Birds

Question Results

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Question:

Which composer wrote the Mother Goose ballet in 1926?

Response:

	Debussy
	Ravel
	Feedback: Correct! It was Ravel. The work is based on fairytales by Perrault and was originally written for four hands
	Poulenc

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Question:

How many of the movements of Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals feature birds?

Response:

	Three
	Feedback: It's five: The Hens and Roosters, The Aviary, The Cuckoo in the Depth of the Woods, The Swan and the Finale
	Four
	Five

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Question:

Which Gilbert and Sullivan opera, premiered in 1885, contains a doleful aria about a 'little tom-tit'?

Response:

	The Mikado
	The Pirates of Penzance
	HMS Pinafore
	Feedback: It comes from 'The Mikado' and is sung by Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner

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Question:

Which bird can be heard in, among numerous other works, Mahler's First Symphony, Beethoven's Sixth Symphony and Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel?

Response:

	The raven
	The wood pigeon
	The cuckoo
	Feedback: Correct! In Beethoven's Sixth Symphony the cuckoo's song is played by the clarinet. The work also includes the songs of the nightingale (flute) and the quail (oboe)

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Question:

Which birds make a majestic appearance in Sibelius's incidental music for the play Kuolema?

Response:

	Cranes
	Herons
	Feedback: It's cranes. The work closes with Sibelius's well-known and haunting piece 'Valse triste'
	Starlings

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Question:

Best known today for its overture, Rossini's opera The Thieving Magpie enjoyed its premiere at La Scala, Milan in 1817. Seeing the opera's title helped which comic book hero to solve a crime in 1963?

Response:

	Superman
	Tintin
	Feedback: Correct! The storyline features in 'The Castafiore Emerald'
	Asterix

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Question:

Whose third piano concerto, left uncompleted at the composer's death in 1945, quotes the call of the rufous-sided towhee bird, which he heard in North Carolina?

Response:

	Charles Ives
	Béla Bartók
	Feedback: Correct! The work received its premiere in 1946, the year after Bartók's death. His friend Tibor Serly finished the piece
	Aaron Copland

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Question:

Who composed the score for the 1970 film Where Eagles Dare, starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood?

Response:

	Ron Goodwin
	Feedback: Correct! Goodwin also wrote music for 'Lancelot and Guinevere' and 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines'
	Ennio Morricone
	John Williams

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Question:

A recording of which birdsong precedes the marching of soldiers along the Appian Way in Respighi's Pines of Rome?

Response:

	The blackbird
	The songthrush
	The nightingale
	Feedback: Correct! The work is in four movements and the third section closes with the song of a nightingale recorded on a phonograph