Musical cryptogram - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A musical cryptogram is a cryptogram

Cryptogram

A cryptogram is a type of puzzle which consists of a short piece of encrypted text. Generally the cipher used to encrypt the text is simple enough that cryptogram can be solved by hand. Frequently used are substitution ciphers where each letter is replaced by a different letter or number. To solve...

matic sequence of musical note

Note

In music, the term note has two primary meanings:#A sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound;#A pitched sound itself....

s, a sequence 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 cipher

Cipher

In cryptography, a cipher 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. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...

ed versions of their own or their friends' names as themes

Theme (music)

In music, a theme is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based.-Characteristics:A theme may be perceivable as a complete musical expression in itself, separate from the work in which it is found . In contrast to an idea or motif, a theme is...

or motifs

Motif (music)

In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....

in their compositions. Much rarer is the use of music notation to encode

Code (cryptography)

In cryptography, a code is a method used to transform a message into an obscured form, preventing those who do not possess special information, or key, required to apply the transform from understanding what is actually transmitted. The usual method is to use a codebook with a list of common...

messages for reasons of espionage

Espionage

Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...

or personal security (see steganography

Steganography

Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity...

).

Because of the multitudinous ways in which notes and letters can be related, see systems below, detecting hidden ciphers and proving accurate decipherment is difficult, thus avoiding claiming the existence of inaccurate nonexistent ciphers may also 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 doesn't seem to have become a recognized technique until the Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

period. From the mid 19th century it has become quite common. Sporadic earlier encipherments used solmization

Solmization

Solmization is a system of attributing a distinct syllable to each note in a musical scale. Various forms of solmization are in use and have been used throughout the world.In Europe and North America, solfège is the convention used most often...

syllables.

Syllables to solmization names

It is believed that this method was first used by Josquin des Prez

Josquin Des Prez

Josquin des Prez [Josquin Lebloitte dit Desprez] , often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance...

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

Solmization

syllables of Guido of Arezzo

Guido of Arezzo

Guido of Arezzo or Guido Aretinus or Guido da Arezzo or Guido Monaco or Guido d'Arezzo was a music theorist of the Medieval era...

(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

Ercole d'Este I

Ercole I d'Este was Duke of Ferrara from 1471 until 1505. He was a member of the house of Este. He was nicknamed North Wind and the Diamond.-Biography:...

) 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

Cantus firmus

In music, a cantus firmus is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition.The plural of this Latin term is , though the corrupt form canti firmi is also attested...

of the mass setting. Josquin's method was imitated by several of his contemporaries and successors, including Adrian Willaert

Adrian Willaert

Adrian Willaert was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance and founder of the Venetian School. He was one of the most representative members of the generation of northern composers who moved to Italy and transplanted the polyphonic Franco-Flemish style there....

and Costanzo Festa

Costanzo Festa

Costanzo Festa was an Italian composer of the Renaissance. While he is best known for his madrigals, he also wrote sacred vocal music...

(see the article on Soggetto cavato).

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

Musical mode

In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...

, in the German-speaking world B-flat was named 'B' and B-natural was named 'H' (see the entry for musical Note

Note

In music, the term note has two primary meanings:#A sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound;#A pitched sound itself....

). The most common musical cryptogram is the B-A-C-H motif

BACH motif

In music, the BACH motif is the motif, a succession of notes important or characteristic to a piece, B flat, A, C, B natural. In German musical nomenclature, in which the note B natural is written as H and the B flat as B, it forms Johann Sebastian Bach's family name...

, which was used by Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

himself, by his contemporaries and by many later composers. Other note names were derived by sound, for example E-flat, 'Es' in German, could represent 'S' and A-flat 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

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

, an inveterate user of cryptograms, has just S-C-H-A (E-flat, C, B-natural, A) to represent himself in Carnaval
Carnaval (Schumann)
Carnaval, Op. 9, is a work by Robert Schumann for piano solo, written in 1834-1835, and subtitled Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes . It consists of a collection of short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival before Lent...

. Sometimes phonetic substitution could be used, Schumann representing Bezeth by B-E-S-E-D-H. Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

used B-A-H-S (B-flat, A, B-natural, E-flat) for his surname in the A-flat minor organ fugue, and the mixed language Gis-E-La (G-sharp, E, A) for Gisela von Arnim

Gisela von Arnim

Gisela von Arnim was a German writer, mainly of fairy tales.Gisela was the youngest child of Achim and Bettina von Arnim. She was not formally educated, being taught only by her sisters. In her youth she read fairy tales and Romantic poetry, especially the works of Wilhelm Hauff, and began to...

