Classical inversion ......

[HARPER_JT]

Did anyone know that the Menuet al Roverso in Joseph Haydn's symphony # 47 is devised so that the second section is simply the first section played in reverse ? Anyone know of any other examples from the Classical canon ?

[The Mad Hatter]

I think Bach wrote a fugue that way, but I'm sure someone else on here can confirm or deny that. There've been a few palindromes in contemporary music.

[Don]

Just wanted to clarify that "inversion" and "reverse" are not the same.

[Wendell_E]

There've been a few palindromes in contemporary music.

...including the interlude at the middle of Act II of Lulu and the ensemble (sextet) in Act I, scene iii.  Hindemith's opera Hin und Zurück (There and Back) is a musical and dramatic palindrome.

[The Mad Hatter]

In Again Out Again, by Philip Glass, I've just remembered...good luck finding a recording, though.

[bwv 1080]

Retrograde is less common in tonal music because, unlike inversion, it alters the harmonic progression.  Another key example is the finale of the Jupiter Symphony where the theme does appear in retrograde form.  The crab canon from the Musical Offering is perhaps Bach's most famous example

[Don]

Retrograde is less common in tonal music because, unlike inversion, it alters the harmonic progression. 

And there's retrogade inversion as well.

[greg]

Retrograde is less common in tonal music because, unlike inversion, it alters the harmonic progression.  Another key example is the finale of the Jupiter Symphony where the theme does appear in retrograde form.  The crab canon from the Musical Offering is perhaps Bach's most famous example

yep, it's much harder to pull off in tonal music and get it to sound right.
but for atonal music.... 
Webern's symphony is really fun to study because of this, each variation is just a palindrome

[jochanaan]

The earliest example of a palindrome I know of is Guillaume de Machaut's Ma fin est mon commencement "My end is my beginning."

There are two sets of fugues in Art of the Fugue in which the second fugue is a literal inversion (not retrograde) of the first, called "Mirror Fugues."

Alban Berg was fond of palindromes.  As well as the Lulu examples, there's one in the Chamber Concerto (for piano, violin and 13 winds).

[mahlertitan]

not really in the classical "classical" canon, but Bruckner did that in his 7th symphony first movement.

[greg]

not really in the classical "classical" canon, but Bruckner did that in his 7th symphony first movement.

which bars? i have the score

[mahlertitan]

which bars? i have the score

starting bar 185


u r not the only one who has scores of Bruckner's symphonies

[greg]

starting bar 185

cool! i'll probably get to this tomorrow

u r not the only one who has scores of Bruckner's symphonies

no, i shouldn't be, since they're all online   

[Ten thumbs]

Mozart wrote a violin duet in which one player has the music 'right way up' and the other plays the same music inverted from the bottom. I don't know the K number nut I have heard it played live.