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Join Dennis Bartel weekday mornings for a mix of great music and special features such as On This Date in Yesteryear, What's Happening in the World (of Music)?, The Great Composer Quiz and at 8:15 AM a weekly series where you'll often hear a famous author, composer or musician from the past or present talking about their work. Plus, Dennis gives you traffic and weather reports and a whole lot more to get you going every morning. |
The Great Composer Quiz - Previous Answers
(Highlight the area under the question
to reveal the Composer or Masterwork)
September 2: This time, it's a Quiz about family matters. This Great Composer had an unsettled domestic life. First, the father of the woman he wished to marry fought hard to keep it from happening. Eventually it did happen, but our Great Composer was not in a position to provide very well for his bride, so they had to move in with her relatives - not her father, thankfully. They were not the best conditions in which our Great Composer could work. When he and his wife went on a trip for some alone time war broke out and he had to come home to join the national guard. His son was born just weeks before his first success, but the boy was only three when his father died. So who was this domestically unlucky man, this Great Composer?
Georges Bizet
September 1: This time it’s a Quiz that proves a Great Composer’s symphonies are like children to him. This Great Composer fathered the same number of children as the number of symphonies he composed. Three children did not survive infancy, and three of his symphonies did not survive their premieres, and had to wait decades before they were heard again. His first child, a son, was born four months after our Great Composer’s wedding. So who was this symphonic father, this Great Composer?
Antonin Dvorak, who had nine children and who wrote nine symphonies.
August 31: This time, it’s a Great Musician Quiz. This Great Musician turns 65 years old today. He says that as a young boy he first became interested in being a musician after he heard a concert on the radio. He made his debut at Carnegie Hall when he was 19. At 36 he sang the role of the jailer in a recording of Puccini’s Tosca with Renata Scotto and Placido Domingo. He’s also recorded with the jazz great Oscar Peterson, and he conducted a performance of the Emperor Concerto with soloist Leon Fleisher. So who is this retirement-eligible man, this Great Musician?
Itzhak Perlman, violinist extraordinaire, born in Tel Aviv in 1945
August 30: This time, it’s a Quiz about how to modestly use your accessories. Here is a friend’s description of our Great Composer: “[He] walked with a soft, yielding step, as if the strong, broad-shouldered body had no bones at all. He was short-sighted and made much use of a lorgnette.” (What’s a lorgnette? Eyeglasses on a stick.) This friend said our Great Composer used a lorgnette a lot, “but without a trace of coquetry." So, who was this yielding, boneless, short-sighted man, this Great Composer?
Robert Schumann
August 26: This time, it's a Quiz about elusive personalites. Here is how this Great Composer was described by one of his lovers: “As soon as the applause died he once again became a homesick, unapproachable man, unknown to himself. He never gave the smallest part of his personality.” Another sometime admirer called him, “an oyster sprinkled with sugar…there was nothing permanent except his cough.” And finally, a close friend said, “his character is composed of a thousand shades which in crossing one another become so disguised as to be indistinguishable.” So who was this unapproachable, bronchial oyster, this Great Composer?
Frederic Chopin. Marie d'Agoult made the remark about the oyster sprinkled with sugar. Georges Sand, in her usual blunt way, wondered if he had any personality at all.
August 25: This time, it’s a Quiz about practicing your art from the basics up. Despite being a busy orchestra leader and composer with many responsibilities, this Great Composer always found time for more mundane chores others could have done for him. For instance, it was common for him to not only supervise the work of copyists, but to take a hand himself. He also liked to tune his own keyboard, and he saw to it that old instruments belonging to the orchestra were repaired at the lowest possible cost. So who was this man willing to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty, this Great Composer?
Joseph Haydn
August 24: This time, it’s a Quiz about starting at the top. This Great Composer made his conducting debut with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He had written a work, which he called “the most modern music I’ve yet attempted,” as a commission from the New York Philharmonic. The premiere was conducted by the orchestra’s maestro, in December, but our Great Composer was asked if he could conduct the work during a concert that summer. Our Great Composer agreed, and went back to his former harmony teacher for lessons in conducting. In August he led the New York Philharmonic in his self-described rhapsodic ballet. So who was this newcomer to the podium, this Great Composer?
George Gershwin, who returned to his old harmony teacher, Edward Kilenyi, for pointers on being a maestro. It was in August, 1929. The previous December Walter Damrosch had conducted the premiere of An American in Paris, but it was Gershwin on the podium that summer night in Lewisohn Stadium conducting the New York Philharmonic in the work.
August 23: This time it’s a Quiz about vacation with the kids. At age 38, this Great Composer went with his wife and their three oldest children - along with his brother, and his wife, and a Professor friend - to spend the summer by a lake. Here is an account of their time together from our Great Composer: “I pass the whole day with my children; they write, and learn arithmetic and Latin with me - paint landscapes during their play-hours, and ask a thousand wise questions, which no fool can answer. We walk a great deal, and I write music; so the days pass monotonously and quickly.” So who was this busy father, this Great Composer?
Felix Mendelssohn. He said his wife Cecile painted Alpine roses much of the summer. They were at the Alpine town of Interlaken.
August 19: This time it’s a Quiz about how to be popular with kids. Pencils ready. This Great Composer made a habit of carrying pieces of candy in his coat pockets. In the evening, after a day at his desk, he would take a walk in the fresh air, and when he encountered children he would give them candy. Naturally, children in the neighborhood became wise to the old man with the candy in his pockets, and watched for him about the same time each day, and he would usually arrive about the same time, wearing his coat. So who was this candy man, this Great Composer?
Johannes Brahms. He was not a father himself, but he cut a fatherly figure. Rotund, white-bearded, jolly, well, not always jolly, but once he arrived at the Red Hedgehog café where he took his evening meal he was usually jolly.
August 18: This time, it’s a Quiz about shifting into a higher gear. This Great Composer was constantly productive and music seemed to come from him with much fluidity. But there was one time, when he was 30, that he outdid himself. During a six month period he produced, on average, six pages of music a day. Compare that to the second most productive period in his life when he turned out an average of three pages a day. At this rate he produced an opera, three piano concertos, a violin sonata, two songs for chorus and organ, a vocal quartet, a trio, numerous small pieces for winds, and more. He also had pupils, gave seven concerts, and was forever socially about town. At one masked ball he distributed leaflets containing riddles of his own making. He was riding such a wave of support from all social circles a publisher included a silhouette of him in his calendar for the year. So who was this hard-working celebrity, this Great Composer?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in the year 1786.
August 17: This time, it’s a Quiz about being abundantly in love. This Great Composer was said to have been “always in love,” according to a friend, “and sometimes so successfully in love that many handsome young men might have envied him.” Another account by another friend put it this way: “He was never without love and always deeply involved.” And yet our Great Composer never married. Not that he didn’t try. He proposed marriage at least twice. Once it was to the daughter of his doctor. She was said to have been “slender and beautiful.” But our Great Composer did not communicate his feelings very well in these situations, and did not show he was in love with her. The young woman’s father, the doctor, issued her refusal. So who was this man, always in love, but unlucky in love, this Great Composer?
Ludwig van Beethoven
August 16: The time, it’s a Quiz about forgiving siblings their trespasses. This Great Composer had a brother who studied composition, and for this brother our Great Composer wrote a Requiem and sent it to him as a gift. The brother had the work performed under his own name. Three months after the performance the brother used the work to pass his final examination in musical theory, and seven years later he published the work also under his own name. When the brother informed our Great Composer of these actions our Great Composer responded by saying, “The sin of appropriation is already forgiven you. So my Requiem pleased you, you wept during the performance of it, and perhaps at the same passages over which I wept myself. Dear Brother, that is the highest reward possible for this gift of mine: do not let me hear you speak of any other.” So who was this good brother, this Great Composer?
Franz Schubert. He wrote his German Requiem for his brother Ferdinand. Scholars did not determine for certain that it was Franz Schubert's and not Ferdinand Schubert's until the 1920s. After Schubert's death several works of his, including the Symphony No.9, "The Great", were discovered in the attic of Ferdinand's home. (Perhaps awaiting publication?)
