30Q #67

[Shapley]

Awake! For the foot is in the other shoe!
And the time is right for a 30 Q!
Lo! Seek the answers, no or yes!
Ask your questions and take a guess.

Some clues to get the guessing started,
The composer is alive, or is long departed.
Sometime after Christ the composer was born,
the piece was composed prior to yesterday morn.

A solo instrument? Perhaps, or no.
Perhaps a cello or a piccolo.
Perhaps a piano, I will not say,
the work may require an orchestra to play.

A chorus to sing, or voices lacking?
A lovely soprano with violin backing?
A baritone deep, a tenor singing?
Perhaps it's only the church bells ringing!

A harpsichord? Or perhaps a harp?
Played in B minor, or F sharp?
A familiar work, or a piece obscure?
Only by asking will you know for sure!

[bignaf]

try F sharp instead of A sharp. I never saw a piece in A sharp.

was piece composed prior to the belgian revolution?

[dai bread]

Middle Eastern composer?

More seriously, does the work relate to the Middle East in any way?

Come, spin the disc, and in the Music's sound
The Winter garment of Repentance doff.
A choir, perhaps, or maybe solo voice
Against a band- and lo! the questions' on the wing.

Yes, I do rather like the Red Hat of Omar the Tentmaker, especially in Fitzgerald's translation.

[Shapley]

1) In 1830, in Brussels did sprout,
a revolution to throw the Calvinists out.
It started at an opera, which may somehow fit,
this work, however, had already been writ.


(Thanks for the F-shart tip.
I've now made repairs to it.
An emberassing blunder that is true,
my lack of knowledge shows right through!)

[Shapley]

2) While the piece in mind is an aural feast.
The composer is not from the Middle East.
And since you've added the smiley with a wink,
I'll throw that question down the sink.

2 reprise) 'Tis Quatrains, true, but alas I am
in no way as capable as the great Khayyam.
No allegience has this work I've found
To Persia or it's immediate surround.

[bignaf]

this is pretty good! I liked the sprouts...

was the piece composed before Salieri's birth?

[Shapley]

3) The eighteenth century was half-way done
when Francesco Salieri fathered his more famous son
in Legnago, Italy, it is supposed.
At that time, this work was not yet composed.

[dai bread]

Does opera fill the waiting air with noise?
Or maybe on a podium is pois'd
A conductor, baton raised, his orchestra alone to play
And make what music still I cannot say.

Perhaps a chamber group plays on
And fills the hall with sound of violon.
Or do four kindred spirits talk among themselves
Of tunes and airs; perhaps of sprites and elves?

Meanwhile, our composer paces,
Score in hand, a dozen paces
East of the Rhine? Does that great stream
run past his household portal beam?

[shostakovich]

All wax poetic. Farewell to prose.
And only Shap the known known knows.
If truth be told, I have no clue.
Poor rhymer am I. My hat's off to you.

[bignaf]

I hope Shap understands Dai's questions, because I don't!

[Shapley]

4) Is is an opera? Dai's question chimes,
as I discern from reading his rhymes.
With performers above, and orchestra below,
alas, I tell you the answer is 'no'.

5) Does an orchestra alone perform the piece?
The next question his rhyming does release.
With conductor conducting from his pedastal,
I answer yes, it is orchestral.

5a) Of a chamber group, the preceeding will show,
the answer there must necessarily be 'no'.
Likewise the answer to the simple quartet.
We're closer now, but we've no solution, yet.

6) The great river flows, and on her Eastern banks
the composers household was among the ranks.
Vast vinyards produce there some mighty fine wine,
The composer did live on the East of the Rhine.

And to Shos I take my hat off,
For poetically his hat to me he doth doff.
But if there a question is to be found in his rhyme,
I'm afraid that it eludes this cranium of mine.

V/R
Shapley

[bignaf]

was it composed before the death of Pope Innocent XXII?

[Shapley]

An interesting question, for per this list
Pope Innocent XXII did not exist.
Thus I'll not assign that question a number,
and now I think I'll head off to slumber.

[bignaf]

ummm, extra x. I meant innocent XII

[Shapley]

The self-same year the eighteenth century started,
Pope Innocent XII from his life departed.
In a splendid tomb he took his final repose
before this work the composer did compose.

[bignaf]

is the composer German?

[Shapley]

If anyone looked on my Rhine answer and read it,
before I made my final edit,
I apologize if confusion I've wrought
the correct answer was not what I thought.

[Shapley]

Is the composer a German? You ask.
And now in glory you can certainly bask.
The final question I'll answer tonight,
is affirmative, you got that one right!

[bignaf]

Does the family name of the composer mean brook in German?

[Shapley]

9) Does the composer's name mean 'brook'?
I had go to Google and take a look.
'Bach' means 'brook', composer of music fine,
but the answer to question nine is 'nein'.