G....B....D....
Paper to be read at the exercises of the Chicago Literary Club
on November 1st, 2004
My wife had gone out tonight, to baby-sit our two year old grand-daughter. I knew that for two solid hours I would be alone in the house so, after sipping a glass of soda, I headed toward the piano, where I sat and sat for a while, and asked myself—what am I going to do now?
That morning I had gone to my weekly composition class, where I was exposed for the first time in my life to Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal dodecaphonic serialism type of music, and when I sat at the piano I tried one of his chords.
I played that chord several times, but nothing that followed made any sense to me. I refuse to accept the dodecaphonic principle that all notes are equal, and I resent that, based on that principle, Marxist politics would influence the music world, as Shokstakovich was compelled to do, working within the system and totally contrary to his inner feelings and emotions. The sound produced was, for my taste, as disastrous as the failed results of their doctrine.
Suddenly, the fingers of my left hand changed position, and the sound of the E minor chord filled the air in my living room. I began to play this chord repeatedly and repeatedly, almost in an obsessive manner for a few seconds, and then, like a spark of fire, my right hand introduced a melodic line that I continued to play repeatedly for several minutes so it would stay in my memory before I could transfer it to paper.
I found profound solace and relaxation in what I was playing. Little did I know, as I learned several weeks later, that I was playing and writing the music in the style of Frederick Chopin.
While I was playing, I thought of Beethoven, sitting at the piano playing the second movement of his piano sonata No. 15 op. 28, which he usually did for his own enjoyment and relaxation. That movement was in D minor.
My music, however, had a different flavor. I found myself in the key of G major. The music was sad but solemn, mournful but hopeful, painful and also powerful.
I decided to write a piece of music that any of my friends could play at my own funeral, if there ever was going to be one. It would be my own farewell to my beloved family—my own elegy and with a hidden message.
I remembered that many musicians in the past have used initials or letters from names to write music.
Schumann had written a short piece, entitled “Northern Song” (Salute to G.) for his friend Mr. Gade, and the first measure used the G, A, D and E notes of the music scale. He also wrote the “ABEGG Variations,” basing its theme on his first love, Meta ABEGG, before marrying Clara Wieck. So did Brahms, Franz Liszt, as well as Bach, in his “Musical Offering” to King Frederick of Prussia. More on Bach later on.
By the time my wife had returned from her baby-sitting function, the piece was finished. I worked at a feverish pace for two-and-a-half hours. I wrote and erased, re-wrote and erased, but at the end I had put on paper my basic feelings and ideas.
Things changed a little after my composition teacher saw the music, a few days later. He asked me, “Is this your final say and version, or can I suggest some changes?”
I listened with care and, after a few seconds, I nodded affirmatively. It was then that I learned that I had written the piece with the left hand accompaniment similar to Chopin’s prelude No. 4, which he started in E minor and which was also written at a largo tempo. I had played that prelude dozens of times in the past and had totally forgotten about it.
He told me that I should model myself on Chopin’s style of ending the music, because he felt that when I played it for him it was somewhat fast, and that I should slow down the ending.
I incorporated two suggestions but no more. Otherwise, what I felt at the time and wanted to express in the music would change the style of my message.
Message?? Message!! What message??
Of course—that was the purpose of this music—a farewell message.
It was also at the same time, through my teacher that, without knowing it, I had used the technique of “Soggetto Cavato.”
What was, or what is “Soggetto Cavato”?
Prior to this conversation with my teacher, I had gone to the internet, and through Google.com, had tried to find any references or information about hidden messages in music. I found none.
By serendipity, I met, a few weeks later, a well-known music critic at a concert, and I explained my project to him. He was not aware of any specific example, but he gave me as a reference a Pulitzer Prize book to check, entitled: Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas R. Hofstadter.
It was a book written as a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll (the English mathematician and author of Alice in Wonderland), a fascinating combination of fiction, poetry, mathematical wizardry, geometry, philosophy, painting, drawing, architecture, music, and computers.
Although I read the 742 pages, it was in the first and last chapter, titled “Six Part Ricercar,” taken from Bach’s “Musical Offering,” where I found the answer to my question regarding hidden messages in music—all of this based on the technique of “Soggetto Cavato,” or carved subject.
“Soggetto Cavato dalle parole” is a musical punning technique derived from mapping letters of the alphabet into pitches and transforming them into a melodic musical phrase by the solmization of vowels, consonants, or syllables, by assigning to them the notes from the musical scale.
