Q 01/05

Who wrote the words to 'Amazing Grace', published in 1779?

A) Isaac Watts

B) Charles Wesley

C) John Newton

D) William Cowper

Answer · why

C) John Newton

John Newton had captained a slave ship before he became a clergyman at Olney, where he wrote the hymn to go with his New Year's Day sermon in 1773.

Q 02/05

'How Great Thou Art' began as a poem in which language?

A) Swedish

B) German

C) Welsh

D) Norwegian

Answer · why

A) Swedish

Swedish: Carl Boberg's 1885 poem 'O Store Gud' was translated into German and then Russian, and it was the Russian version that missionary Stuart Hine...

Q 03/05

Which instrument accompanied the first performance of 'Silent Night' on Christmas Eve 1818?

A) Organ

B) Piano

C) Harp

D) Guitar

Answer · why

D) Guitar

Guitar: Joseph Mohr played it himself while he and composer Franz Gruber sang the carol at Christmas Mass, and the well-known tale that the church org...

Q 04/05

Handel made London his home, but which city heard the first performance of his Messiah in 1742?

A) Edinburgh

B) Dublin

C) Vienna

D) Halle

Answer · why

B) Dublin

Dublin: to squeeze more people into the new music hall, ladies were asked to come without hoops in their dresses, and Handel gave the takings to chari...

Q 05/05

Which gospel singer's 1947 recording 'Move On Up a Little Higher' sold millions of copies?

A) Mahalia Jackson

B) Sister Rosetta Tharpe

C) Clara Ward

D) Aretha Franklin

Answer · why

A) Mahalia Jackson

Mahalia Jackson, who sang at the 1963 March on Washington before Martin Luther King Jr. gave his 'I Have a Dream' speech.