Quiz #13 Victory Lap Awarded

April 24, 2008 • Weekly Quiz • 0 • Previous | Next

The champion of Quiz #13 and boss of the piano for the next 36 hours is Jessica Duchen who wrote in with Romanze Op 28 No.2 by Robert Schumann. It was composed in 1839 as part of a 3 work set called Drei Romanzen. The pieces are linked by key, starting with B flat minor and sections in F sharp major and E flat minor, followed by F sharp major and B major and are meant to be played as a group.

The pianist is the up and coming Sarah Hagen from Vancouver Island. Listen to her play another of Schumann’s thought fragments, aka Papillons, as well as three Rachmaninoff Preludes.

John Daverio speculates in Grove’s that Schumann’s fondness for Op 28 was “perhaps rooted in its special relationship to Clara. The second of her own three Romances (completed in early 1839) features a variety of duet textures that Schumann emulated in the F [sic] major Romanze (no.2) of his cycle.”

The very first clue of the week stated that the composer shared a name with the person responsible for The Rest Is Noise, Alex Ross. Some sources list Schumann’s second name as Alexander but, as Reader Wayne has pointed out, the additional name cannot be substantiated. Schumann’s birth and death certificates list only Robert as a forename. One idea is that Alexander is a corruption of his teenaged literary pseudonym Skülander.

For those that are really dying to know, here’s how to solve the algebra problem given in the first set of clues:

12+3x(6)=4x-2
12+18x=4x-2
12+18x+2=4x-2+2
14+18x=4x
14+18x-18x=4x-18x
14=-14x
x= -1
Just like old times….caught out by the negative sign. The answer was supposed to be 1. Sigh.

That’s all for this week, folks. Til Monday, adieu and bon weekend from the OM Quiz.