August 12: This time, it’s a Quiz covering material already presented to you. If you did the required reading you will have no trouble with it. At a time and place when school attendance was not mandatory, this Great Composer did not attend school until he entered the music conservatory at age fourteen. In matters of reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic, literature, history, and science, etc., he was home-schooled. But his parents are said to have been sensitive, devoted and intelligent people, and our Great Composer, along with his younger brother, grew up with a keen curiosity for a wide range of interests. So who was this home-schooled genius, this Great Composer? Maurice Ravel. He studied for fourteen years at the Paris Conservatory. He and his brother Edouard were home-schooled by thier mother Marie, and their father Pierre Joseph. If you did not know the answer it means you have not checked out our Ravel Photo Essay. It's not too late to catch up with your classmates. Click here for details.
August 11: This time, it’s a Quiz with strong American roots. This Great Composer is certifiably the most often performed living American composer by American orchestras today. His name includes the names of three American presidents (not including his first name). At Carnegie Hall he was soloist in the world premiere of a distinguished Clarinet Concerto by another American composer. He once wrote a work in homage to yet another American composer called "My Father Knew Charles Ives.” So who is this living American, this Great Composer? John Coolidge Adams (Calvin Coolidge, John Adams and John Quincy Adams). He was soloist in the Clarinet Concerto of Walter Piston, and played clarinet in the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
August 10: This time, it’s a Quiz about remembering to check your look in the mirror before heading out. This Great Composer once conducted a choral society at a famous court. The audience was the royal family. Our Great Composer conducted the concert without a necktie. But, he said, “luckily I didn’t feel embarrassed or vexed, as I noticed it only when I was going to bed.” So who was this tie-less man, this Great Composer?
Johannes Brahms. He conducted at the Court of Detmold, where Prince Leopold III and his family were in residence. Brahms was a member of the prince's household between 1857 and 1859 as a conductor and music teacher to his sister, Princess Friedrike.
August 9: This time it's a quiz with mixed feelings. This Great Composer's only child was born the same month as the first performances of his orchestral masterpiece, and it was not born without labor pains. At one performance, which he conducted, there were hisses intermingled with shouts of "Bravo" which lasted ten minutes after the work, and even continued as the next performer took his place on stage and tried to play. Our Great Composer made his own assessment of the work, saying it would take its place "either to the left of Schumann, or to the right of Chopin." So who was this new father of ambiguous sounds, this Great Composer?
Claude Debussy. The daughter was little Claude-Emma, the masterpiece was La Mer, completed on Sunday, March 5th, 1905 at six o'clock in the evening. We know that because it says so on the rough draft of the orchestral score, which is in the library at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.
August 5: This time it's a Quiz about the high price of health care. While on an extended visit to Vienna this Great Composer began to suffer from kidney stones. He entered a hospital to undergo what he told a friend was "a painful operation." During this time he kept his wife back home in the dark about his condition. Only after the operation was successful did our Great Composer tell his wife the truth, and by then he was talking about the benefits of the experience. "Such things strengthen one's character and rouse the defiance that everyone has to fight against his lot in life. But one can forge one's own happiness." The hospital was an exclusive private nursing home, quite expensive. As summer broke in Vienna the Imperial City was hit by a terrible heat wave, and our Great Composer longed to travel back home, to his wife, where the weather never got so overbearing (not in the summer anyway). But he could not pay his medical bill, so the hospital would not discharge him. So who was this broke man stuck in a hot hospital with a fresh scar in his side, this Great Composer?
Jean Sibelius. A loan from a relative sprung him free from the hospital. While there he did a lot of brooding, and he came to the conclusion that "people nowadays brood far too much and fall prey to melancholy far too easily, myself no exception. One must not expect too much of life. One must face it boldly, and look it straight in the eye."
August 4: It’s the KUSC Great Composer Quiz. This time, it’s a Centennial Quiz. This Great Composer was born 100 years ago today. He was named after a United States President. He played the banjo as a boy but his real passion was for baseball, and later in life he would write a baseball opera. By that time he was famous, so famous in fact that he appeared as a guest on the CBS game show “What’s My Line? He was eventually identified by Bennett Cerf after all the cards have been flipped over. He then announced on the show that the premiere of his 8th Symphony would take place there in New York three days later, conducted by his friend Leonard Bernstein. So who was this centenarian, this Great Composer?
Want more clues? He won the first Pulitzer Prize in Music, 1943. He was president of the Juilliard School of Music, and left there to become the first presient of Lincoln Center. In 1987 he received the National Medal of Arts . William Howard Schuman, named after President William Howard Taft, composer of the opera Casey at the Bat, and part of our American heritage.
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