Friday Quiz with Mark Pennell is a whimsical contest held each friday during classic music featuring trivia pulled from the annals of classical music.
Tickle your funnybone as Mark quizzes your intellect!
Friday, September 5th, 2008
Q: This composer was one of the most famous American composers of all. As a matter of fact, eight years ago this summer at the Boston Pops famous Hatch Shell (an outdoor concert venue built in 1928 on the Charles River near downtown Boston), the orchestra paid tribute to by adding name to the granite wall that is part of the Art Deco shell. Hers is the 87th name on that shell, and it’s next to other composer’s name such as Bach, Handel, Chopin, Beethoven. Who is she?
A: Amy Beach was born on this date in 1867.
Friday, August 29th, 2008
Q: The Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129, was composed by Robert Schumann in just 2 weeks between October 10th and 24th of 1850, right after he moved to Düsseldorf to take over the job of that city’s music director. But it did not premiere then. When did it?
A: It premiered on June 9th, 1860, at a concert celebrating what would have been the 50th birthday of Robert Schumann, in Leipzig Conservatory.
Friday, August 22nd, 2008
Q: Perpetuum mobile (Latin), is what is called "perpetual motion" in English. It is an actual genre of music…and it means two things: First: It has pieces of music, or parts of pieces, noticeable by a unrelenting flow of notes, usually fast….and Second: the whole thing is repeated a many times. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Flight of the Bumblebee is the most famous example. But the one (aired at 12:56p.m. EDT) is maybe the best example. It’s Johann Strauss II's Perpetuum Mobile. At the end Claudio Abbado says to the audience ‘Und so weiter, und so weiter, und so weiter’. That’s German for what? And why did he say that? If you know, you could win the Friday Quiz.
A: It’s because Johann Strauss Jr. put those markings at the end of the piece, so that the conductor would eventually have to cut it off and say, ‘…and so forth, and so forth, and so forth’.
Friday, August 15th, 2008
Q: There are many theories as to why Franz Schubert’s symphony #8 in b minor was unfinished. Share one that I have mentioned below and you could win.
A: Let me see if I can cover most of the theories connected to Schubert’s inability to complete his Symphony #8 in b minor. Some have argued that he actually did complete it as we know it, even though they have to make an argument for why it was in an unusual two movements and rough in some parts. Some have argued that he simply ran into a dry period of creativity and put it down. That is highly unlikely because he was never in a time when creativity wasn’t there. Witnesses say that at the time he composed this piece visiting him during the day was a waste of time, because he was so wrapped up in just putting music to paper that he didn’t even have time to converse. If I were to buy into any struggle to create, it would be to follow such a ground-breaking idea to its completion. The two completed movements remind experts of pieces truly Romantic, decades later than when he composed it in the mid-1820s. There is evidence that he started on the Unfinished in 1822, and passing away in 1828 means that he had six years to dust it off and finish. Maybe it brought back bad memories. That’s possible. His first serious bout with syphilis was at that time in his life. It was serious enough that it put him in the hospital. He knew the disease was a death sentence and just looking at the music score might have only reminded him of his borrowed time. Then, it could be that maybe he was merely suffering from a lack of confidence. He did sometimes.
Friday, August 8th, 2008
Q: Carl Reinecke was first and foremost a teacher, and that’s why this new CD we have been featuring has first-time recordings on it. He never received that much attention for his own music. Yet so many of his students were to become some of the best of their day. If you can name just one of them (mentioned below) you could win the Friday Quiz.
A: Edvard Grieg, Christian Sinding, Leoš Janáèek, Isaac Albéniz, Johan Svendsen, Max Bruch.
Friday, August 1st, 2008
Q: Adagio in G minor for Strings and Organ is given credit to a Tomaso Albinoni, a fairly famous Baroque composer, whose output was limited because of family wealth (he didn’t have to work). In reality, there is someone else who should get at least half of the credit. Who was he? If you know you could win the Friday Quiz.
A: Believe it or not, the Adagio in G minor for Strings and Organ was one of the few survivors of the firebombing in Dresden during WWII. It was a fragment in the ruins of the Old Saxon State Library. Remo Giazotto, an Italian musicologist put it together and it was published in 1958.
Friday, July 25th, 2008
Q:
They're the largest fish in the Great Lakes - perhaps the largest fresh water fish anywhere - and a few of them will be on display this weekend at the Great Lakes Science Center as part of the "Mysteries of the Great Lakes" exhibit and Omnimax film.
What fish is it?
A:The Lake Sturgeon. An ancient fish, they've been around since the time of the dinosaurs, grow up to 18 feet long, and live over one hundred years.
The fish pictured above was caught off Ontario, Canada, weighed 1000 pounds and was 11 feet long. The fish was released after the photo was taken.
( Some baby ones will be on display at the Great Lakes Science Center. )
Friday, July 18th, 2008
Q: It has often been said that it was ‘Fate knocking on the door’ at the beginning of the 5th symphony. That is what Beethoven said (still struggling with the fact that he was going deaf) to a friend in describing the most famous opening four notes of any Classical work, the 5th Symphony. The that account however, came from a man who was known for stretching the truth (as a matter of fact, a lot of what he said about his ‘friend’ after he passed away proved to be a complete fabrication) . But there was another person who knew Beethoven personally, and he was known to be truthful. After starting out to be an admiring student, became a true good friend to Beethoven. He was Karl Czerny, who had become famous as a pianist himself when he told his story. He claimed the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth was inspired by something else less dramatic. It was a bird call. What kind of bird was it? If you know, you could win the Friday Quiz.
A: The Yellowhammer. Before Beethoven went deaf, he used to love to take walks in the Vienna Woods, and was often caught up in either sound in his head; whistling a tune he had just made up and was trying to expand on, or he was into finding nature’s sounds. They could be just as captivating. One of his favorite birds to see and hear was the Yellowhammer (which looks a little like a sparrow that someone has brushed with one of those bright yellow highlighters). But the 5th Symphony, it is most likely that Beethoven could no longer hear the bird, but just by looking at it, remembered its call, and took home to make it one of the most famous symphonies ever composed.
Friday, July 11th, 2008
Q: This composer let his sense of humor overshadow the seriousness as a musician. We missed the 100th anniversary of his birth, which was a little more than a week ago. This new CD just showed up, and it begins to show more of what he accomplished. He was a student of Walter Piston and Georges Enescu at Harvard, as he also dove into the studies of German and Scandinavian languages. Before long, he was an arranger with the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler. NPR had a story on his anniversary and I put it in Quicklinks. Just stay in WKSU.org and click on Classical Quicklinks. In the meantime, who was he?
A: Leroy Anderson
Friday, June 27th, 2008
Q: What is an Eclogue?
A: Most of the time, if you hear one, it’s being read, as a poem. Sometimes they are called ‘bucolics’, and were known to be spoken by simple people. The word came from the Greek meaning: ‘choice, selection of small passages', and was originally meant short little poems, and later to imitate the poems of Virgil. My favorite description comes from Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, where they say an Eclogue can be simply: “a poem in which shepherds converse”
