Bach and the Riddle of the Number AlphabetIn 1947 the theologian and musicologist Friedrich Smend published a study which claimed that J. S. Bach regularly employed the natural order number alphabet (A=1 to Z=24) in his works. Smend provided historical evidence and music examples to support his theory which demonstrated that by this means Bach incorporated significant words into his music, and provided himself with a symbolic compositional scheme. Since then many people have taken up Smend's