Quiz.

Started by Irons, January 19, 2019, 11:54:09 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

Jo498

I only understood the supplementary hint after I solved it.

This composer also had to emigrate. She is virtually unknown (I have never encountered any of her music) but her family's history if fairly well known, mostly because her husband and daughter were somewhat famous in two fields other than music. Her son also distinguished himself in still another field.
Name as many family members as possible.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Florestan

Quote from: Ken B on March 13, 2019, 05:32:41 PM
Ahh, you fell into the trap!
In the first we see a wrap and the second one we see blue
So Gershwin.

;)

I gotta say Ken, San Antone's answer fits your clue better than yours does!  ;D
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

ritter

Quote from: Jo498 on March 14, 2019, 01:16:39 AM
I only understood the supplementary hint after I solved it.
I still don't understand it  :-[

Jo498

Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal


Florestan

#885
Quote from: Jo498 on March 14, 2019, 01:16:39 AM
This composer also had to emigrate. She is virtually unknown

Then how on earth are we supposed to identify her? Google "virtually unknown female composers", I guess. ;D

We need more hints. Did she emigrate for political reasons or because of her ethnicity? Some indications about her time and place woudl be nice as well.  ;)
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Biffo

Quote from: Florestan on March 14, 2019, 03:47:27 AM
Then how on earth are we supposed to identify her? Google "virtually unknown female composers", I guess. ;D

You have lots of clues. Her family has a 'fairly well known history' and her husband and daughter were 'somewhat famous' in fields other than music (that narrows it down greatly)

Florestan

Quote from: Biffo on March 14, 2019, 04:13:18 AM
You have lots of clues. Her family has a 'fairly well known history' and her husband and daughter were 'somewhat famous' in fields other than music (that narrows it down greatly)

Yes, surely, I can think of, what, about two dozens fields other than music?  :D
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Jo498

Yes, one will never find the composer without the family. (But this was similar with the purple rose of Mexico question above.)

Here is one more clue that will make it probably too easy for some. The daughter is still alive (in her 90s) and the family's fate is probably best known through a series of books she wrote (so the daughter is, among other things, a writer). But the husband of the composer to be found was overall the most prominent member of the family, albeit in a more ephemeric field.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Florestan

Quote from: Jo498 on March 14, 2019, 04:34:13 AM
The daughter is still alive (in her 90s)

Thanks. Born around 1930 --- that would place the composer's year of birth around 1900.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Jo498

Close enough, although the still living daughter was born closer to 1920 than 1930. The husband was about 30 years older than the wife, he was also a writer of sorts, cf. the description of his trade above.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Florestan

Quote from: Jo498 on March 14, 2019, 04:51:51 AM
Close enough, although the still living daughter was born closer to 1920 than 1930. The husband was about 30 years older than the wife, he was also a writer of sorts, cf. the description of his trade above.

More ephemerical than a writer proper --- journalist?
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

mc ukrneal

I find most of the composer questions quite difficult and not easy as some of you have implied. It's only easy if you know the answer. And please remember that many people might follow the thread for the answers, so there is a lot of potential learning going on. I know more  about musical compositions  because I have focused on that over the lives of the composers, so I have a better chance of knowing those. So please be kind.
Be kind to your fellow posters!!

Jo498

The husband was best known in a certain field out journalism where he was the most famous and feared in his time and place, but apparently he also wrote poems and other stuff. Despite his prominence I think that many people younger than ca. 50 (but this depends on the country they grew up in) would know of the family mainly through one book of the still living daughter.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Florestan

#894
Quote from: Jo498 on March 14, 2019, 05:39:04 AM
The husband was best known in a certain field out journalism where he was the most famous and feared in his time and place, but apparently he also wrote poems and other stuff.

A critic, apparently. Fashion? Literary?

A hint about the place would be most helpful.

Quote
Despite his prominence I think that many people younger than ca. 50 (but this depends on the country they grew up in) would know of the family mainly through one book of the still living daughter.

In my case (younger than 50, grew up in Romania) that remains to be verified.  :)
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Christo

Quote from: Florestan on March 14, 2019, 06:06:56 AM
A critic, apparently. Fashion? Literary?

A hint about the place would be most helpful.
Seconded. I checked hundreds of feared critics & their famous daughters of all Sudan, Paraguay, and New Zealand, but alas.
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

Jo498

O.k. there are not really dozens of countries with a sufficiently large population and literary/theatre scene that a homme de lettres can become a prominent public intellectual with critic as a main job. From how many of these countries did people have to emigrate in the 1930s? Still a dozen options? probably not...
And how many who emigrated as children wrote moderately famous books about it? There are probably still a few options but if one takes the intersection it should narrow it down quite a bit.

And sorry, it probably does not help to be Romanian. The somewhat famous book seems best known in English (original) and German.

Last hint, although this probably will not help because it is even more obscure. The son of the composer and the critic, brother of the writer, achieved an uncommon distinction in the country the family emigrated to. He had a successful career in a non-artistic field and held a certain public office and supposedly was the first person in that position not born on home soil since the high middle ages.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Christo

Quote from: Jo498 on March 14, 2019, 06:44:52 AMFrom how many of these countries did people have to emigrate in the 1930s?
That helps a lot - because how could we know they were forced to leave in the 1930s - and spoke German???  ;D
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

Jo498

You could know this by "triangulation". Daughter in her 90s now, mother born around 1900, father ca. 30 years older. Emigrated as a family, so probably not when the daughter was 25 but the daughter must have been old enough to remember so she could write books about it. This basically leaves the 30s and 40s. One can go with the most probable in a quiz without being certain, that's actually kind of the point, I'd have thought.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Florestan

Quote from: Jo498 on March 14, 2019, 07:05:26 AM
Emigrated as a family

This doesn't follow logically from your original post, sorry.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini