Classical Composers

43 questions · Answers revealed below each question · Print this set

1.Which classical composer continued composing masterworks after losing his hearing?
- A. Ludwig van Beethoven
- B. Antonín Dvořák
- C. Aaron Copland
- D. Maurice Ravel
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Ludwig van Beethoven
Did you know? Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770 and later settled in Vienna.
2.Which classical composer earned the title Waltz King with dances like The Blue Danube?
- A. Camille Saint-Saëns
- B. Richard Wagner
- C. Johann Strauss II
- D. Dmitri Shostakovich
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Johann Strauss II
Did you know? Johann Strauss II was the son of a composer father who opposed his musical career.
3.Which classical composer was Europe's first touring piano superstar?
- A. Franz Liszt
- B. Franz Schubert
- C. Igor Stravinsky
- D. Sergei Prokofiev
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Franz Liszt
Did you know? Liszt was born in the Kingdom of Hungary and later took minor holy orders.
4.Which classical composer wrote almost exclusively for the piano?
- A. George Frideric Handel
- B. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- C. Giacomo Puccini
- D. Frédéric Chopin
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Frédéric Chopin
Did you know? Chopin was born near Warsaw and spent his adult career in Paris.
5.Which classical composer built his own opera house in Bayreuth for his four-opera Ring cycle?
- A. Richard Wagner
- B. Giuseppe Verdi
- C. Robert Schumann
- D. Aaron Copland
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Richard Wagner
Did you know? Wagner's Ring cycle takes more than fourteen hours to perform.
6.Which classical composer provoked a famous riot at the 1913 Paris premiere of The Rite of Spring?
- A. Niccolò Paganini
- B. Edward Elgar
- C. Maurice Ravel
- D. Igor Stravinsky
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Igor Stravinsky
Did you know? Stravinsky later became a naturalized French and then American citizen.
7.Which classical composer wrote the famous lullaby known as Brahms' Lullaby?
- A. Béla Bartók
- B. Aaron Copland
- C. Johannes Brahms
- D. Dmitri Shostakovich
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Johannes Brahms
Did you know? Brahms spent most of his career in Vienna, the city of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
8.Which classical composer was born in Salzburg in 1756 and was performing across Europe as a child?
- A. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- B. Giacomo Puccini
- C. Gabriel Fauré
- D. Frédéric Chopin
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Did you know? Mozart's final work, the Requiem, was left unfinished at his death.
9.Which classical composer is often called the Father of the Symphony?
- A. Johann Strauss II
- B. Johannes Brahms
- C. Joseph Haydn
- D. Gustav Holst
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Joseph Haydn
Did you know? Haydn spent decades as court composer for the Esterházy princes.
10.Which classical composer dominated Italian opera with works like La Traviata and Aida?
- A. Johann Strauss II
- B. Giuseppe Verdi
- C. Maurice Ravel
- D. Erik Satie
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Giuseppe Verdi
Did you know? Verdi's name became a patriotic acronym for Italians of his era.
11.Which classical composer composed the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker?
- A. Antonio Vivaldi
- B. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- C. Gioachino Rossini
- D. Aaron Copland
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Did you know? Tchaikovsky was the first Russian composer whose music found lasting international fame.
12.Which classical composer wrote beloved operas like La Bohème and Tosca?
- A. Giacomo Puccini
- B. Gioachino Rossini
- C. Johann Strauss II
- D. Antonín Dvořák
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Giacomo Puccini
Did you know? Puccini died in 1924 leaving his final opera Turandot unfinished.
13.Which classical composer was a Venetian priest known as the Red Priest and wrote The Four Seasons?
- A. Jean Sibelius
- B. Gustav Holst
- C. Antonio Vivaldi
- D. Claude Debussy
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Antonio Vivaldi
Did you know? Vivaldi taught music at a Venetian orphanage for girls.
14.Which classical composer worked as the church organist and choirmaster of Leipzig's Thomaskirche?
- A. Igor Stravinsky
- B. Johann Sebastian Bach
- C. Gabriel Fauré
- D. Franz Liszt
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Johann Sebastian Bach
Did you know? Bach fathered twenty children, several of whom also became composers.
15.Which classical composer settled in London and composed the oratorio Messiah?
