Classical Music Quiz
Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, Puccini: 15 questions on the pieces every concert hall plays and who wrote them.
Which composer wrote the piano piece known as the Moonlight Sonata?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven published his Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor in 1802, dedicating it to his pupil Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. The Moonlight nickname came only in 1832, when the critic Ludwig Rellstab compared the first movement to moonlight on Lake Lucerne.
Beethoven himself subtitled it Sonata quasi una fantasia and, according to his pupil Czerny, grumbled that it overshadowed better sonatas he had written.
Which composer wrote the opera The Magic Flute, with its famous Queen of the Night aria?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart composed The Magic Flute to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, and it premiered at Vienna's Theater auf der Wieden on 30 September 1791, just over two months before Mozart died at 35. The Queen of the Night's second aria climbs to a high F.
Schikaneder, who ran the theatre, wrote the libretto and sang the comic bird-catcher Papageno himself at the premiere.
Which composer wrote the ballet Swan Lake?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Tchaikovsky completed Swan Lake in 1876 and it premiered at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in 1877 to a lukewarm reception. The 1895 St Petersburg revival, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov after the composer's death, turned it into a cornerstone of the ballet repertoire.
The ballerina dancing the white swan Odette traditionally also plays the black swan Odile, whose 32 fouetté turns are one of ballet's most feared tests.
Ride of the Valkyries, blasted from helicopters in Apocalypse Now, opens the third act of an opera by which composer?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner wrote Ride of the Valkyries as the prelude to Act 3 of Die Walküre, the second opera of his four-part Ring cycle, first staged in Munich in 1870. Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film made it the soundtrack of a helicopter assault.
The complete Ring cycle runs about 15 hours over four evenings, and Wagner built the Bayreuth Festspielhaus specifically to stage it in 1876.
The six Brandenburg Concertos, presented to a German margrave in 1721, were composed by whom?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Bach dedicated the six concertos to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, in 1721 while working in Köthen. Each uses a different combination of solo instruments, and the margrave seems never to have had them performed; the manuscript sat unnoticed until 1849.
The first movement of Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 was chosen as the opening music track on the Voyager Golden Record launched into space in 1977.
Which composer wrote The Blue Danube, the waltz that drifts through the space station scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II, known as the Waltz King, wrote The Blue Danube in 1866 and it premiered in Vienna in February 1867, originally with a choral text. Stanley Kubrick used it in 1968 for the docking sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Vienna Philharmonic plays it every year as an encore of its televised New Year's Concert, followed by the Radetzky March by Strauss's father.
Handel's Hallelujah chorus comes from which of his oratorios?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Messiah
Handel composed Messiah in about 24 days in the summer of 1741, setting biblical texts compiled by Charles Jennens, and it premiered in Dublin in April 1742. The Hallelujah chorus closes Part Two, which covers the Passion and Resurrection.
The custom of audiences standing for the Hallelujah chorus is traditionally traced to King George II rising at a London performance, though no eyewitness account confirms it.
Frédéric Chopin spent his adult life in Paris, but in which country was he born?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Poland
Chopin was born in 1810 in Żelazowa Wola, a village near Warsaw, and grew up in the Polish capital before leaving for Vienna and Paris in 1830. His mazurkas and polonaises are built on Polish dance rhythms, and he never returned home.
After his death in Paris in 1849, Chopin's heart was smuggled to Warsaw by his sister and is sealed in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church.
In the Hall of the Mountain King, the creeping tune that speeds into a frenzy, was written by which composer for the play Peer Gynt?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Grieg wrote the incidental music for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, first staged in Christiania, now Oslo, in 1876. In the Hall of the Mountain King accompanies Peer's escape from the trolls, which is why it starts at a tiptoe and ends in chaos.
Grieg privately disliked the piece, writing that it reeked of cow pats and Norwegian self-satisfaction, yet it became his most recognised melody.
Nessun dorma, the tenor aria Luciano Pavarotti made a global hit during the 1990 World Cup, comes from which Puccini opera?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Turandot
Nessun dorma is sung by Prince Calaf in the final act of Turandot as he waits to learn whether the icy princess will discover his name. Puccini died in 1924 before finishing the opera; Franco Alfano completed it and it premiered at La Scala in 1926.
At the premiere, conductor Arturo Toscanini stopped the performance at the point where Puccini's own music ended and laid down his baton.