, among many examples.

French

The 'French' method of generating cryptograms arose late in the 19th century and was more akin to normal encipherment

Cipher

. 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:

A	B	C	D	E	F	G
H	I	J	K	L	M	N
O	P	Q	R	S	T	U
V	W	X	Y	Z

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 Ecorcheville, editor of the journal S.I.M., to solicit centenary commemorations of Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

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

Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...

about the invitation, Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

said he was writing to Ecorcheville 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

Bijection

A bijection is a function giving an exact pairing of the elements of two sets. A bijection from the set X to the set Y has an inverse function from Y to X. If X and Y are finite sets, then the existence of a bijection means they have the same number of elements...

(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

Gabriel Fauré

by Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

, Florent Schmitt

Florent Schmitt

Florent Schmitt was a French composer.-Early life:A Lorrainer, born in Meurthe-et-Moselle, Schmitt originally took music lessons in Nancy with the local composer Gustave Sandré. Subsequently he entered the Paris Conservatoire. There he studied with Gabriel Fauré, Jules Massenet, Théodore Dubois,...

, Charles Koechlin

Charles Koechlin

Charles Louis Eugène Koechlin was a French composer, teacher and writer on music. He was a political radical all his life and a passionate enthusiast for such diverse things as medieval music, The Jungle Book of Rudyard Kipling, Johann Sebastian Bach, film stars , travelling, stereoscopic...

and others in 1922 (added to later by Arnold Bax

Arnold Bax

Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...

, 1949) and to Albert Roussel

Albert Roussel

Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel was a French composer. He spent seven years as a midshipman, turned to music as an adult, and became one of the most prominent French composers of the interwar period...

by Francis Poulenc

Francis Poulenc

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...

, Arthur Honegger

Arthur Honegger

Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...

, Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...

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

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

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

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

used the German scheme for his personal motto D-Es-C-H (D, E-flat, C, B-natural), representing D.SCH, which appears in many of his most characteristic works. Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

featured both a cryptogram for the last name "Boulez

Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

" in his piece Réflexions (2004) and a sonic symbol of the first name "Pierre".

Cryptograms were less common in England, but Edward Elgar

Edward Elgar

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...

, 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
Enigma Variations
Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra , Op. 36, commonly referred to as the Enigma Variations, is a set of a theme and its fourteen variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar in 1898–1899. It is Elgar's best-known large-scale composition, for both the music itself and the...

involves cryptograms.

Others

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

Lyrics

Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

, or phrase

Phrase (music)

In music and music theory, phrase and phrasing are concepts and practices related to grouping consecutive melodic notes, both in their composition and performance...

; the notes played on the continuo; the use of sequence

Sequence (music)

In music, a sequence is the immediate restatement of a motif or longer melodic passage at a higher or lower pitch in the same voice. It is one of the most common and simple methods of elaborating a melody in eighteenth and nineteenth century classical music...

; and the notes played by the accompaniment

Accompaniment

In music, accompaniment is the art of playing along with an instrumental or vocal soloist or ensemble, often known as the lead, in a supporting manner...

. However, Ruth Tatlow has presented evidence questioning the plausibility of Smend's claims.

Summary of signature motifs

The following list includes only motifs which are known to have been used in published works.

A, B, B, F (= A, B, H, F)

for Alban Berg

Alban Berg

Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...

and Hanna Fuchs-Robettin

Hanna Fuchs-Robettin

Hanna Fuchs-Robettin was the sister of Franz Werfel, wife of Herbert Fuchs-Robettin, and mistress of Alban Berg. Berg secretly and cryptically dedicated his Lyric Suite to her.-Early life:...

(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

Robert Schumann

's Abegg Variations, op. 1

A, D, A, A, F (= A, L, A, I, N)

for Jehan Alain

Jehan Alain

Jehan Ariste Alain was a French organist and composer.-Biography:Alain was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the western suburbs of Paris, into a family of musicians. His father, Albert Alain was an enthusiastic organist, composer and organ-builder who had studied with Alexandre Guilmant and Louis...

