Alphabet of Musical Oddities Trivia Quiz

Answer: Albinoni

Adagio is a piece of music which is played at a slow speed.
Allegro is an instruction to play quickly.
Andante should be played at walking pace.
Tomaso Albinoni was an Italian composer who lived from 1671 to 1751 in Venice.

Answer: Barber

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770. He moved to Vienna when he was a young man, and remained there until he died in 1827.
Anton Bruckner was born in Upper Austria in 1824. He moved to Vienna to take up a teaching post when he was in his forties, and lived there until his death in 1896.
Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg in 1833. He was twenty-nine when he, too, moved to Vienna where he died in 1897.
Samuel Barber was born into a musical family in Pennsylvania in 1910, and died in New York in 1981.

Answer: Chorale

A chorale is a hymn sung by the choir and congregation of a church, usually in unison.
A composer is a person who writes music.
A conductor directs the musicians who are playing a piece of music.
A chorister is a member of a choir.

Answer: Didgeridoo

Gaetano Donizetti was born in Bergamo, Italy in 1797. After spending some time in Paris he returned to Bergamo where he died in 1848.
Claude Debussy was born in a Parisian suburb in 1862. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, and spent most of his life in the city until his death in 1918.
Frederick Delius was born in Bradford, England in 1862. However he spent most of his adult life abroad and died in Grez-sur-Loing, France in 1934.
A didgeridoo is a wind instrument played by the Australian Aborigines.

Answer: Elgar

An elegy is a piece of music played as a lament after someone's death.
An encore is a piece of music which is played after the main performance in response to prolonged applause from the audience.
An ensemble is a group of musicians who are performing a piece of music.
Edward Elgar was born near Worcester, England in 1857. He spent most of his life in Herefordshire and Worcestershire, and died in 1934.

Answer: Flageolet

The finale is the final movement of a piece of music.
Fortissimo is an instruction to the musician to play very loudly.
A fugue is (simplistically) explained as a tune with variations.
A flageolet is a simple wind instrument, not unlike a recorder.

Answer: Galliard

A gaida is a bagpipe from the Balkans.
A glockenspiel is also a percussion instrument, but it is made from metal plates which are each tuned to a different pitch.
A guitar is (usually) a six stringed instrument which is plucked.
A galliard is a type of dance which was popular in Europe in the sixteenth century.

Answer: Harpsichord

George Frideric Handel was born in Germany in 1685, but spent much of his working life in England in the eighteenth century.
Joseph Haydn was a prolific composer from Austria, who lived from 1732 to 1809.
Gustav Holst, who lived from 1874 to 1934, was an English composer.
A harpsichord is a keyboard instrument dating from the Middle Ages. It looks similar to a piano, but the strings are plucked instead of being hit.

Answer: Interval

From its meaning of 'unrehearsed', an impromptu refers to a musical composition in the form of an improvisation.
An interlude is a piece of music played between two others.
An intermezzo is similar to an interlude, and connects two movements or acts in a larger work.
An interval is the difference in pitch between two notes.

Answer: Jochum

A janggu is a Korean drum.
Jew's harps have been found throughout Europe and Asia for a thousand years, and have been known under a variety of different names. The instrument is held in the mouth, and plucked to produce a note.
Jug bands became popular in the 1920s. The stone or glass jug is played in the same way as a brasswind instrument.
Eugen Jochum lived in Germany in the twentieth century, and studied the organ and the piano before moving on to conducting.

Answer: Kodaly

Herbert von Karajan was a twentieth century conductor from Austria, although he is probably best remembered for conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for thirty-five years.
Otto Klemperer was born in Germany in 1885. He left for the USA in 1933, but returned to Europe after the Second World War.
Rafael Kubelik was born in Czechoslovakia in 1914. He left the country after the communist coup, and didn't return until 1990 when he conducted at the Prague Spring Festival, which he had helped to found in 1946.
Zoltan Kodaly (1882 - 1967) was a Hungarian composer whose compositions show the influence of the folk music of his native country.

Answer: Legato

Legato is an instruction to a musician to play smoothly.
The other three are all stringed instruments. A lirone is a bowed instrument like a cello, although it has more strings. A lute is usually oval in shape and it is plucked. A lyre is similar to a harp, but small enough to be held by the performer, who strums the strings with a plectrum.

Answer: Muti

Riccardo Muti is an Italian conductor who was born in 1941.
Gustav Mahler lived from 1860 to 1911 and is remembered for composing symphonies and songs.
Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer who lived from 1839 to 1881.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756. He was a prolific composer, having over 600 works listed in the Koechel catalogue.

Answer: Nonet

A nonet is a group of nine musicians.
The ney is a flute made from hollow cane or reed, and is found in Turkish, Arabic and Persian music. It has existed for thousands of years - pictures have been found in the Egyptian pyramids.
The nohkan comes from Japan, and is similar to the ney, although it is cross-blown rather than end-blown. It was created in the fifteenth century and is used with Noh theatre.
The nadaswaram is from India and it is another wind instrument, although it has a reed.

Answer: Ocarina

An operetta is musical drama which includes spoken dialogue, and it often has a light or humerous theme.
An oratorio is a large scale choral work, often with a dramatic theme, but without costumes or staging.
An overture is usually an introduction to a longer work such as an opera.
An ocarina is a small wind instrument, often shaped like a bird.

Answer: Piccolo

Pianissimo indicates that the music should be played very quietly.
Pizzicato is an instruction to a performer to pluck rather than bow the strings on his instrument.
Presto tells the performer to play quickly.
A piccolo is a small high-pitched woodwind instrument.

Answer: Quartet

A quadrille is a piece of music written for a square dance.
A quaver is an eighth note.
A quena is a traditional Andean flute.
A quartet is a group of four musicians who might play quavers in a quadrille on quenas.

Answer: Reed

A reed is used in the mouthpiece of many woodwind instruments.
A rackett is related to a bassoon, and dates back to the renaissance.
A rebec is a medieval stringed instrument, which is played with a bow.
A recorder is a simple woodwind instrument, which is often one of the first learnt by a child.

Answer: Stokowski

Dmitri Shostakovich was a Russian composer who lived from 1906 to 1975.
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a composer who lived from 1928 to 2007 in Germany.
Igor Stravinsky was a composer who was born in Russia in 1882. He lived in Switzerland and France before moving to the USA where he died in 1971.
Leopold Stokowski was a conductor who was born in London, England in 1882, although he spent most of his working life in the USA.

Answer: Timpani

Timpani are the kettledrums. There are usually four drums in a set, and they can be tuned to a specific pitch.
Along with the French horn, the trumpet, trombone and tuba form the brass wind section of an orchestra.

Answer: Ungar

A ukulele is an instrument, similar to a guitar, which has four strings and comes from Hawaii.
Unison is when two or more musicians sing or play at the same pitch.
An upbeat is the unaccented beat before the stronger down beat at the beginning of a bar.
Jay Ungar is known for composing the Ashokan Farewell in 1982.

Answer: Vivace

Ralph Vaughan Williams was an English composer and collector of folk music, who was born in 1872.
Guiseppe Verdi lived from 1813 to 1901 in Italy, and mainly composed operas.
Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice in 1678, and is probably best remembered for composing 'The Four Seasons'.
Vivace is a musical direction to play in a lively manner.

Answer: Willcocks

Richard Wagner lived from 1813 to 1883 and is known for composing the Ring Cycle and starting the Bayreuth Festival.
Sir William Walton was a twentieth century English composer. He wrote a variety of musical pieces including a number of film scores during the second world war and an anthem for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Kurt Weill was a German who was born in 1900. He wrote many works for the stage as well as orchestral works and songs.
Sir David Willcocks was born in Cornwall, England in 1919. He worked at Salisbury and Worcester cathedrals before moving to King's College, Cambridge as Director of Music.

Answer: Xiqin

A xiao is an end-blown flute.
A xindi is a transverse flute.
A xun is an egg shaped flute.
A xiqin is a bowed string instrument, and is the forerunner of the huqin family of stringed instruments.

Answer: Yunluo

A yuekin is like a lute and has four strings.
A zhengni is a bowed zither.
A zhonghu, with two strings, is similar to a viola.
A yunluo is a set of tuned gongs.