A classical quiz

[j_e_f_f_g]

Here's a little quiz I made up about the lives/careers of some famous classical composers. See if you can match each fact/clue to the correct classical composer in the following list. Don't cheat by googling for answers, See if you can guess correctly, See the attachment for the answers.

• Debussy
  Liszt
  Stravinsky
  Beethoven
  Bach
  Schubert
  Mozart
  Gershwin

1) His music teacher advised him to persue a different career, telling him he had no aptitude as a musician, and that he would never be successful in that field.

2) The premiere of his impressionistic "Rites of Spring" presented the audience with much more dissonance than they had been accustomed. They hated it and thought it was crap. They demanded their money back, and when they didn't get that, they decided to take out their outrage on the composer. Fortunately, he had fled via the back door, escaping a lynching.

3) His impressionist piece about a baby deer also presented a baffled audience with a "strange new musical style". But rather than being angered, the audience was intrigued, and asked him to play the piece a second time so they could become more familiar with it,

4) His father taught him to play violin at a young age, and he became a child prodigy who, by the age of 6, was performing for all the kings and queens of europe.

5) He wanted to study music with a renowned french composer, but that composer refused, insisting that formal training would likely ruin the would-be student's natural talent for mixing classical music with popular music,

6) He had 13 children. A few of them became musicians, and although they made a living at it, and occasionally their music is still played today, none of the kids achieved the historical renown that their dad did.

7) His last symphony was "unfinished" because he died before he could complete it.

8) He was renowned as an accomplished pianist, and made his living primarily by giving concerts. He was also one of the first "rockstar showmen". During a particularly fast and powerful passage, he would collapse from the piano bench and fake fainting in exhaustion, to get the attention and interest of the young women in the audience.

[folderol]

I got Beethoven, Bach and Mozart.
Gershwin was a surprise.

[kbongosmusic]

I got Bach and Gershwin. I thought for sure I'd get Mozart, ugh.
Maybe I'd do better with Linux trivia.

[jonetsu]

.... he would collapse from the piano bench and fake fainting in exhaustion, to get the attention and interest of the young women in the audience.

Ah ah ah.

[davephillips]

Here's a little quiz I made up...

Got 'em all, it was a pretty easy quiz.

During a particularly fast and powerful passage, he would collapse from the piano bench and fake fainting in exhaustion, to get the attention and interest of the young women in the audience.

I once read that he would notch the strings of the piano. During especially ferocious passages he'd be playing so apparently fiercely that the strings would snap and break while he played. Must have been quite a show. Jerry Lee Lewis would have admired this man.

IIRC the practice of positioning the piano sideways to the audience originated with Liszt. Apparently he figured out that it showed off his striking profile better that way. He was indeed a legendary womanizer who later became a priest.

What a guy. A rock-star indeed. And one of the giants of 19th century music.

Best,

dp