Soho The Dog: Autumn Quiz
1. What’s the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
Without a doubt, Miss Mussel has to nominate In A Vernacular Way (1990) for solo harpsichord by Canadian composer Peter Hatch. Where else can Super Mario Brothers theme music happily rub shoulders with Jimi Hendrix and 18th century dance forms?
2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Crossing the border the other way, the answer has to be any one of Uri Caine’s projects. If you are new to these, the Mahler and Goldberg Variation discs are good places to start.
3. Great piece with a terrible title.
Andante from Brahms Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano. The third movement contains such exquisiteness that it is doubtful that any combination of words could accurately describe it. Of course, this argument is a bit of Pandora’s box in that, if followed to its logical conclusion, a good portion of the pre-1950 repertoire falls into this category.
4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Is this a continuation of the discussion going on at Dial M about torture? If it was a choice between either of these two or toenails, Miss Mussel would grudgingly choose Britten. Sandals are just too much fun to wear.
5. Who’s your favorite spouse of a composer/performer?
The answer has to be that perennial favourite of undergraduate music students trying to wade through early music history&Mrs Gesualdo. By indulging in a few, shall we say, extra-curricular activities, she ensured that her husband would one of the most well-remembered minor characters in music history. Sure, his chromatic madrigals are somewhat interesting but it is so much more satisfying to think of him as the guy that killed his wife and her lover in a fit of cuckolded rage.
6. Terrible piece with a great title.
Britten: Still Falls The Rain (Canticle III)
Despite her rather large horn bias, this piece creeps Miss Mussel out big time.
7. What’s the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Everything John Williams ever wrote is just a rearrangement of Mars from The Planets or the finale of Tchaik 6. Oh no! It’s the Apocalypse. Again. Yawn.
8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
Mozart in Egypt — Perfectly good Arab music with poorly played Mozart squashed together for no apparent reason. Trying to mesh even-tempered Western music with the mircotonal Eastern music just does not work. No matter how much they love each other or how committed they are to making making a go of it, the truth is that the piano and oud were just not meant to be together. The sooner both parties acknowledge that, the better.
9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Miss Mussel is showing her age a bit here and had to do a quick bit of research to answer this one. Coming in first is Mr Soul himself, Sam Cooke.
10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Frank Gehry&a Brahms for the 20th century?
EXTRA CREDIT:
For opera nerds: If you had to choose:
a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill?
b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?
Sorry, Miss Mussel is an opera infant and cannot comment here.
For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.
Yehudi Menuhin – Bach Sonatas and Partitas. There are points where one cannot help but laugh out loud, such is the resemblance to a teenage boy showing off his mad metal guitar skillz. It’s confident, brash, deathly fast and, at times, desperately out of tune. What’s not to love?
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