- A. Ludwig van Beethoven
- B. Frédéric Chopin
- C. Gioachino Rossini
- D. George Frideric Handel
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George Frideric Handel
Did you know? Handel was born in Germany in 1685, the same year as Bach.
16.Which classical composer defined musical impressionism with works like Clair de Lune?
- A. Richard Wagner
- B. Claude Debussy
- C. Ludwig van Beethoven
- D. Gabriel Fauré
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Claude Debussy
Did you know? Debussy is buried in Paris's Père Lachaise cemetery.
17.Which classical composer composed the slow-building orchestral showpiece Boléro?
- A. Maurice Ravel
- B. Robert Schumann
- C. Giuseppe Verdi
- D. Giacomo Puccini
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Maurice Ravel
Did you know? Ravel was born near the Spanish border in the Basque town of Ciboure.
18.Which classical composer wrote more than six hundred songs, including Erlkönig?
- A. Jean Sibelius
- B. Franz Schubert
- C. Johannes Brahms
- D. Bedřich Smetana
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Franz Schubert
Did you know? Schubert was born and died in Vienna, never traveling far from the city.
19.Which classical composer left Russia after the 1917 revolution and built a career as a touring pianist?
- A. Johannes Brahms
- B. Sergei Rachmaninoff
- C. Bedřich Smetana
- D. Johann Sebastian Bach
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Sergei Rachmaninoff
Did you know? Rachmaninoff had famously large hands that shaped his piano writing.
20.Which classical composer composed West Side Story and also served as the New York Philharmonic's music director?
- A. Joseph Haydn
- B. Aaron Copland
- C. Antonín Dvořák
- D. Leonard Bernstein
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Leonard Bernstein
Did you know? Bernstein's Young People's Concerts brought classical music to American television.
21.Which classical composer gave American classical music its wide-open prairie sound in Appalachian Spring?
- A. Felix Mendelssohn
- B. Aaron Copland
- C. George Gershwin
- D. Gustav Mahler
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Aaron Copland
Did you know? Copland was born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrant parents.
22.Which classical composer revived Bach's St Matthew Passion in 1829 and sparked the Bach revival?
- A. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- B. Giuseppe Verdi
- C. George Gershwin
- D. Felix Mendelssohn
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Felix Mendelssohn
Did you know? Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg and founded the Leipzig Conservatory.
23.Which classical composer became Finland's national composer with Finlandia and seven symphonies?
- A. Robert Schumann
- B. Richard Wagner
- C. Béla Bartók
- D. Jean Sibelius
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Jean Sibelius
Did you know? Sibelius lived at his home Ainola near Lake Tuusula for over fifty years.
24.Which classical composer wrote the children's classic Peter and the Wolf?
- A. Erik Satie
- B. Claude Debussy
- C. Johann Strauss II
- D. Sergei Prokofiev
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Sergei Prokofiev
Did you know? Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union in the 1930s after years abroad.
25.Which classical composer was a celebrated conductor of the Vienna Court Opera while composing ten symphonies?
- A. Johann Sebastian Bach
- B. Gustav Mahler
- C. Ludwig van Beethoven
- D. Bedřich Smetana
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Gustav Mahler
Did you know? Mahler was born in Bohemia, in what is now the Czech Republic.
26.Which classical composer was a member of Russia's Mighty Handful circle of nationalist composers?
- A. Rimsky-Korsakov
- B. Georges Bizet
- C. Gioachino Rossini
- D. Frédéric Chopin
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Rimsky-Korsakov
Did you know? Rimsky-Korsakov's flight of the Bumblebee is a famous virtuoso showcase.
27.Which classical composer was so virtuosic that legends claimed he had sold his soul?
- A. Robert Schumann
- B. Niccolò Paganini
- C. Claude Debussy
- D. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Niccolò Paganini
Did you know? Paganini's 24 Caprices remain a rite of passage for violinists.
28.Which classical composer directed the National Conservatory of America in New York in the 1890s?
- A. Dmitri Shostakovich
- B. Antonín Dvořák
- C. Gustav Holst
- D. Felix Mendelssohn
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Antonín Dvořák
Did you know? Dvořák wrote his New World Symphony while living in the United States.
29.Which classical composer bridged jazz and classical music with Rhapsody in Blue?
- A. Joseph Haydn
- B. George Gershwin
- C. Felix Mendelssohn
- D. Claude Debussy
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George Gershwin
Did you know? Gershwin wrote the opera Porgy and Bess with his brother Ira as lyricist.
