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Classical Quiz

Posted by: John Schmidt on 17 October 2000

Woodface is onto a good idea with his music quiz. As that thread is getting a bit long, and leaning mostly towards rock and popular music, perhaps we can start a more classical thread. Judging from the threads on Mahler and Schubert, there's no lack of knowledge. As with the other quiz, if you answer correctly, you can pose the next question. Here's a starter:

In the 1950's Emil Gilels was first allowed out of the Soviet Union to tour. This was the first opportunity for many in the West to hear a performer of the "Russian Piano School", and he played to universal acclaim. Gilels was somewhat overwhelmed, and was heard to say "If you think I'm good, wait until you hear __________" To which other Russian pianist was he referring?

John Schmidt
"95% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon

Posted on: 06 February 2001 by John Schmidt
quote:
....large organ and female chorus.

You are, of course, referring to a musical instrument?

Cheers,

John Schmidt
"90% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon

Posted on: 06 February 2001 by Former member
More hints: it's a very popular work by a second-rate 20th century composer. One famous bit is terribly overused in movies.

Here's another bit:
"When we are in the tavern,
we do not think how we will go to dust,
but we hurry to gamble,
which always makes us sweat."

Vuk.

Posted on: 06 February 2001 by Former member
Sounds a bit like Orff's Carmina Burana.

Dozy

Posted on: 06 February 2001 by Former member
Yes! Go ahead.

Vuk.

Posted on: 06 February 2001 by Former member
Wow, I don't know enough to pose a question....

But maybe this will do - name the composer & orchestral work which quotes the folk tune "Tarry Trousers"

Dozy

Posted on: 07 February 2001 by Former member
Wot? No guesses even? The composer was a keen collector of folk tunes.

Dozy

Posted on: 07 February 2001 by Former member
Janachek?

BTW - sorry I missed the Orff question - I was listening to that very bit in the car driving home last night. Road noise means that to here the quiet bits - the loud bits are VERY loud. Ears still ringing.

There is a very good new recording of it on DG -
Chor und Orchester de Deutschen Oper Berlin / Christian Thielemann. Musically I prefer the (1969) Eugen Jochum (same orc+cho & DG - comes with Catulli Carmina as well) - but the modern one is well worth a bash for the sound quality alone. And it is not bad in other respects IMHO.

Jonathan

Posted on: 07 February 2001 by Former member
This guy collected English folk tunes.
Posted on: 07 February 2001 by Todd A
Ralph Vaughn Williams?
Posted on: 07 February 2001 by Nigel Cavendish
Well Percy Grainger springs to mind.

Otherwise, thinking that tarry trousers might be a nautical type reference, Britten's Billy Budd?

cheers

Nigel

Posted on: 07 February 2001 by John Schmidt
Ralph Vaughan Williams Symphony #1 "A Sea Symphony".

Cheers,

John Schmidt
"90% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon

Posted on: 08 February 2001 by Former member
Well done John - First Movement. Your go!
Posted on: 08 February 2001 by John Schmidt
Many composers liked to construct themes based on letter or word games. Name the composer and work where the motif F-A-F, standing for the motto "Frei aber froh (free but cheerful), is prominent.

Cheers,

John Schmidt
"90% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon

Posted on: 08 February 2001 by Former member
Wasn't this Brahms, and didn't he use it in a number of works? Wasn't it also a reaction to, I think, Schumann, who used a different formulation which translated as something like "free but miserable" (can't recall the German)?

Ross

Posted on: 09 February 2001 by John Schmidt
I was thinking of the first movement to the 3rd symphony. But you're correct, Brahm's did use this motif in a number of other, mostly early, works. And, yes, it was a reaction to, not Schumann, but his friend Joachim, who used the motif F-A-E for Frei aber einsam or free but alone.

You're up Ross.

Cheers,

John Schmidt
"90% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon

Posted on: 12 February 2001 by John Schmidt
Yo Ross. We need a question here!

Cheers,

John Schmidt
"90% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon

Posted on: 12 February 2001 by Former member
Since you're getting impatient, I will give you a tough one.

In his novel Doktor Faustus, Thomas Mann created the composer Adrian Leverkuhn. On which real-life composer (or at least that composer's music) is Leverkuhn widely held to be based?

Ross

PS This question is also partly to encourage anyone who hasn't done so, and who has more than a passing interest in classical music or literature to read Doktor Faustus, which is one of the great novels of the century. (And I recommend the Woods translation over the Lowe-Porter translation, although the Woods translation may need to be ordered from the US.)

Posted on: 12 February 2001 by Former member
Arnold Schoenberg
Posted on: 12 February 2001 by Former member
Well done, Vuk. Your question.

Have you read the book?

Ross

Posted on: 12 February 2001 by John Schmidt
Although I can be ridiculously tenacious when I decide that I want to find an answer, I'm not sure that I'd relish ploughing through a full-length Thomas Mann novel. Death in Venice was brilliant, but I found reading The Magic Mountian to be like wading through molasses in January north of the 60th parallel. I gave up halfway through.

Cheers,

John Schmidt
"90% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon

Posted on: 12 February 2001 by Former member
Hey, The Magic Mountain is my favourite book. However, I have a suspicion that you were reading the Lowe-Porter translation which, apart from being bad, makes the book harder to read than it needs to be. Still, reading Mann is not like reading Tom Clancy, and a little perserverance is well rewarded.

Ross

Posted on: 12 February 2001 by Former member
One further point: you continue to remind us that 90% of everything is crud. The Magic Mountain and Doktor Faustus are emphatically in the 10%, and probably in the top 10% of that 10%.

Ross

Posted on: 12 February 2001 by Former member
quote:

I'm not sure that I'd relish ploughing through a full-length Thomas Mann novel

John,

I also quit "The Magic Mountain" in the middle, and it definitely wasn't the Lowe-Porter translation what I was reading :-) .
However, this may sound obvious, "The Buddenbrooks" is maybe the best novel I have ever read. It deserves every superlative-cliche' you heard about it.


Ross, where would you put Dr. Faustus between Mann's other work ??

Omer.

Posted on: 12 February 2001 by Former member
Omer,

I'm not sure what you mean by "where I would put it", but it is definitely one of Mann's greatest achievements, along with The Magic Mountain. Neither book is as easy to read as Buddenbrooks - which I agree with you is a great novel and a very enteraining one - and it is very depressing that Mann wrote a work of genius like Buddenbrooks when he was only 25. Faustus, like The Magic Mountain is a novel of ideas, and a conspectus on many subjects, music being the most obvious one, but with I think an additional pervading sense of pessimism stemming from Mann's view of the rise of fascism. As John has noted, it is not alway an easy book to read, but I do not think it is harder than The Magic Mountain.

I should add that Mann also wrote one or two unbearably tedious books, Lotte in Weimar being one, and Joseph and His Brothers possibly being another (I say "possibly" because even I am daunted by finishing the 1500+ pages of this monster). Buddenbrooks and Felix Krull are probably the most accessible of the novels, and his stories are also a good introduction (a new selection translated by David Luke in penguin is worth reading) although they don't cover the intellectual depths of the novels.

Ross

Posted on: 13 February 2001 by John Schmidt
....before we wandered off into a literary criticism thread? Oh, ya, Vuk was going to pose a question.

Cheers,

John Schmidt
"90% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon