'Twas Once Said Trivia Quiz

Answer: Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss (b.1864 - d.1949) was born in Germany and is the son of the composer Franz Strauss. He would go on to compose almost three hundred different works in his career, including eighteen operas. Many of his compositions were based on poems or books written by well known authors. "Salome"(1905) was an opera based on the play authored by Oscar Wilde and his 1945 23 solo string work "Metamorphosen" was based on a poem by Goethe. During the second world war, Strauss was apprehended by American troops and fortuitously there were musicians amongst the soldiers who recognised him as a famous composer and subsequently he was placed under American protection.

Answer: Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner (b.1813 - d.1883) composed a number of operas, including "Ride of the Valkyries" which in my opinion, is the one of the most inspiring pieces of music ever created. Wagner had much difficulty in his life, including ongoing troubles with debt as well as numerous extra marital affairs leading to the dissolution of his first marriage.

Despite being in exile for a number of years due to a political ban for his involvement in Dresden May Uprising, Wagner would go on to compose magnificent operas such as "Tannhäuser" (1845), "The Flying Dutchman" (1843) and of course "Der Ring des Nibelungen" which took him almost twenty-five years to complete. Wagner was connected to a number of famous people too.

He was courted by Bavarian king, Ludwig II (reputedly the king had a romantic interest), had an illicit affair with the illegitimate daughter of composer Franz Lizt, was close friends with philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and could even count Queen Victoria as an admirer of his work.

Answer: Claude Debussy

Achille-Claude Debussy (b.1862 - d.1918) was a child prodigy and was admitted to the famed Conservatoire de Paris at the age of ten. He first achieved fame a mere sixteen years before his death with the composition of his first and only completed opera "Pelléas et Mélisande" in 1902. Debussy was influenced by authors such as William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens and even created an operatic work based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Fall of the House of Usher".

He in turn was counted as an influence to a number of composers, among them the likes of Béla Bartók who said, "Debussy's great service to music was to reawaken among all musicians an awareness of harmony and its possibilities".

Answer: Bela Bartok

Béla Viktor János Bartók (b.1881 - d.1945) was born in Hungary and together with Franz Liszt is the country's most prominent composer. Another child prodigy, he could play a vast number of piano pieces by the age of four. He composed his first piece by the age of nine called "The Course of the Danube".

He wrote his first major orchestral piece at the age of twenty-two called "Kossuth". Proudly Hungarian, Bartók was forced to emigrate to the USA in 1940 due to his strong anti Nazi stance and his opposition of Hungary's alliance with Germany.

He died of complications related to leukaemia and was buried in the US. His body was later exhumed and reburied in Hungary at a state funeral. A widely influential composer, there are numerous statues and busts of him all over the world including Brussels, Turkey, New York, Paris and London.

Answer: Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler (b.1860 - d.1911) was born in Bohemia which was then part of Austria, but is found in today's Czech Republic. Born into a Jewish family, his works were widely banned throughout Europe during the Nazi era. Mahler was initially primarily a conductor, composing being a part time pursuit.

He was a prolific conductor and was director of the Vienna Court Opera, Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic. Tchaikovsky said that Mahler's conducting was astounding and that that Mahler was "positively a genius".

Despite only being a "part time" composer, Mahler composed a number of symphonies from 1876 to 1910, the last "Symphony No. 10 in F sharp" being unfinished.

Answer: Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky (b.1882 - d.1971) was born in Russia and was the son of well known opera singer Fyodor Stravinsky. He originally studied law, but at the suggestion of famous composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, he took private lessons in composition from him until Rimksy-Korsakov's death.

His ballet "The Firebird" premičred before his thirtieth birthday and he would go on to compose a further eleven ballets, including "Petrushka", "The Rite of Spring" and "Pulcinella". His fame brought him into contact with a number of prominent historical figures. For a time he and his family lived with fashion designer Coco Chanel.

After emigrating to the United States, he developed a circle of friends which included W.H. Auden, Aldous Huxley and Dylan Thomas.

He was posthumously awarded a Grammy Award and was posthumously inducted into the Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame which features the likes of Michael Jackson, Isadora Duncan and Fred Astaire amongst its inductees.

Answer: Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev (b.1891 - d.1953) was born in Russia in what is now part of Ukraine. He wrote his first piano composition at age five and composed his first opera at the age of nine, called "The Giant". His first staged ballet called "Chout" (his first ballet "Ala and Lolli" was rejected for being non-Russian), was a huge success. Igor Stravinsky was quoted as saying that it was, "the single piece of modern music he could listen to with pleasure". Stravinksy would years later accuse of Prokofiev of "wasting time composing operas" after hearing the first act of Prokofiev's "The Love for Three Oranges".

Some of Prokofiev's more famous works included the opera "War and Peace" based on the Tolstoy novel of the same name as well as the ballets "Cinderella" and "Romeo and Juliet".

The work with which I associate him most though, is his symphony "Peter and the Wolf".

Answer: Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn (b.1732 - d.1809), a composer of the Classical period, was born in Austria. He would in turn be a friend of Mozart and a teacher of Beethoven. His musical career began as a chorister and then as a freelance musician. His first opera, "The Limping Devil" was an initial success, but was closed down due to "offensive remarks in the text". Haydn was a prolific composer, composing concertos, masses, symphonies, operas and string quartets.

He was immensely popular throughout Europe and his eventual illness prior to his death prevented him from composing.

He said this to a biographer, "I must have something to do-usually musical ideas are pursuing me, to the point of torture, I cannot escape them, they stand like walls before me. If it's an allegro that pursues me, my pulse keeps beating faster, I can get no sleep. If it's an adagio, then I notice my pulse beating slowly. My imagination plays on me as if I were a clavier; I am really just a living clavier." Incidentally, his head was stolen from his grave shortly after he had been buried and was returned 145 years later.

Answer: Frederic Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin (b.1810 - d.1849) was born in a village west of Warsaw. The reason his names sound French is due to his father who was in fact a Frenchman who emigrated to Poland. Chopin's mother was Polish however. Despite dying at a very young age, Chopin managed to compose a number of works and was held in high regard as a talented composer while only performing publicly approximately thirty times in his career.

He was buried in Paris, but his heart was returned and buried in Poland at his request.

Answer: Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven (b.1770 - d.1827) was born in Bonn, Germany. One of the most well known composers in history, he was notable for his compositions as well as the fact that he already starting losing his hearing towards the end of his twenties. Almost all of his latter string quartets were composed after he lost his hearing. Beethoven had reportedly already gone deaf by the time his Ninth Symphony, which includes "Ode to Joy" in the final movement, was completed.

He wrote nine symphonies, a variety of string quartets, piano sonatas, a mass and one opera, "Fidelio".