Ut (do)-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si/ti, in the Latin and Spanish language, or its equivalent A, B, C, D, E, F, G in the English language.
The technique was first used by Josquin des Prez,3 when he dedicated music to his patron (Ercole) Hercules I, Dux Ferrariae.
An example in C major is:
her cu les dux fer ra ri ae
re ut re ut re fa mi re
So Hercules, Duke of Ferrariae will be, in English musical translation:
D C D C D F E D
The sequence of notes became the melody in his “Cantus Firmus” (usually assigned to the tenor voice) in one of his famous masses.
“Josquin Desprez3 or Josquin des Prez is assumed to have been born in Hainault, Belgium, between 1445 and 1450. He died on Saturday, August 27, 1521, in Condé sur L’Escaut, Belgium.”
He started as a choir boy and later was a singer in Milan Cathedral. He became the most famous Flemish composer and, as a member of the Papal Chapel, served Leon XII of France and Emperor Maximilian I, and later in the Ducal Chapel of Ferrara, for whom he wrote the composition previously mentioned.4
He wrote 19 masses, 100 motets, 70 chansons, and many instrumental pieces.
He is placed between the medieval and renaissance world so he was basically a pre-baroque musician.
He was very famous and befriended many of the important and influential people of his time, like Martin Luther, Pope Alexander VI, the Sforza family of Milan, the Estes of Ferrara and was a court composer to King Louis XII of France.
“He lived most of his life in Italy and used three types of compositional techniques: (1) the cantus firmus, (2) the paraphrased pre-existing melodies and (3) cyclic cannons.”
“Most of his famous masses are cantus firmus style and usually based on secular melodies.”3
Five hundred years later, a similar technique of soggetto cavato was used by Thomas C. Duffy5 (born on June 17, 1955) in his work entitled “The Philosopher’s Stone.” This composition was commissioned from him on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the South Shore Conservatory, in Hingham, Massachusetts (1970-1995).
“The Philosopher’s Stone is an imaginary substance sought for by alchemists in the belief that it would transform base metals into silver or gold, and this composition shows the concern that medieval alchemists had for the properties of numbers, symmetry and symbols.”5
“Therefore, by solmization technique the following secrets were incorporated in the music:”
“South Shore Conservatory SSC Eb Eb C
25 years 2 & 5 D – G
1970 1-9-7-0 C – D – B – C
1995 1-9-9-5 C – D – D – G
Silver Ag A – G
Gold Au A – C”5
This composer used the cantus firmus form, sung by band members, as well as ancient folk tunes. The silver and gold were represented by mallet instruments to produce instrumental glitter sounds.2, 5 Also, as recently as 1998, Donald Martino wrote “Variations sopra un soggetto cavato” for clarinet to celebrate the 80th birthday of Arthur Berger (1912-1993). Born in New York, Berger was an influential composer, critic, and teacher for over 50 years.
Two hundred and fifty years after Josquin, J. S. Bach used a similar technique in his “Musical Offering.”
According to the story, as related in Hofstadter’s book,1 Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, who came to power in 1740, was also a good musician, flutist, and composer.
“He was an admirer of pianos and also of an organist and composer named J. S. Bach (1685-1750).”1
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach6, 7 (1714-1788), the second surviving son of J. S. Bach, by his first wife, was a noted flutist and the choir master at the court of King Frederick.
The king had tried for quite some time, and without success, to influence Carl P. E. Bach to have his father (J. S. Bach) to visit the palace and try one of the 15 new Silbermann forte pianos that the king had collected.
One evening, at one of the chamber music concerts organized by the king, and when all musicians were assembled and ready to play, an officer brought to the king’s attention the name of an unexpected guest and it was announced that “Gentlemen, old Bach is come.”1 [That was in 1747, when Bach went to Postdam with his son Wilhelm Friedemann.]
After going from room to room to try the 15 pianos of the king’s collection, Bach told the king to give him a theme for a fugue that he could execute immediately and without preparation. The king expressed his desire to hear a fugue with six obligato parts.
Bach chose one himself that he immediately executed to the astonishment of all present. The king asked Bach to repeat this on all the organs of Potsdam, which he did the following day. When he returned to Leipzig he composed the subject he had received from the king, in three and six parts, added artificial passages in strict canon form, meaning that the imitation of the melody is exactly the same as the melody itself, had engraved the title “Musical Offering” and dedicated it to the king.
