Cool Norio! He was clearly very into the whole "back to front" thing. His seal is a beautiful pattern made from his initials and their mirror image:
There is a lot of interesting stuff about how he transcribed medieval chants into instrumental music, (probably a good way to not run out of ideas), and also a story of how he managed to reverse this process and "transcribe" his initials "J S B" into the last chord of the last song he wrote. I don't speak Latin, or have no inkling to how this process worked, so it's to be taken with a pinch of salt I guess. Here's the Wiki excerpt:
"Bach's last completed large work was the Mass in B minor (1748–49) which Stauffer describes as "Bach's most universal church music. Consisting mainly of recycled movements from cantatas written over a thirty-five year period, it allowed Bach to survey his vocal pieces one last time and pick select movements for further revision and refinement."[2] The final work Bach completed was a chorale prelude for organ, entitled Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit (Before thy throne I now appear, BWV 668a) which he dictated to his son-in-law, Johann Christoph Altnickol, from his deathbed. When the notes on the three staves of the final cadence are counted and mapped onto the Roman alphabet, the initials "JSB" are found."
And not to be funny or anything, but looking at the top of the crown, it reminds me of the pattern of the scale, with the two octave notes on either side and the " fourth and fifth" flower in the middle.
