Soho the Dog quiz!

Well that Internet vacation didn't really work.

Life intervened in a big way and now I have to postpone this for a week or two while I deal with massive paperwork.

But now onto the positive...

If I was offline, I would have missed Soho the Dog's delightful quiz. Been hoping that he would do one again. It should be *every week*. Hint, hint.

Okay here goes...


1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
In Britten's Lachrymae for viola and piano (or orchestra), the very end, the John Dowland song "Flow, my tears". It's absolutely heartbreaking.


2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Easy. Anything by Yo Yo Ma.

3. Great piece with a terrible title.
I'll give you two-both by Barber.
School for Scandal. Adagio for Strings (did he actually name this one?)


4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Benjamin Britten. See answer to question #1.


5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Nela Rubinstein. For her wonderful cookbook with the many pressure cooker recipes. And for putting up with her husband.


6. Terrible piece with a great title.
I think will stay mum on this one...unless we can include some compositions performed from my student years. Let's protect the not so innocent here...


7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Aw, do I have to pick just one? (The whole film "Amadeus" is just so great). Really just one? Okay here's two- toss up between Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barber's Adagio for Strings in the Elephant Man.


8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
I'm not really an expert on the crossover/classical thing. In fact it makes me run screaming from the room. Although I have vague memories of seeing Engelbert Humperdinck singing "Ave Maria" a few months ago. Which version? I don't know...memory suppressed.


9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin Gaye all the way. I'm allergic to Cooke's "Wonderful World."


10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Pablo Picasso. It would have been fascinating to see how he would have gone through his phases in music. And can you imagine Guernica in Sound?


EXTRA CREDIT:For opera nerds: If you had to choose:a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill? b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?
Uh, no.

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

That's too easy...in the Bell Telephone Hour. The Oistrakhs playing the second movement of the Bach Double Violin Concerto. It's heaven on earth.