Composers
Name the three most famous composers born in 1685.
Who are Handel, J.S. Bach, and Dominico Scarlatti?
The smallest of the recorder family.
What is a garklien?
Jordi Savall did the soundtrack for this famous historical romance film.
What is "Tous les matins du monde"?
This composer put his son in jail.
Who is Antoine Forqueray?
This French royal was the most important patron of the viola da gamba.
Who is King Louis XIV?
In which of these cities did Bach never live? Leipzig, Weimar, Berlin.
What is Berlin?
This tuning system has the "worst" thirds.
What is pythagorean?
Jean-Baptise Lully died in this way.
contracted gangrene after stabbing himself in the foot with a conducting staff
This composer killed his wife and her lover after catching them "in flagrante".
Who is Carlo Gesualdo? (Carlo murdered them both on the spot. The report states he went into the bedroom a second time "because he wasn't certain yet they were dead". He was not found guilty.)
For whom did Bach write his Musical Offering, and what instrument did this person play?
Who is Frederick the Great who played flute?
Bach walked a very long way to see this composer.
Who is Dieterich Buxtehude?
Which of the following describes the ratio of an octave's frequency? 1:2, 1:4, 1:8
What is 1:8?
The popular game Dungeons and Dragons allows players to list these two instruments as "special skills" during gameplay.
What are the lute and the viol?
This composer was supposedly tortured by the guilt of killing his wife and her lover.
Who is Carlo Gesualdo? One of the most obvious characteristics of his music is the extravagant text: "love", "pain", "death", "ecstasy", "agony" and other similar words occur frequently in his madrigal texts.
Marin Marais wrote a piece describing the emotions of a patient undergoing this surgical procedure.
What is the removal of a urinary bladder calulus?
Which genre did C.P.E. Bach not compose in?
What is opera?
This person said the following: "Gratuitous passage work and bustling noise do not constitute the beauties of accompaniment."
Who is C.P.E. Bach?
What president had a harpsichord partially made of fiberglass put into the White House?
Who is President Nixon?
This composer supposedly engaged in occult practices with his mistress and employed male servants whose job it was to beat him daily.
Who is Carlo Gesualdo?
This 17th-century play was a milestone in Baroque literature, serving as the basis of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and creating a culturally iconic figure of "the playboy".
What is "The Trickster of Sevilla and the Stone Guest (El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedro)"?
Three female composers who died before 1750.
Who are Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre.
What is the standard way to resolve a Neopolitan sixth?
A full step up to the dominant and then to the tonic.
This famous writer loathed the pianoforte.
Who is Voltaire. (He said in 1774 that the pianoforte was “an instrument for coppersmiths compared to the harpsichord” (letter to Madame du Deffand, 8th of December 1774).)
This composer initiated legal procedings against his mistress, resulting in a trial for witchcraft.
Who is Carlo Gesualdo? (The mistress and another woman were convicted and (strangely) sentenced to live in Gesualdo’s castle.)
This famous painting hanging in the London National Gallery includes this Baroque instrument, a well-known symbol of discord. (include name of the painting AND name of the instrument in your answer)
What is "The Ambassadors" by Hans Holbein the Younger and a lute with a broken string.