The Art of Musical Ciphers, Riddles and Sundry Curiosities

Offers the first comprehensive account of a centuries-old tradition of encrypting covert messages into music, from the Middle Ages to the present day.


What do J. S. Bach, beef cabbage, coffee, the SATOR Square, and Marlene Dietrich have in common? Composers have enciphered these and many other words into music.

Since time immemorial riddles have intrigued us, partly for their mirthful manner of connecting incongruous ideas, partly for their arresting way of opening fresh perspectives on our s...