• Paul Hindemith. Sketch with music. 1927.
• Libretto by Marcellus Schiffer.
• First performance at the Baden-Baden Festival on 15th July 1927.

The score and plot of the sketch go forward to the end and then return backwards. The piece is in the nature of a satire on operatic practice. Here the jealous tenor Roberto shoots his wife Helene, who has had a letter from her lover. The Professor and Ambulance Man take the body away and Roberto jumps out of the window. A Wise Man now readjusts matters by playing the whole piece backwards. The reversed music, unlike that of the Epilogue to the piano interludes and fugues of Ludus Tonalis, which simply repeats the Prologue backwards and upside down, is taken phrase by phrase, not simply as a literal palindrome.