Q.1
One of the giants of Romantic music (in terms of the size of his personality, the nature and scale of his output) was a French composer who was much taken with things Italian on his visit there ~ as in the 'Roman / Romanesque' element of the 'Romantic' label; he wrote a work for viola and orchestra, somewhere in between being a concerto for that instrument and a programmatic depiction of a journey around parts of Italy. Who was this composer?
  • Hector Berlioz
  • Gabriel Faure
  • Jules Massenet
  • Cesar Franck
Q.2
Who became known and feted as 'the Poet of the Piano', just as that instrument was becoming popular in concert halls and domestic dwellings?
  • Robert Schumann
  • Franz Schubert
  • Franz Liszt
  • Frederic Chopin
Q.3
Haydn wrote a very popular one; in the good old days of LP records (some fair while later than the composers!), another similar work would often feature on the other side of the disc, by the somewhat less well-known ~ but very genial and competent composer ~ Johann Nepomuk Hummel. What form of work was this?
  • Clarinet concerto
  • Trumpet concerto
  • Bassoon concerto
  • Viola concerto
Q.4
Francois Joseph Nadermann (1781-1835) came from a family associated with a particular instrument and made it his life's study as a teacher, performer and composer. This instrument might quite fairly be regarded as at least as Romantic as any other; which instrument was it?
  • The organ
  • The concert harp
  • The piano
  • The flute
Q.5
Earlier on we mentioned Chopin, one of whose most characteristic genres of piano pieces was the Nocturne (a 'night-piece', with obvious inherent potential for romantic evocation of darkness and dreams). The generic title was Chopin's own invention, though he takes due credit for developing it and creating many rightly admired examples. But who had 'beaten him to it' in starting off the Nocturne, as a form?
  • John Field, from Ireland
  • Wilhelm Bach, grandson of Johann Sebastian
  • Ignace Leybach
  • Felix Mendelssohn (-Bartholdy)
Q.6
This man was another of the Romantic archetypes of the virtuoso instrumentalist: alongside his prodigious technique ~ possibly helped by having unusually long fingers, and which aroused admiration, curiosity and probably jealousy ~ he had a reputation for addictive or compulsive behaviour, and there were even rumours that he had some form of pact with the Devil himself. Who was he?
  • Antonio Vivaldi
  • Nicolas Bochsa
  • Niccolo Paganini
  • Gioachino Rossini
Q.7
This composer's name is less well-known, but he shared some crucial elements of personal background with that arch-Romantic Mendelssohn, and gave him what was probably a rather two-way piano lesson when Mendelssohn was just 15 years old. He encouraged Mendelssohn's musical and international initatives, and succeeded him as head of the Leipzig Conservatory on Mendelssohn's death inHe is remembered, among some 142 works, for a series of wonderful piano concertos and various books of attractive and thorough studies. Who was he?
  • Ignaz (b. Isaac) Moscheles
  • Anton Rubinstein
  • Joseph Joachim
  • J B Cramer
Q.8
Who is the odd one out here?
  • Gaetano Donizetti
  • Vincenzo Bellini
  • Giacomo Rossini
  • Antonio Rolla
Q.9
Music-making around the salon or parlour piano became a realistic aspiration or habit for many people in the Romantic period, with Chopin's piano pieces and the Mendelssohn becoming particularly popular. Printed sheet music and reasonably reliable pianos were both within increasing reach of people in the growing middle classes as a result of technical progress in the Industrial Revolution (thanks to steam-driven printing presses and stronger steel string frames), even as such Romantic composers encouraged people to escape, at least temporarily and in their minds, from the pace and 'physicality' of just such technical advances. Amateur vocalists were very happy to do their party-piece from an opera or operetta, and one particular such 'number' became thoroughly typical: from ... by ... ?
  • Adolphe Adam
  • Michael William Balfe
  • Otto Nicolai
  • Ambroise Thomas
Q.10
This French Romantic composer is possibly best-remembered for interpolating a vocal line on top of Bach's from the , to the words of the . He wrote plenty of other music himself including opera, oratorio, ballet, masses, songs and chamber music; is a well-known, wistfully amusing and well-crafted example of his style as an instrumental miniaturist. Who was he?
  • Gabriel Pierne
  • Louis Vierne
  • Cesar Franck
  • Charles Gounod
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