3.
|
Which instrument comes in variants including the concert, Celtic, cross-strung and chromatic? |
|
[ ] |
Piano |
[ ] |
Guitar |
[ ] |
Harp |
[ ] |
Lute |
|
|
4.
|
Paul von Janko, in the 1880s, proposed a technical standardisation that could make life far simpler for vast numbers of musicians, but it did not gain popularity. What was it? |
|
[ ] |
A piano keyboard with multiple rows of keys (almost more typewriter-style) each arranged in whole-tone scales, so all tonal keys would feel the same shape under the player's hands (and no more all-different scale fingerings, for instance) |
[ ] |
Music staves running down the page instead of across, so that the 'rhythm axis' ran vertically and the 'pitch axis' left-to-right in keeping with the keys on a piano. The system was named Klavarskribo ('keyboard script'), and publicised, using the then-also-new planned international language, Esperanto |
[ ] |
Janko realised it was somewhat perverse that in standard Western musical notation, the shorter a note lasts, the more ink is required to indicate this (a demi-semi-quaver has three tails; a semibreve, lasting over 30 times as long, doesn't even have a stem). He accordingly proposed an inverse scheme which would make music less cluttered on the eye while also saving space and expense for publishers, buyers and players alike |
[ ] |
He invented the letter-notation system known as Tonic Sol-Fa |
|
|
5.
|
Those sad souls who only recognise one organ piece, probably know this one as Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, for organ (and if they remember all of that right, they probably congratulate themselves on their erudition): it is of course that iconic pre-Gothic work which was arrestingly (if somewhat incongruously) used as the theme tune to the film Rollerball, the one 'that goes: 'Da-da-dah ... ... ... da-da-da - dum - dum - DUM' (etc.)'.
Which of the following points is still regarded as true about the origins of this piece? |
|
[ ] |
There is an autograph score (i.e. a fair-copy in the composer's original manuscript) confirming this is one of Bach's own works |
[ ] |
The title Toccata and Fugue is known to be genuine |
[ ] |
The piece was indeed originated in the key of D minor, and for performance on the organ |
[ ] |
(Pick this Answer only if you believe NONE of the above to be true) |
|
|
6.
|
Fairly closely related to the Impromptu is the Humoresque (a work title which seems something of a hostage to fortune: 'Buy this and play it, but you can't claim your money back if your audience fails to smile or laugh'!).
Who wrote the widely-familiar example of this genre, which also became fairly widely wedded to a set of semi-scurrilous lyrics from the world of railway travel (a world with which the composer himself was reportedly obsessed), and which began as follows:
Pas-sen-gers will please refrain
From u-sing toi-lets on the train
E-spe-cial-ly when stan-ding at the STA ... tion ... ' ? |
|
[ ] |
Aaron Copland |
[ ] |
Antonin Dvorak |
[ ] |
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov |
[ ] |
Aleksandr Borodin |
|
|
7.
|
Many respected composers were nurtured on, or later absorbed and used, the folksongs of their native lands: Bela Bartok in Hungary, Ralph Vaughan Williams and several others in Britain; Canteloube with his enchanting and atmospheric Songs of the Auvergne, for instance.
One of the pioneer activists in the British folksong movement was a man with a most splendidly appropriate name for this role: who was he? |
|
[ ] |
Cedric Fidler |
[ ] |
Joseph Singer |
[ ] |
Cecil Sharp |
[ ] |
Samuel Tunesmith |
|
|
8.
|
Composers have always felt entitled to 'help themselves' from music happening around them in nature, the weather and human activity ~ birdsong, Chopin with his raindrops, Kenneth Alford with his Colonel Bogey March (reputedly starting with the two-tone whistle of this military gentleman before he took any shot on the golf course).
Eric Coates in the 1930s wrote two London Suites, the first of which starts with a movement depicting Covent Garden market, and which in turn incorporates a catchy, whistleable tune from an old London street-cry. Which is the title or catchphrase of this 'open-air commercial'? |
|
[ ] |
A Pear for a Penny |
[ ] |
Lavenders Blue |
[ ] |
Who will buy my fresh red roses? |
[ ] |
Cherry Ripe |
|
|
9.
|
Standard modern concert pitch is such that the A above middle C represents a frequency of 440Hz (cycles per second); Baroque pitch has been (at least retrospectively) standardised to equate with A♭ in this tuning.
What, therefore, is the frequency of Concert A at Baroque pitch? |
|
[ ] |
415Hz |
[ ] |
423Hz |
[ ] |
432Hz |
[ ] |
466Hz |
|
|
10.
|
At the end of a musical event, British (and other English-speaking) audiences may request an encore from the artist/s: a piece performed again, or maybe something else appropriate to conclude the concert and bring everyone 'back down to earth' from whatever cultural and/or emotional heights they had been scaling together. Presumably it is felt duly sophisticated to use a foreign term to express this request.
The French themselves do not use this term; what do they do or say instead, in the salons de concert and elsewhere? |
|
[ ] |
They call out 'Bis!' ( = 'twice' ; 'give us another'!) |
[ ] |
They switch from irregular 'white-noise' applause into a long slow handclap |
[ ] |
They stamp on the floor, slowly at first and then gradually accelerating until their request is acceded to |
[ ] |
They stand up and clap above their heads |
|
|