See No. 17.

Are your elitist tendencies getting a bit rusty? Find out with our classical music check-up quiz. The first few questions are pretty easy, but don't get over-confident. Elitism is always a challenging pose to maintain. The later questions will surely test your esthetic sang-froid.

5 points per question.

ANSWERS ARE IN RED:

1. Facile. What is the opposite of "largo"?
      a. andante. b. accelerando. c. allegro. d. moderato.


2. Good Ear. In standard American tuning, what is the pitch of the first A below middle-C?
      a. 220 (because the standard tuning is 440Hz for the A above middle-C). b. 110. c. 212. d. 144.


3. Oops. Beethoven originally dedicated his 3rd symphony to whom (and then changed his mind and scratched out the dedication)?
      a. The emperor of Austria. b. The emperor of France (Napoleon). c. The king of England. d. the pope.


4. Time Machine. Which of the following pairs were NOT contemporaries?
      a. Shakespeare-Dowland.
      b. Hildegard von Bingen-William the Conqueror.
      c. Schubert-Liszt.
      d. Joplin-Stravinsky.


5. Non-patriarchs. Only one of the following had children. Which one?
      a. Handel.    b. Wagner.    c. Liszt.    d. Brahms.


6. Sniff. With his simplistic, reverentrial, lugubrious commentary, which of the following critics has done the most damage to the understanding and appreciation of classical music?
      a. Karl Haas.


7. Sex in Classical Music, Part 1. Robert and Clara Schumann were part of an unconsummated ménage ŕ trois. Who was the third person?
      a. Heinrich Heine. b. Gottfried Keller. c. George Sand.
      d. Johannes Brahms (he had a crush on Clara; his feeling re Robert are not known).


8. Tuning Fork in the Road. Mozart: 41st Symphony is in C-major. What key is his 37th symphony in?
      a. d-minor. b. B-sharp. c. D-major. d. None of the above (because there is no No. 37. The early catalog of the symphonies listed a piece in the 37th slot which later turned out not to be by Mozart).


9. How Tweet It Is. Which of the following does NOT contain a reference to bird calls?
      a. Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake. b. Respighi: Pines of Rome.
      c. Beethoven: Symphony No. 6. d. Gilbert & Sullivan: The Mikado.


10. Good Grief, Charlie Brown! Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 was written in 1795. When was his Piano Concerto No. 2 written?
      a. 1793 (more cataloging problems). b. 1795. c. 1797. d. 1799.


11. What About Oscar Hammerstein? Who was the librettist for The Magic Flute?
      a. Lorenzo da Ponte. b. Emanuel Shikaneder.
      c. Friedrich Schiller. d. Heinrich Heine.


12. Scriveners Galore. One of Schubert’s greatest achievements is the song-cycle, Die Winterreise (A Winter’s Journey). Who wrote the poems?
      a. E.T.A. Hoffmann. b. Heinrich von Kleist. c. Bill Miller (of course the true elitist would insist on the German spelling: Wilhelm Müller). d. Goethe.


13. Sex in Classical Music, Part 2. Which of the following contains direct references to the delights of cunnilingus and fellatio?
      a. Dowland: Lachrimae. b. Stravinsky: A Rake’s Progress.
      c. Orff: Carmina Burana (but since it's in mangled Medieval Latin, nobody realizes this). d. Brecht-Weill: The Three-penny Opera.


14. Sins of Commission. Who wrote a collection of short pieces called "Sins of My Old Age"?
      a. Britten. b. Haydn. c. McDowell. d. Rossini.


15. Stoned. The composition of which of the following was influenced by the ingesting of opium?
      a. Satie: Gymnopadie.
      b. Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique.
      c. Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra.
      d. Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasilieras.


16. Flip a Coin. One of the most famous pieces of 20th century music is called simply 4’33". Who is the composer?
      a. Bernstein. b. Glass. c. Debussy. d. Cage (click here to experience the first Internet perfomance of the piece).


17. Name That Tunesmith. Who's the composer pictured above?
      a. Albinoni.    b. Vivaldi.     c. Monteverdi.     d. Telemann.


18. The More the Merrier. A group of four players is a quartet. What is a group of nine players?
      a. novum. b. nonette. c. declivium. d. nuevissimo.


19. Somebody Oughta Write a Play About Him. As a boy, Mozart famously heard a performance of a piece of choral music in the Vatican and immediately afterward wrote out the complete score, though the Church had until then kept the work from being performed elsewhere. Who was the composer of the piece?
      a. Allegri (the "Misereri"). b. Josquin Desprez. c. Victoria. d. Monteverdi.


20. Silent Echoes. The composer of which of the following did not hear a performance of the piece?
      a. Mozart: Symphony No. 41 (it and No. 40 were found in his desk drawer after his death). b. Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3.
      c. Handel: Messiah. d. Bach: Mass in b-flat minor.

END

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