Classical Composers - Odd One Out Quiz

Answer: Gustav Holst

The non-Russian among the Russians should have been pretty obvious.

British composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934) is known for his very popular suite for orchestra, "The Planets." Musicians who have played in concert bands will know his works for military band and brass, and singers should be familiar with his choral pieces and song cycles.

Answer: John Adams

This time the three who belong together are from Britain, and the American John Adams is the odd man out. The 1987 opera "Nixon in China," a dramatization of President Nixon's 1972 diplomatic visit to China, is one of Adams' best-known works. The libretto was written by by Alice Goodman.

Adams visited my alma mater in 1997 or thereabouts while I was a music student. (The local orchestra performed his "Slonimsky's Earbox" while he was in town.) If I recall correctly, he said that he considers himself a "post-minimalist." If you want to learn more about Adams' music, I recommend listening to "John's Book of Alleged Dances" as performed by the Kronos String Quartet - it's an excellent piece.

Answer: J.S. Bach

While Puccini, Wagner, and Handel were all great giants of the opera world, capturing the hearts and imaginations of opera lovers everywhere, J.S. Bach (1650-1785) wrote exactly zero operas. Shunning the "showbiz" world of opera, he focused instead on the serious and the sacred, showcasing his unparalleled musical genius with a huge number of works in instrumental and sacred choral genres.

Other notables who kept their distance from opera were Brahms and Beethoven. (Beethoven's single opera "Fidelio" of 1805 has never enjoyed as much success as his piano works, chamber music, and symphonies have.)

Answer: Igor Stravinsky

"The Five," also known as "The Mighty Handful," flourished from about 1870-1890. This group consisted of five Russian composers who were dissatisfied with the derivative nature of Russian music at the time. Feeling that it was too heavily influenced by western Europe, they aimed to create a more national sound by looking to folk melody and harmony for inspiration. The Five were: Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), one of the most prominent figures in 20th century music, was born in Russia, but he left in 1911, never to return. While he composed a large number of works in almost every conceivable genre, some of his better known pieces are the ballets "The Rite of Spring," "The Firebird," and "Petrushka."

Answer: Gabriel Faure

Les Six was a group of post-WWI French composers who united for a brief time, having been mutually inspired by the composer Erik Satie. (In addition to Honegger, Milhaud, and Poulenc, the other members of the Les Six were Auric, Durey, and Tailleferre.)

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was much more of a Romantic than Les Six; he had little in common with their more modern, lighter style. Fauré's output was vast, including a large number of songs and piano pieces. One of his greatest works is his Op. 48 "Requiem." Many listeners will recognize two of his beautiful melodies: from the "Pavane" Op. 50, and from the Sicilienne movement of "Pelléas et Mélisande" Op. 80.

Answer: Gustav Mahler

The so-called Second Viennese School of composers employed Schoenberg's method of composing with twelve tones to create music the likes of which had never been heard before. Active in Vienna and Berlin from about 1910-1930, Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, and others "liberated" dissonance, producing radical new works in various genres from pieces for solo piano to opera, and everything in between.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) preceded the Second Viennese School by a few short years; some consider his late Romantic style as a transition to the more modern music that was to come. He is remembered for his orchestral song cycles, ten massive symphonies (although he left the tenth unfinished at the time of his death), and as a renowned orchestra conductor.

Answer: Guillaume DuFay

While Crumb, Glass, and Penderecki were all prominent composers during the 20th century, Guillaume DuFay preceded them by about 500 years. One of the most famous composers of the 15th century, DuFay produced sacred masses and motets as well as secular chansons.

Here is a key work for each of the other composers listed: Crumb: "Night of the 4 Moons." Glass: "Einstein on the Beach." Penderecki: "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima."

Answer: Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf

Yes, Karl (or Carl) Ditters von Dittersdorf really was his name. With a life that spanned the years 1739-1799, he was much later than the Renaissance masters who were the wrong choices for this question. A prolific composer, his works include twelve "Sinfonias on Ovid's Metamorphoses," musical depictions of the classic poems. The last movement of the fifth Sinfonia, "The Transformation of the Lycian Peasants into Frogs," is particularly evocative.

The Renaissance composers Palestrina, di Lasso, and Desprez are much admired for their pure and sublimely beautiful works for voices. Palestrina's music is generally considered to be the pinnacle of sacred vocal counterpoint in the Renaissance.

Answer: Giuseppe Verdi

Schubert (died aged 31) and Mozart (died aged 35) were both prolific geniuses, each having composed hundreds of works. Pergolesi (who died at the tender age of 26) composed relatively fewer pieces, but his "Stabat Mater" of 1736 is achingly beautiful - it seems that he was going for quality over quantity.

Giuseppe Verdi (died age 87) was one of the greatest Italian opera composers. A national hero of Italy, some of his better known titles include "La Traviata," "Otello," "Aida," and "Rigoletto." Among his few non-operatic works are a string quartet and a famous requiem mass.

Answer: Camille Saint-Saens

This is hardly the place to editorialize and speculate as to why women have been so tragically underrepresented in past centuries among composers of art music; all I can say is that it seems to be an undeniable fact. Hildegard (a medieval abbess), Mendelssohn (Felix's sister), and Beach (an American Romantic) belong to that exclusive group of women who were strong enough and brave enough to express themselves creatively through music, despite the social pressures they faced.

Organist and composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) created many excellent works, among them the opera "Samson and Delilah," the symphonic poem "Danse Macabre," an "Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso" for violin and orchestra, "Carnival of the Animals" for two pianos and orchestra, and the "Organ Symphony" in C minor. Flutists such as myself love to play his beautiful "Romance" Op. 37.