Salvati dunque e scolpati

That academic year is just around the corner, so it’s time to sharpen those no. 2 pencils for another quiz! (If you missed it: some choice answers from the last one.) Once again, all hail Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, from whence I shamelessly plagiarized this idea.

As before, either leave your answers or a link to where we can find your answers in the comments. Do include the questions in your response, if only for my sake—I can’t keep two queries in my brain simultaneously, let alone ten. You may begin the test… now.

1. What’s the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?

2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.

3. Great piece with a terrible title.

4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?

5. Who’s your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)

6. Terrible piece with a great title.

7. What’s the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?

8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.

9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?

10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.

EXTRA CREDIT:

For opera nerds: If you had to choose:
a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill?
b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?

For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.

61 comments

  1. 1. What’s the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?<>Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet<> (Bryars)2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.<>SYR 4: Goodbye 20th Century<> (Sonic Youth)<>Punk Side Story<> (Schlong)3. Great piece with a terrible title.<>Hail To The Thief<> – Radiohead<>Before the Willenium<> – DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince<>Cucumber Castle<> – The Bee Gees(…too bad you didn’t ask for terrible pieces with terrible titles, there’s no shortage of those…)4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?Britten. Not even an “if I had to” choice.5. Who’s your favorite spouse of a composer/performer?John Lennon6. Terrible piece with a great title.<>Rucke di Guck<> (Scelsi)7. What’s the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?<>Apocalypse Now<> – may be an obvious answer, but how can you beat it?8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.<>The Tallywood String Quartet Tribute to Clay Aiken<>9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?As a singer – draw. As a composer / producer / everything else – Marvin.10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.Clyfford StillDavid LynchIssey Miyake

  2. 1. What’s the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?Sweet By and By in Ives’s Second Orchestral Set, third movement (From Hanover Square North, at the end of a tragic day)2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.Jazz Sebastian Bach by The Swingle Singers3. Great piece with a terrible title.I counter an earlier mention of Turn of the Screw as a terrible piece with a great title. 4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?I’m woefully ignorant of all things Tippett so I should preclude myself. I do love Britten though, so….5. Who’s your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)Vera Stravinsky6. Terrible piece with a great title.The Past is in the Present (Schuller). Not a terrible piece, I just happen to like the title a lot more. 7. What’s the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?Rossini’s William Tell Overture in The Clockwork Orange 8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.“I could have danced all night” – Renee Fleming at the Nobel Prizes9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?Marvin Gaye10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.I second David Lynch

  3. 1. i’m surprised that nobody, as far as i can see, has yet mentioned schubert’s quotation of the ‘ode to joy’ theme in the last movement of the c major symphony.

  4. 1. What’s the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?I’ve always liked the way the music ends up being part of Beethoven’s 4th Piano concerto all along, in Gorecki’s Lerchenmusik. I’m thinking that there’s also a double-nested quote within a quote in some piece I’ve heard, but I can’t think of it right now. And it was darned clever of Beethoven to quote “Tico Tico” in the last movement of one of his piano concertos, since it hadn’t even been written yet.2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.The Messiah Remix on Cantaloupe – you didn’t say crossover from where to where. 3. Great piece with a terrible title.Beethoven. Sonata op. 109. I mean, that’s all? For some of the best music ever, and it’s just “sonata” plus an opus number? Seems wrong, somehow.4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?Tippett, because I spent a marvelous day with him many years ago and I still remember him as one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met. I would almost swear that he glowed with some sort of radiance.5. Who’s your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)Bill Colvig. Great legs.6. Terrible piece with a great title.Götterdämmerung.7. What’s the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?My memory isn’t designed to retain this type of information. I can barely remember the non-Hollywood stuff. I thought the use of Mozart in Bergman’s Magic Flute was sort of cool.8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.Mile Davis’s Sketches of Spain. Everybody seems to think it’s so great, but that Concierto de Aranjuez is plain awful.9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?Marvin Gaye.10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.Sol LeWitt would have been incredible. But, wow, there are so many possible directions this could go. Maya Lin, Goya, Calvino, Rothko – well, the mind reels, in a pleasantly stimulated way.EXTRA CREDIT:For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.Pletnev’s Scarlatti.

  5. Addendum to “Best classical crossover” – as always happens, you click, and then you remember something. Here it’s the Hyper Beatles album by Aki Takahashi – that’s got to be some sort of crossover and it’s definitely great.

  6. 1. What’s the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?Schnittke’s cadenza for Beethoven’s violin concerto… which begins with the Joachim cadenza from the Brahms!! Unreal; why isn’t Schnittke more famous?Do I get extra points for picking a piece of music within another piece of music within another piece of music?2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.So shoot me, McFerrin/Ma’s “Hush” album appeals to child in me in the same way that Woody Guthrie’s nursery rhymes and Tintin do.3. Great piece with a terrible title.After wracking my brain (read: killing 15 minutes of company time) and coming up short, I come to the conclusion that great pieces transcend or at least legitimize their titles.4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?B & T: 1!B & T: 2!B & T: 3! Shoot!B: Rock.T: Scissors.B: Nothing beats rock!5. Who’s your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)Did I just read somewhere that Cornelia Foss conducted an affair with Glenn Gould? Think about it. How messed up does Lukas have to be?6. Terrible piece with a great title.Cummings ist der dichter. Sometimes I feel like Boulez is the luckiest fart in all of postwar composition. Anything he did, Messiaen did better. Except conduct Mahler.7. What’s the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?This may not exactly count: Having Fantasia 2000’s whales migrating to the Pines of Rome was inspired programming.Depends on its warhorse and/or Hollywood status: the Part “Cantus” in Fahrenheit 451.8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.I will admit to no such knowledge.9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?Wasn’t one of these shot dead by his own father? I choose that one.10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.Ambrose Bierce would have written the most grotesque, witty, and carnival-y dirges. Plus, history needs a good disappearing-composer story.

  7. I don’t think anyone’s mentioned the Tristan love potion quotes in “Albert Herring.” Good times, and more of a quotation than Ives’ use of “Jesus Loves Me” (my previous < HREF="http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2007/08/soho-quiz.html" REL="nofollow">choice<>) which is used as a primary theme. I’m changin’ my answer.

  8. Great piece with a terrible title. Die Freischuetz. I like saying it, though.Who’s your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.) Alma’s been snagged. So, I’ll go with Pauline Strauss, who kept Richard on a short leash and begging for treats.What’s the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie? Wagner in <>Excalibur<>. It makes the movie.Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer. Shakespeare=Mozart+BeethovenFor early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.Thomas Beecham’s Messiah. Lush lush strings.

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