Since I'm also the Fanfare reviewer someone quoted as bringing up the
question of composers with palindromic surnames, I can throw in a couple
more.  Dave usefully pointed out Lessel, and Steve gave us Barab (who he,
Steve?); and a Fanfare reader has come up with a chap called Otto; I can't
lay my hands on his letter for the moment -- but it wasn't Ernst Julius
Otto, so that's four to add to the list of Reger, Egge and Nin.  Any more
for any more?  [Estaban Salas (1725-1803), Mexican composer.  -Dave]

And on palindromes themselves, in Bob Simpson's music in particular,
the Ninth Quartet, 32 palindromic variations and a fugue (no, that's not
palindromic -- and there's a challenge and a half!), is based on a much
earlier (1948) _Variations and Finale on a Theme of Haydn_ for piano,
written (as the composer said) "with the unworthy (and unsuccessful) aim"
of catching out the fabled sight-reading of composer-pianist-writer Harold
Truscott.  You'll find the Ninth Quartet on Hyperion CDA66137 and the piano
variations on CDA66827.  And there's a less obvious palindrome in Simpson's
music:  the slow movement of the Second Symphony (but for the last five
bars); it's on CDA66505, with the wonderful Fourth Symphony.  Needless to
say, nobody noticed at the time; Simpson came clean about it only later.

Lastly, has anyone examined Harold Truscott's own music, on two Marco Polo
CDs? There is a very beautiful _Elegy for Strings_ waiting to be discovered
on 8.223674.  Comments from anyone who has listened to this or the
companion chamber-music disc?

Martin Anderson
Toccata Press
http://www.classical.net/music/books/toccata/