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Stating a melody backwards — from the last note to the first.
Retrograde is more common in 20th-century music (especially serialism) than in tonal music, because reversed melodies often lose their character. However, Bach uses retrograde in canons, and combining retrograde with inversion (retrograde inversion) produces a fourth form of any theme.
Bach's "The Musical Offering" — the Crab Canon plays the same music forward and backward simultaneously.
Retrograde is one of 228 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary, where every definition is written around how composers actually use the word.
Browse the full dictionary →