's system involved placing the letters after 'H' under sharpened and flattened notes, an example of how chromatic cryptograms could be more easily accommodated in 20th-century music. Olivier Messiaen developed his own full cipher, involving pitches and note lengths, for his organ work '' Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité'' (1969). Dmitri Shostakovich used the German scheme for his personal motto D-Es-C-H (''D, E, C, B''), representing D.SCH, which appears in many of his works. Elliott Carter featured both a cryptogram for the last name " Boulez" in his piece ''Réflexions'' (2004) and a sonic symbol of the first name "Pierre". Cryptograms were less common in England, but

Edward Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...

, who was also interested in general cryptography and puzzles, wrote an early ''Allegretto'' for his pupils the Gedge sisters using G-E-D-G-E and part of the 'enigma' in the ''

Enigma Variations Edward Elgar composed his ''Variations on an Original Theme'', Op. 36, popularly known as the ''Enigma Variations'', between October 1898 and February 1899. It is an orchestral work comprising fourteen variations on an original theme. Elgar ...

'' involves cryptograms. Andersen Viana Brazilian multiartist has used the BbACB (Bach) cryptogram in his symphonic poem "Coeviaca: the messenger of fire".

Others

In 1947 Friedrich Smend suggested that Bach enciphered significant numbers through methods including repetitions of a motif,

word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...

, or

phrase In grammar, a phrasecalled expression in some contextsis a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English language, English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adject ...

; the notes played on the continuo; the use of

sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is cal ...

; and the notes played by the accompaniment. However, Ruth Tatlow has presented evidence questioning the plausibility of Smend's claims. During the first quarter of the 20th century, American author and occultist Paul Foster Case established an esoteric musical cryptogram for the purposes of ceremonial magick. The system was a derivative of a cipher used by an affiliated magical order called the

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (), more commonly the Golden Dawn (), was a secret society devoted to the study and practice of occult Hermeticism and metaphysics during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Known as a magical order, ...

. Each note of the 12 tone system was assigned a set of correspondences including colors, planets, zodiacal signs, and Hebrew letters. The holy names of biblical characters were translated letter by letter into a linear sequence of musical notes, so that each letter could be sung by the congregation in unison. Ezra Sandzer-Bell has written and published two books on this subject, describing how Paul Foster Case's system of musical cryptography could be applied to songwriting. Any word can be translated phonetically into Hebrew and converted using Case's cryptogram to generate a series of notes. Sandzer-Bell's project involves the conversion of the common and Latin names of plants, trees, and mushrooms into melodies. Each song was composed by consuming the plant in tea or

tincture A tincture is typically an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol (ethyl alcohol). Solvent concentrations of 25–60% are common, but may run as high as 90%.Groot Handboek Geneeskrachtige Planten by Geert Verhelst In chemistr ...

form, then using the physical effects of the plant to determine what kind of rhythm, harmony, instruments, and dynamics to use. A lengthy demonstration and proof concept is publicly available on the author's website. Solfa Cipher, invented in 2013, uses a combination of scale degrees and rhythms to represent letters of the alphabet with the goal generating encrypted texts which sound like relatively normal singable melodies. As such, it has been used by musicians to create longer pieces with hidden messages. It has also been featured as a plot device in mysteries such as Gary McAvoy's ''Vivaldi Cipher''. and purportedly the video game Fortnite.

Summary of signature motifs

The following list includes only motifs which are known to have been used in published works. * A, B, E, B, A : for Aubrey Brain, used in Gordon Jacob's Sextet for Piano and Winds, which was inscribed "In memoriam Aubrey Brain" * A, B, B, F (= A, B, H, F) :for

Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...

and Hanna Fuchs-Robettin (A. B. and H. F.), used in Berg's '' Lyric Suite'' *A, B, E, G, G (= A, B, E, G, G) :for Meta Abegg, the fictional inspiration for Robert Schumann's '' Abegg Variations'', op. 1 *A, C, A, D, A, C, A :the nickname ("Acka Dacka") for

AC/DC AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock and Heavy metal music, heavy metal, although the band calls it simply "rock and roll". They are cited as a formativ ...

, used in the guitar riff for the band's 1977 song Whole Lotta Rosie *A, D, A, A, F (= A, L, A, I, N) :for Jehan Alain, used by Maurice Duruflé in his ''Prélude et Fuge sur le nom d'Alain'' (op. 7) and derived on the French system but leaving H = ''B'' and starting the second line with 'I' *A, D, E, C, B, F, E (= A, D, S, C, H, F, E) :for

Alfred Schnittke Alfred Garrievich Schnittke (24 November 1934 – 3 August 1998) was a Russian composer. Among the most performed and recorded composers of late 20th-century classical music, he is described by musicologist Ivan Moody (composer), Ivan Moody as a ...

and Vladimir Feltzmann, used by Alfred Schnittke in his Sonata No. 1 *A, E, C, B (= A, S, C, H) and A, C, B (= As, C, H) :used in Schumann's ''Carnaval'', Op. 9. He was romantically involved with Ernestine von Fricken, who came from the town of Aš, in German "Asch". Every piece in the whole cycle is based on one or other of these motifs. The letters are also the note names from 'Schumann' and he added the motif ''E, C, B, A'' (= S, C, H, A) so that three are displayed in breves in the section 'Sphinxes'. It has been noted that ASCH and SCHA also appear in the title of Schumann's '' Faschingsschwank aus Wien'', Op. 26. * E, C, B, B, E(), G (= S, C, H, B, E, G) :for

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

(A. Schönberg), set 6-Z44 *A, E, G, E, B, B (= La, Es, Sol, Mi, Ti, Ti) :for the initials of the London Symphony Orchestra (=La Es Sol) and

Michael Tilson Thomas Michael Tilson Thomas (born December 21, 1944) is an American conductor, pianist, and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of the S ...

(=Mi Ti Ti), used by Oliver Knussen in ''Flourish with fireworks.'' Thomas commissioned Knussen for the opening concert of his first season as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra - the piece is "affectionately dedicated to Michael Tilson Thomas and the London Symphony Orchestra." *B, A, B, E (= B, r, A, H, m, Es) :for Brahms, used by Alfred Schnittke in his '' Quasi Una Sonata'' along with the B-A-C-H motif and other quotations, and allusions *B, A, C, B (= B, A, C, H) :for Johann Sebastian Bach *B, A, D, D, G (= H, A, Y, D, N) :for Joseph Haydn, used by Maurice Ravel in his '' Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn'' and by other contributors to the ''S.I.M.'' commemoration and derived on the French system *B, A, F (= B, La, F) :for Mitrofan Belyayev, used by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Borodin, Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Glazunov in a string quartet *B, D, G, A, C, F (= B, Re, Gis, La, Do, Fa) :from the Russian phrase берегись Лядова (''beregis' Lyadova'', beware of Lyadov), used by Nikolay Myaskovsky in his String Quartet No. 3 *B, E, B, A or B, A, B, E :for

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...

(Béla Bartók, the latter motif recognizing the Hungarian practice of placing the family name before the personal name) *C, A, G, E :for

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

, used by Pauline Oliveros and, in the composition ''CAGE DEAD'', by Simon Jeffes of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. *C, F, E, B, A, C, H :for Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach with the initials of his name - Carl Philipp (Filippo) Emanuel Bach -. The motif is based on the German musical nomenclature, however the initials of the composer’s name appear partially in German and in Italian version, instead of Philipp as Filippo. The C. F. E. BACH motif appears in an unpublished Fughetta in F major of C. Ph. E. Bach, found in the Brussels Conservatorium. *D, A, C, H, S :for Josef Dachs. He was a piano teacher at the Vienna conservatory. Hans Rott was probably one of his students at the conservatory when he composed his Dachs-Studie for string orchestra. *D, E, C, B (= D, S, C, H) :for Dmitri Shostakovich (D. Schostakowitsch) *E, A, C, B, E, D (= Es, A, C, H, E, Re) :for Paul Sacher, known as the Sacher hexachord *E, A, E, D, A (= E, La, Mi, Re, A) :for Elmira Nazirova, pupil of Dmitri Shostakovich, used in his Symphony No. 10 *E, B, G (= E, H, G) :for

Edvard Grieg Edvard Hagerup Grieg ( , ; 15 June 18434 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic music, Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwid ...

; his full name being Edvard Hagerup Grieg, the motif is a descending E-minor arpeggio which opens his Piano Sonata (Grieg) *E, C, B, A (= S, C, H, A) :for Schumann, used in ''Carnaval'', it is a re-ordering of that piece's A-S-C-H motif *F, A, E and F, A, F :for ''Frei aber einsam'' and ''Frei aber froh'', "free but lonely" and "free but happy" in German; the former, his friend Joseph Joachim's motto ('' F-A-E Sonata''), described as "more romantic" than the latter, a "gender-separatist" motto of Johannes Brahms's '' Symphony No. 3'' *F, E, C, B (= F, S, C, H) :for

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions ...

(F. Schubert) *G, A, B, D, B, E, E, F, A, G, D, E (= G, A, B, Re, H, E, Le - F, A, Ug, Re, E) :for Gabriel Fauré, used by contributors to Henri Prunières' Fauré celebration in the October 1922 issue of ''La revue musicale'' (''F, A, G, D'' had also been used 20 years earlier for "Fauré" in a collaborative string quartet) *G, A, D, E :for Niels Gade; the motif is the basis of Robert Schumann's "Nordisches Lied", No. 41 from '' Album for the Young'', Op. 68. Its subtitle is "Gruss an G." *G, E, A, B (= G, Es, A, H) :for Gustav Holst (Gustav Holst), used as the opening motif in the movement ''Uranus'' from '' The Planets''.