30.Which classical composer wrote quiet piano pieces he called Gymnopédies?
- A. Franz Liszt
- B. Gustav Mahler
- C. Antonio Vivaldi
- D. Erik Satie
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Erik Satie
Did you know? Satie nicknamed his own works furniture music.
31.Which classical composer worked under Soviet censorship with symphonies like the Leningrad?
- A. Erik Satie
- B. Johann Strauss II
- C. Camille Saint-Saëns
- D. Dmitri Shostakovich
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Dmitri Shostakovich
Did you know? Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony was performed in besieged Leningrad in 1942.
32.Which classical composer founded the influential New Journal of Music and married pianist Clara Wieck?
- A. Robert Schumann
- B. Felix Mendelssohn
- C. Joseph Haydn
- D. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Robert Schumann
Did you know? Robert Schumann abandoned plans to be a concert pianist after a hand injury.
33.Which classical composer filled Italian opera with comic sparkle in The Barber of Seville?
- A. Gioachino Rossini
- B. Robert Schumann
- C. Aaron Copland
- D. Felix Mendelssohn
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Gioachino Rossini
Did you know? Rossini retired from opera composition at thirty-seven and became a famous gourmet.
34.Which classical composer put Norwegian folk color into the Peer Gynt suites?
- A. Gioachino Rossini
- B. Maurice Ravel
- C. Béla Bartók
- D. Edvard Grieg
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Edvard Grieg
Did you know? Grieg's home in Bergen, Norway, is now a museum.
35.Which classical composer composed the Pomp and Circumstance march heard at countless graduations?
- A. Johann Strauss II
- B. Edward Elgar
- C. Giuseppe Verdi
- D. Sergei Prokofiev
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Edward Elgar
Did you know? Elgar worked as a violinist and church organist before his breakthrough.
36.Which classical composer composed the Pictures at an Exhibition suite and the opera Boris Godunov?
- A. Edvard Grieg
- B. Modest Mussorgsky
- C. Richard Wagner
- D. Johann Sebastian Bach
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Modest Mussorgsky
Did you know? Mussorgsky's only formal training in music came in childhood piano lessons.
37.Which classical composer recorded and used Hungarian folk melodies in works like Mikrokosmos?
- A. Modest Mussorgsky
- B. Béla Bartók
- C. Dmitri Shostakovich
- D. Giacomo Puccini
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Béla Bartók
Did you know? Bartók emigrated to the United States in 1940.
38.Which classical composer composed the seven-movement orchestral suite The Planets?
- A. Niccolò Paganini
- B. Béla Bartók
- C. Sergei Rachmaninoff
- D. Gustav Holst
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Gustav Holst
Did you know? Holst taught music at St Paul's Girls' School in London.
39.Which classical composer served as head of the Paris Conservatoire and wrote the Requiem?
- A. Sergei Rachmaninoff
- B. Maurice Ravel
- C. Claude Debussy
- D. Gabriel Fauré
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Gabriel Fauré
Did you know? Fauré's Sicilienne and Pavane remain salon favorites.
40.Which classical composer died three months after the premiere of his opera Carmen?
- A. Franz Liszt
- B. Benjamin Britten
- C. Georges Bizet
- D. George Gershwin
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Georges Bizet
Did you know? Carmen was set in Seville and initially shocked Paris audiences.
41.Which classical composer centered English opera in the twentieth century with Peter Grimes?
- A. Sergei Rachmaninoff
- B. Benjamin Britten
- C. Robert Schumann
- D. Gustav Holst
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Benjamin Britten
Did you know? Britten founded the Aldeburgh Festival on England's east coast.
42.Which classical composer is honored as the father of Czech music with the cycle Má vlast?
- A. Maurice Ravel
- B. Erik Satie
- C. Edvard Grieg
- D. Bedřich Smetana
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Bedřich Smetana
Did you know? Smetana wrote Má vlast after becoming completely deaf.
43.Which classical composer wrote the zoological parody suite The Carnival of the Animals?
- A. Camille Saint-Saëns
- B. Dmitri Shostakovich
- C. Richard Wagner
- D. Johannes Brahms
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Camille Saint-Saëns
Did you know? Saint-Saëns banned performances of Carnival of the Animals during his lifetime.

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