Which composer wrote Rhapsody in Blue, premiered in New York in 1924 with its wailing opening clarinet slide?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
George Gershwin
George Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue in a few weeks for bandleader Paul Whiteman's concert An Experiment in Modern Music at Aeolian Hall on 12 February 1924, playing the piano part himself. Ferde Grofé orchestrated it because Gershwin had little experience scoring for an ensemble.
The opening glissando began as a rehearsal joke by clarinettist Ross Gorman; Gershwin loved it and asked him to play it that way with as much wail as possible.
Which English composer wrote The Planets, the orchestral suite that opens with Mars, the Bringer of War?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst composed The Planets between 1914 and 1917, giving each of seven planets a movement based on its astrological character rather than astronomy. Earth is left out, and Pluto was not discovered until 1930, so the suite ends with Neptune's fading offstage choir.
The broad tune in the middle of Jupiter became the hymn I Vow to Thee, My Country in 1921, a pairing Holst's daughter Imogen felt cheapened the movement.
Dvořák's Ninth Symphony, written while he was living in the United States, is known by what nickname?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
From the New World
Dvořák composed the symphony in 1893 while directing the National Conservatory of Music in New York, and the New York Philharmonic premiered it at Carnegie Hall that December. He said African American spirituals and Native American melodies shaped its themes, though every note is his own.
Neil Armstrong took a tape recording of the New World Symphony to the Moon on the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.
The Canon in D, now a fixture at weddings, was written by which Baroque composer?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel, a German organist and a friend of the Bach family, wrote the Canon and Gigue for three violins and continuo sometime between about 1680 and 1706. Three violins enter in turn playing the same melody over a two-bar bass line that repeats 28 times.
The piece was all but forgotten until a slow, lush 1968 recording by Jean-François Paillard's chamber orchestra turned it into a worldwide favourite.
Mozart died in December 1791 leaving his Requiem unfinished. Which composer completed the score?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Franz Xaver Süssmayr
Franz Xaver Süssmayr, Mozart's assistant, finished the Requiem in 1792 after Joseph Eybler gave up, filling in the orchestration and composing the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei. Mozart's widow Constanze needed a complete work to collect the fee from the anonymous patron.
The patron was Count Franz von Walsegg, who had commissioned the Requiem in memory of his wife and apparently intended to pass it off as his own composition.
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All General Knowledge quizzes →About the Classical Music Quiz
Handel wrote Messiah in about 24 days. Rhapsody in Blue got its wailing clarinet opening from a rehearsal joke. Pachelbel's Canon was all but forgotten until a 1968 recording turned it into the world's favourite wedding music. Classical music is full of stories like these, and you do not need to read a score to enjoy them.
These 15 questions cover the composers behind the most famous symphonies, operas, ballets and concertos, from the Moonlight Sonata and Ride of the Valkyries to The Planets and the unfinished Requiem Mozart left behind. It suits film score fans who recognise the tunes, concert goers, music students and anyone who wants to put a name to the music they already know.
You will find 15 multiple choice questions here, each with four options. Difficulty: Hard. Most people finish in about 6 minutes, and every answer comes with a short explanation and one extra fact worth keeping.
How to play
Read the question and pick one of the four answers. The correct answer is revealed straight away with a short explanation, then press Next question to keep going. At the end you get your score out of 15 and a full review of your round. Play again any time and the questions arrive in a fresh order. There is no timer and no account.
Good to know before you play
Which composers feature in the classical music quiz?
Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Bach, Johann Strauss II, Handel, Chopin, Grieg, Puccini, Gershwin, Holst, Dvořák and Pachelbel, plus the man who finished Mozart's Requiem.
Is the quiz suitable for beginners?
Yes. The first questions cover pieces almost everyone has heard in films and adverts, and the explanations tell you the story behind each piece.
Does the quiz include opera?
Yes. It asks about The Magic Flute, Die Walküre and Turandot, home of Nessun dorma, alongside orchestral and piano works.
Answer key: all 15 questions with explanations
- Which composer wrote the piano piece known as the Moonlight Sonata?
Ludwig van Beethoven Beethoven published his Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor in 1802, dedicating it to his pupil Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. The Moonlight nickname came only in 1832, when the critic Ludwig Rellstab compared the first movement to moonlight on Lake Lucerne. