Symphonies and their Nicknames Quiz

Answer: Gustav Mahler

Mahler's Eighth Symphony, first performed in 1910, so called because at its first performance over 1000 performers took part, including a huge orchestra, choir and soloists. Modern performances rarely achieve the same numerical strength, but the effect of a good performance is still overwhelming.

Answer: Felix Mendelssohn

Mendelssohn's Third Symphony, in A minor op.56. Several of Mendelssohn's works were inspired by his visits to Scotland, including the "Hebrides" Overture and this Symphony.

Answer: Peter Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony, in C minor op 17, first performed in 1873. Its nickname comes from the fact that it uses folk melodies from Ukraine, also known as "Little Russia".

Answer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart's Symphony No. 35 in D major, K.385, composed in 1782. It was originally intended for the ceremony marking the ennoblement of Siegmund Haffner, a friend of the Mozart family, although unfortunately Wolfgang, despite his habitually speedy composition, failed to finish it on time.

Answer: Dmitri Shostakovich

Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony, op.60. Composed in 1941, the first two movements actually in Leningrad while the city was besieged by German forces. The relentlessly repetitive march crescendo in the first movement was parodied by Bartok in his "Concerto for Orchestra".

Answer: Carl Nielsen

Nielsen's Fourth Symphony, op.29. This is the usually English translation of the name, although "Unquenchable" is a more accurate rendering. It is related to the composer's musical credo that "Music is life, and as such is unquenchable".

Answer: William Havergal Brian

The First Symphony of Havergal Brian (1876-1972). Probably the largest symphony ever written, lasting over two hours in performance and requiring an orchestra of 200+, 4 brass bands, 4 large mixed choirs, and soloists. Brian wrote 32 symphonies in all, 27 of them after his 72nd birthday.

Answer: Franz Joseph Haydn

Haydn's Symphony no.45 in F# minor (1772). The story behind its nickname is well known. Haydn's employer, Prince Esterhazy, was spending a long period at his country residence. This was no doubt very nice for him, but his court musicians were growing restless, longing to return to Vienna and their families. Haydn composed this symphony with a final adagio during which one player after another stopped playing, blew out the candle on his music stand and crept away.

The prince apparently took the hint, and the day after its first performance the court returned to Vienna.

Answer: Karl Goldmark

This symphony, his op.26, is the Hungarian composer Goldmark's best-known work, although his violin concerto is occasionally performed and recorded. It is sometimes argued that this is more of a symphonic suite than a proper symphony, but either way it is an enjoyable piece of music.

Answer: All of these

Stanford (1852-1924) and Harty (1879-1941) were both Irish by birth. Sullivan (1840-1900) was born in London, although his father was a bandmaster from Ireland. There is also an "Irish" Symphony by the Italian composer Michele Esposito (1855-1929), who lived and worked in Dublin for most of her career.

Answer: Reinhold Gliere

Gliere's Third Symphony, written between 1908 and 1911. Il'ya Muromets was a legendary Russian hero of the twelfth century and this massive symphony illustrates various incidents from his eventful life. The symphony deserves to be better known than it is, although some might find it begins to outstay its welcome by the end.

Answer: Granville Bantock

Granville Bantock (1868-1946) was born in London, the son of a Scottish doctor, and a number of his works reflect his Scots parentage, including a "Celtic" Symphony, a "Scottish Rhapsody" for orchestra, and an opera, "The Seal-Woman".

Answer: Alexander Scriabin

Scriabin's Symphony No.3 in C minor, composed in 1903. Other symphonies of his to have names attached to them are the Fourth, "Poem of Ecstasy" and Fifth, "Poem of Fire" or "Prometheus".

Answer: Giya Kancheli

Kancheli's fourth symphony (1975), composed to mark the quincentenary of Michelangelo's birth. Kancheli, born in 1935 in Tiflis, Georgia, in what was then the Soviet Union, has written seven symphonies, of which the fifth and sixth are probably the best.

Answer: Philip Glass

This symphony, Glass's third, is based on six tracks from the album "Heroes" by David Bowie and Brian Eno. Although given the title of "symphony", it was in fact written initially as a dance piece for Twyla Tharp's company.

Answer: Franz Schubert

Schubert's Symphony no 8 in B minor, of which only two movements were ever written. There are many other "unfinished" symphonies around: usually works whose composers died before completing them. Mahler's Tenth and Bruckner's Ninth are two of the best known, but Schubert's Eighth is the one to which the nickname has become attached.

Answer: Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven's Ninth, of course. Many composers since Beethoven have written choral symphonies. but this - as the first - has squatter's rights to the nickname.

Answer: Robert Schumann

Schumann's Third Symphony (first performance: 1851). It was actually fourth in order of composition: the symphony published as no.4 was actually composed second. The name refers to the Rhine Valley around Dusseldorf, where Schumann had been appointed principal conductor in 1851.

Answer: Henryk Gorecki

Gorecki's Third Symphony, op 36. One of the most bizarre musical success stories of the 1990s. Composed in 1976, it was little known until the release of the 1993 recording by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by David Zinman with Dawn Upshaw (soprano). Repeated performances of extracts on the UK's new national classical radio show "Classic FM" helped to familiarise listeners with its undemanding but haunting "spiritual minimalism", and sales went through the roof.

It's not actually typical of the composer's style, and nothing else by him has been anything like as successful.

Answer: Ralph Vaughan Williams

Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) based this, his Seventh Symphony, on music he wrote for the film "Scott of the Antarctic". By the way, the spelling is not a mistake - Vaughan Williams deliberately used the Italian form of the word!

Answer: Galina Ustvolskaya

Ustvolskaya was born in 1919, and studied with Shostakovich between 1937-47. "Prayer" is her fourth symphony, composed between 1985-87. It lasts for eight minutes, and is for four performers: trumpet, tamtam, piano, and contralto.

Answer: Benjamin Britten

Britten's is a choral symphony, setting 14 poems by a variety of English poets for soprano, alto and tenor soloists with boy's chorus, mixed chorus and orchestra. Schumann's First Symphony is also subtitled "Spring".

Answer: Alfred Schnittke

Schnittke's Second Symphony, 1979. Inspired by a visit he made to the baroque church of St.Florian in Austria, where Bruckner was organist and is buried. Schnittke (1934-98) wrote eight symphonies in total.

Answer: William Henry Fry

Fry (1813-64) was the first American to have an opera performed in the United States: "Leonora", in 1845. His "Santa Claus Symphony" was written in 1853. It is more of a symphonic poem than a symphony in the traditional sense, with a rather bizarre programme including a Christmas party and a traveller dying in a snowstorm.

Answer: Serge Prokofiev

Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 in D, op 25, written in 1917 using the musical idiom and orchestration of an eighteenth-century symphony. Prokofiev said his intention was to write a symphony "as Haydn might have written it, had he lived in our day". Its sparkling tunes and rhythms have made it one of his best-known and most popular works.