From: chrisi@lloyd.Camex.COM (Chris Ischay)
Subject: Re: HELP: music quiz
Organization: Camex Inc., Boston MA
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 13:30:36 EST

In article <1992Dec22.000824.18082@csis.dit.csiro.au>
tsui@csis.dit.csiro.au (Kenneth Tsui) writes:

>I need help to answer the following for a music quiz. Some of the questions
>are quite interesting. I'll post the answers when they come out in Feburary.

Are you sure this isn't for a term paper?
If you win the quiz, who keeps the prize?

>1. In what opera is there a character Sportin' Life?

Traviata.  Alfredo's sporting life occurs mainly off-stage in act 2.

>2. What ballet refers to tennis?

I think you're thinking of Brahms's Rackets 1 through 4.

>3. What music critic was equally distingished as cricket writer?

George Bernard Shaw.

>4. Who wrote a mouvement symphonique entitled `Rugby'?

Ironically, both Debussy and Elgar.

>5. What composer was the greatest chess player of his day?

Consult your Schwann.  All artists on the Chesky label qualify.

>6. In what opera does a man have his brother put to death?

Well over half of them.  Don't accept Trovatore as an answer here -- cheap
out.

>7. In what opera does a man take his brother's place in Hades so that the
>   brother can marry the girl they both wanted?

The other half of them.

>8. Who said of whom: `I compose to live; my brother lives to compose'?

I think Tchaikovsky had trouble with his liver too.

>9. Which brothers were simultaneously the heads of the two main conservatories
>   in their country?

Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart.

>10. Which great German composer had a brother who taught the piano in
>    Venezuela?

C'mon.  Pianos are too stupid to teach.

>11. Name one composer who murdered his wife.

Charles Boyer in "Gaslight."

>12. Which composer died after wounding himself while conducting?

All of them.  That's why Wagner wore gloves.

>13. Which composer was killed
>    (a) in a bicycle accident?
>    (b) by drowning in the English Channel during World War I?
>    (c) at the Siege of Chester after writing music during the Siege of York?

(a)
    
>14. Which composer was shot because he went out for a smoke?

Lord Chesterfield?

>15. Name a composer of the baroque period who was murdered.

Ockeghem.

>16. THE Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro ... what is the third in
>    the sequence, and who set it as an opera?

Ghosts of Versailles.  Paisiello.

>17. What operas are set in : (a) Allemonde
>                             (b) Crete
>                             (c) Sicily
>                             (d) the Moon?

(a) Debussy
(b) La Minotaur de Crete
(c) Santuzza
(d) Excursions of Jules Verne

>18. Which French composer wrote the following, and while writing which opera?:
>    `I have found, and what is more quite spontaneously, a technique which
>    strikes me as fairly new, that is, silence (don't laugh).'

Debussy, while composing the entirely silent "400 Blows."

>19. (a) Which prima donna, engaged to sing in London, married on the journey
>    from Venice the harpsichordist sent to fetch her?
>    (b) Which famous librettist ran a distillery in New York and a milliner's
>    shop in Philadelphia?

Why are there two parts to question 19?  Isn't this really cheating?
Shouldn't (b) really be a different number?

Anyway, (a) is Beecham and (b) is Jack Daniels.

>20. Which castrato:
>    (a) sang the same song every evening to charm the King of Spain?
>    (b) was killed because he boasted of a love affair he had with a lady of
>        noble birth?
>    (c) was allegedly the father of children and recipient of a (lost) scena
>        by Mozart?

Constanze.

>21. Name the links: (a) Lark and Frog
>                    (b) Lark and Wasps
>                    (c) Chost and Harp

"and"

>22. Whose daughter:
>    (a) inspired a violin concerto (please name both parents) and who was the
>        composer?
>    (b) was called Chou-Chou?

Puccini's daughter Choo-Choo-San.  Puccini was fond of trains.

>23. What do Jena and Odense have in common?

Both are brand names of marzipan.

>24. (a) Whose son taught the piano in Lemberg (now Lvov)?
>    (b) Which director of the Paris Conservatoire is said to have travelled in
>        on the Metro, got out a stop early, and taken a taxi, to keep up
>        appearances?

Debussy.

>25. Of which (then young) French composer did Berlioz say: `He knows everything,
>    but lacks inexperience'?

Debussy.

This was easy.

Chris Ischay
chrisi@camex.com