Bach made a copy and sent it to the king, with a dedicatory letter, and one line in the letter says (“to obey your majesty’s command was my most humble duty”), and on the front page of the music was the following inscription:
Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua
Canonica Arte Resoluta
At the King’s command the song and the remainder resolved with canonic art.1
The initials of the inscription contain an acronym that reads RICERCAR, an Italian word meaning “to seek out.” The term is used for a contrapuntal or polyphonic composition using combinations of themes, subjects, or phrases.4
The music begins with the royal theme on which the entire work is based, with the exception of the andante in the trio sonata. It consists of one three-part fugue, one six-part fugue, a fuga canonica, ten canons, and a trio sonata for flute, violin, and continuo.
Both fugues are titled Ricercar a 3 (a three-part fugue written for two voices) and a Ricercar a 6 (a six-part fugue, which he improvised on a theme of his own).
Ricercar was the original musical form, known later on as fugue, which was solemn in character and a rigid form of contrapuntal writing that evolved from the motet, sacred music of the 14th century.
The ten canons are all variations of the royal theme, and the one for two violins is written in a subtle tango rhythm, except that Bach did not know during his lifetime what tango music represents today. Some are musical puzzles, in particular the canon a 2 Quaerendo Invenietis, where Bach quotes from the Gospel of John, “Seek and ye shall find,” in reference to the second voice of the canon.
Toward the end of the Ricercar a 6, Bach manages, with his musical genius, to inject and mix within the music the four notes that spell his name, thus concluding this magnificent creation with his own musical signature (B-A-C-H).
The Musical Offering to King Frederick is an articulate and playful masterpiece of musical creativity and, as Hofstadter states in his book, “The Musical Offering is in fact a fugue of fugues.”1
So I found in this story part of the answer to my question of hidden messages, and it was in the last chapter, entitled “Six-part Ricercar” that the final answer to my question would become clear in my mind, when I read the following dialogue:
“Crab: And how do you represent the King’s theme in your dialogue?”
“Author: It is represented by the Crab’s Theme, as I shall now demonstrate. Mr. Crab, could you sing your theme for my readers, as well as for us assembled musicians?”
“Crab: Compose Ever Greater Artificial
Brain (By and By)
The Crab’s Theme translated to music
C – Eb – G – Ab – B – B – A – B
... the last note was written with a mordant ... a mordant commentary on the impatience and arrogance of modern man, who seems to imagine that the implications of even a royal theme could be worked out on the spot.1
I had finally found what I was looking for, and I could now see precedents and examples in music and in literature that hidden messages have been used in the past, and I felt satisfied with the project.
But what was going to be the message and how would I be able to incorporate it into the music?
It was at that point that, like other musicians, I would use the initials of a word to construct the music in a logical manner.
The last question to answer, written in the form of a dialogue, was who was going to have the final word in the message, I or my children?
Although unknowingly I started the music like Chopin’s prelude, in the E minor chord, I found myself in the G major chord, which is formed by the G, B, and D notes, and therefore provided me with the perfect tools to construct the message.
The music would be a solemn farewell, with the message coming into the second part of the composition, and I would have the final word, using the tonic and lowest G note of the piano keyboard, with its bass sound, as if the music were coming from the grave, expressing my final wishes to my family.
And this is how the music would sound in my heart and mind....
(music plays)
Good Bye Dear .... Children Adios Leiele
My Children
From Dad Adios
Good Bye Children Dear
Good Bye Dad Dear Dad
Children Good Bye .... From Dad Leiele Adios
Children Dear
Good Bye Dad Dear Dad
Good Bye – Good Bye
Be Good (luck) – Good (health) – Good (life)
And it is in this manner that ends the story of the G major elegy, with its G, B, and D notes, and the Soggetto Cavato, secret farewell message.
REFERENCES
1. Gödel, Escher, Bach (An Eternal Golden Braid)
Douglas R. Hofstadter
Vintage Books, Random House. New York, Sept. 1980. Pages 3-10, 740-742.
2. Ludwig Music Program Notes.
Google.com
3. Robert L. Hinson, Jr. and Kristine Brancolini
Google.com
ed. Scherr, Richard
The Josquin Companion
Oxford University Press, March 2000
4. Inside Music
Karl Haas
Doubleday, Division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
New York, NY, 1984, pages 267 and 435.
5. Thomas C. Duffy
7. The Harper Dictionary of Music
Harper & Row Publishers. New York, sec. ed., 1987
7. The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music
Eric Gilder
Holt, Rinehart & Winston. New York, 1985, p. 20.