Q 01/05

Which Baz Luhrmann film reveals its hero to a burst of Rhapsody in Blue and fireworks?

A) Moulin Rouge!

B) The Great Gatsby

C) Elvis

D) Romeo + Juliet

Answer · why

B) The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby: the 2013 film plays it as Leonardo DiCaprio's Gatsby first turns and smiles, though the story is set in 1922, two years before the p...

Q 02/05

Rhapsody in Blue premiered during which American era?

A) World War I

B) Gilded Age

C) Prohibition

D) Great Depression

Answer · why

C) Prohibition

Prohibition: the sale of alcohol had been banned for four years when the piece premiered in 1924, at a concert staged to show that jazz belonged in th...

Q 03/05

A few weeks after its premiere, Rhapsody in Blue moved up to which larger New York hall?

A) Radio City Music Hall

B) Madison Square Garden

C) The Apollo Theater

D) Carnegie Hall

Answer · why

D) Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall: the first concert drew so much attention that Whiteman repeated it in March and then took it there on April 21, 1924, with the composer...

Q 04/05

Which instrument plays the famous opening glissando of Rhapsody in Blue?

A) Trumpet

B) Saxophone

C) Trombone

D) Clarinet

Answer · why

D) Clarinet

Clarinet: Gershwin wrote only a trill and a plain 17-note scale, but in rehearsal Whiteman's player smeared the run into a wail as a joke, and Gershwi...

Q 05/05

Which dancer starred with his sister in the Gershwin brothers' Broadway hit of 1924, the year of Rhapsody in Blue?

A) Gene Kelly

B) James Cagney

C) Fred Astaire

D) Bill Robinson

Answer · why

C) Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire recalled Gershwin, then a teenage song plugger, saying how great it would be to write a show that Fred could be in; in 1924 he and his si...