, used by Maurice Duruflé

Maurice Duruflé

Maurice Duruflé was a French composer, organist, and pedagogue.Duruflé was born in Louviers, Eure. In 1912, he became chorister at the Rouen Cathedral Choir School, where he studied piano and organ with Jules Haelling...

in his Prélude et Fuge sur le nom d'Alain (op. 7) and derived on the French system but leaving H = B-natural and starting the second line with 'I'

A, E, C, B (= A, S, C, H) and A, C, B (= As, C, H)

used in Schumann's Carnaval
Carnaval (Schumann)
Carnaval, Op. 9, is a work by Robert Schumann for piano solo, written in 1834-1835, and subtitled Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes . It consists of a collection of short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival before Lent...

, Op. 9. He was romantically involved with Ernestine von Fricken, who came from the town of Aš

Aš

Aš is a town in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic.-History:Previously uninhabited hills and swamps, the town of Asch was founded in the early 11th century by German colonists. Slavic settlements in the area are not known. The dialect spoken in the town was that of the Upper Palatinate,...

, 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
Faschingsschwank aus Wien
Faschingsschwank aus Wien is a solo piano work by Robert Schumann, his Op. 26. Schumann began composition of the work in 1839 in Vienna...

, Op. 26.

[A], E, C, B, B, E, G (= [A], S, C, H, B, E, G)

for Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

(A. Schönberg), set 6-Z44

6-Z44

6-Z44 , known as the Schoenberg hexachord, is Arnold Schoenberg's signature hexachord, as one transposition contains the pitches Es, C, H, B, E, G , E, B, and B being Es, H, and B in German....

B, A, B, E (= B, r, A, H, m, Es)

for Brahms, used by Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...

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)

the widely used BACH motif

BACH motif

B, A, D, D, G (= H, A, Y, D, N)

for Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn

, used by Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

in his Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn
Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn
Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn is a minuet written by Maurice Ravel in 1909 to mark the centenary of Joseph Haydn's death.-Description:The piece is only 54 bars long and lasts for about a minute and a half. The theme is based on Haydn's own name as a five-note motif...

and by other contributors to the S.I.M. commemoration and derived on the French system

B, E, B, A or B, A, B, E

for Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

(Béla Bartók, the latter motif recognizing the Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

practice of placing the family name before the personal name, see eastern order)

C, A, G, E

for John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

, used by Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....

and, in the composition CAGE DEAD, by Simon Jeffes

Penguin Cafe Orchestra

The Penguin Cafe Orchestra was a collective of performing musicians created by classically trained British guitarist, composer and arranger Simon Jeffes...

of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Penguin Cafe Orchestra

The Penguin Cafe Orchestra was a collective of performing musicians created by classically trained British guitarist, composer and arranger Simon Jeffes...

D, E, C, B (= D, S, C, H)

for Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

(D. Schostakowitsch; see the article on DSCH

DSCH (Dmitri Shostakovich)

DSCH is a musical motif used by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich to represent himself. It is a musical cryptogram in the manner of the BACH motif, consisting of the notes D, E flat, C, B natural, or in German musical notation D, Es, C, H , thus standing for the composer's initials in German...

)

E, A, C, B, E, D (= Es, A, C, H, E, Re)

for Paul Sacher

Paul Sacher

Paul Sacher was a Swiss conductor, patron and impresario.-Biography:He studied under Felix Weingartner, among others. In 1926 he founded the Basel Chamber Orchestra to play works written before the classical period and modern works...

, known as the Sacher hexachord

E, A, E, D, A (= E, La, Mi, Re, A)

for Elmira Nazirova, pupil of Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

, used in his Symphony No. 10

Symphony No. 10 (Shostakovich)

The Symphony No. 10 in E minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 17 December 1953, following the death of Joseph Stalin in March that year...

E, C, B, A (= S, C, H, A)

for Schumann

Robert Schumann

, used in Carnaval
Carnaval (Schumann)
Carnaval, Op. 9, is a work by Robert Schumann for piano solo, written in 1834-1835, and subtitled Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes . It consists of a collection of short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival before Lent...

, 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 latter, his friend Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...

's motto (F-A-E Sonata), described as "more romantic" than the former, a "gender-separatist" motto of Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

's Symphony No. 3
Symphony No. 3 (Brahms)
The Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90, is a symphony written by Johannes Brahms. The work was written in the summer of 1883 at Wiesbaden, nearly six years after he completed his Second Symphony...

F, E, C, B (= F, S, C, H)

for Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

(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

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

Robert Schumann

's "Nordisches Lied", No. 41 from Album for the Young, Op. 68. Its subtitle is "Gruss an G."

History

Syllables to solmization names

Letters to note names

German

French

20th century

Others

Summary of signature motifs

See also

Further reading