Q 01/05

Balanchine staged Stravinsky's 1942 Circus Polka for the Ringling circus; which animals danced it?

A) Horses

B) Elephants

C) Bears

D) Poodles

Answer · why

B) Elephants

Fifty elephants and fifty ballerinas danced the Circus Polka, which Stravinsky wrote after Balanchine phoned him to ask for a piece 'for some elephant...

Q 02/05

Which steak dish topped with foie gras and truffle honours the composer of The Barber of Seville?

A) Beef Wellington

B) Steak Diane

C) Tournedos Rossini

D) Chateaubriand steak

Answer · why

C) Tournedos Rossini

Tournedos Rossini is filet mignon on a croûton under a slice of foie gras, one of several rich dishes named for Gioachino Rossini. He wrote no operas ...

Q 03/05

Which planet, already known when Holst finished The Planets in 1917, has no movement in the suite?

A) Earth

B) Mercury

C) Saturn

D) Neptune

Answer · why

A) Earth

Earth was skipped because Holst followed astrology rather than astronomy, and Pluto, found in 1930, got a movement only when Colin Matthews wrote one ...

Q 04/05

Schoenberg spelled his opera Moses und Aron with one 'a' to dodge a title with how many letters?

A) 9

B) 11

C) 12

D) 13

Answer · why

D) 13

Schoenberg's triskaidekaphobia was so strong that 'Moses und Aaron', 13 letters, became 'Moses und Aron'; he died on Friday, 13 July 1951.

Q 05/05

Haydn's 1797 birthday hymn for Emperor Francis II is now the national anthem of which country?

A) Austria

B) Hungary

C) Croatia

D) Germany

Answer · why

D) Germany

Germany's Deutschlandlied sets words Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote in 1841 to Haydn's 'Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser', an Austrian emperor's hymn.