Building the Chamber Ensemble from 1 to 11 Quiz

Answer: Chopin: Etude in c minor, the "Revolutionary"

Phil G. Goulding dubs Chopin "Mr. Piano" in his book, "Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and their 1,000 Greatest Works," and with good reason, since the lion's share of Chopin's vast and worthy output is for that instrument.

Vincent Persichetti composed 25 "Parables" in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. While some are for chamber or large ensemble, many are for unaccompanied instruments, including English horn, trombone, double bass, and even carillon. Luciano Berio's "Sequenze" are extreme explorations of instrumental and vocal color, composed for instruments ranging from cello to saxophone and everything in between. Bach's partitas and sonatas for solo violin and suites for solo cello are magnificent Baroque examples of pieces for unaccompanied instruments; the violin's and cello's ability to play multiple stops (more than one note at once) make the pieces that much more complex, rich, and challenging to play and listen to.

Answer: Viola

Lyrical and playful gestures enliven this piece's three movements, but dissonant, uneasy moments come into play as well. Judith Pearce and Roger Chase play this duo on the Helios album "The Chamber Music of Malcolm Arnold Vol. 3."

Another unlikely pair of instruments meet in P.D.Q. Bach's "Dutch" suite for bassoon and tuba. Professor Peter Schickele comments that "You'd think that the tuba would drown out the bassoon completely, but it doesn't. ... Something else will have to be found. ..."

Answer: Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart cast this lovely piece for clarinet, viola, and piano in three movements. The nickname, probably not given to the piece by Mozart himself, refers to the game of Kegel (skittles, a type of bowling), which Mozart was known to have played.

The clarinet was just coming into vogue at the time Mozart was active as a composer. We can thank him and his trio (as well as his A major concerto) in part for the instrument's continued popularity today. The ancestor of the modern clarinet, by the way, is called the chalumeau.

Answer: Two people play melody parts, and two people play the continuo parts

Two people (on violins, flutes, recorders, oboes, or a mixed pair of these) play the melody lines, and two people (on harpsichord or organ or archlute, plus bassoon, cello, or viola da gamba) share the basso continuo ("continuous bass line") accompaniment. The Classic/Romantic piano trio, however, is another story. At any rate, I encourage the interested quizzer to learn more about Baroque era basso continuo and figured bass realization.

Corelli's trio sonatas, in my opinion, are the apotheosis of the genre, but Boyce, Handel, and Telemann all submitted sublime examples as well.

Answer: No

Schubert subtracts a violin and replaces it with a double bass, permitting him to embroider his ingenious melodies with rich and novel textures. The piece is in five movements, the fourth being a set of variations on Schubert's own melody, "Die Forelle" (German for "The Trout").

The original lied (song) for voice and piano, with words by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, is sung by a narrator watching a fisherman. The narrator is cheering the trout on, but is inevitably disappointed and embittered when the fisherman succeeds at his task.

Answer: Recorder

The (French) horn and the bassoon complete the usual wind quintet.

Even the most casual listeners will note the extreme changes of mood within each movement of Poulenc's engaging work. Ludwig Thuille (1861-1907) composed an earlier piece for this ensemble. I invite the curious quizzer to find recordings and compare the strikingly similar tone colors and contrast the texture and overall style of the two works -- Poulenc's piano, for example, is overwhelmingly in the background, while Thuille allows the piano to participate with more melodic freedom.

Answer: Beethoven

Beethoven's skillful and creative manipulation of violin, viola, cello, bass, clarinet, horn, and bassoon (one player on a part) has inspired other composers up to the present day to assemble colorful and complementary instruments into unique chamber groups.

Keith Anderson's liner notes for the Naxos recording of Beethoven's septet mention that, at the time, the piece was "enormously and embarrassingly popular," so much so that Beethoven himself eventually came to dislike it. But please don't let this deter you from seeking out a recording or live performance of this highly enjoyable piece!

Answer: No

Varèse was attracted to rhythm, instrumental color, and "sound objects floating in space," and his compositions certainly reflect his unconventional views. "Octandre" is scored for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, and double bass. Peter Quinn authored the liner notes for the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra's recording on Naxos. He writes that Varèse treats the ensemble in "Octandre" "essentially as a timbral pool from which he extracts textures of a quite startling originality."

Listeners with more traditionally-oriented ears may choose Franz Schubert's or Ferdinand Ries's octets as alternatives, but beware that the Schubert is about an hour long, while "Octandre" is well under ten minutes.

Answer: 20th century

Martinu's name should be spelled with a diacritic ring above the u, but getting it to display correctly and consistently online has proved challenging for this quiz author.

The Dartington Ensemble's 1982 Hyperion recording of this work was re-released as part of a two-disc set in 1998. The new liner notes, adapted from the originals by Kenneth Dommett and Robert Matthew-Walker, assert that Martinu's music is "frequently light-hearted but not superficial, always serious though never earnest; invariably well crafted but never academic; and usually easy on the ear yet seldom on the intellect." They also explain how Martinu wrote his nonet in 1959 when he was dying of cancer, "yet the music ... betrays no sign of haste or of the darkening shadows of death. ... It holds together perfectly, serenely confident, sunny even, in its affirmation of life."

Answer: Igor Stravinsky

Stravinsky's ensemble, almost a chamber orchestra, calls for cimbalom (a Hungarian instrument resembling a hammered dulcimer), two violins, viola, double bass, flute, clarinet, horn, trumpet, trombone, and percussion. Note the absence of double reeds and cello.

Paul Griffiths's liner notes for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra's recording on Deutsche Grammophon summarize "Ragtime" as "a cut-and-paste construction of rag clichés and frustrated cadences," but I hear something more: the whole ensemble rarely plays all together, but every phrase unites different instruments in solos, duos, and trios to create an ever-changing landscape of innovative tone colors and transparent textures. Using the term "klangfarbenmelodie" (tone color melody) in connection with Stravinsky may border on sacrilege, but it actually seems appropriate in this case. Tying the whole piece together is Stravinsky's signature ostinato rhythm, supplied by the cimbalom (sometimes joined by the drums and other members of the ensemble), and witty jazz "kicks" or flourishes that strongly punctuate each section.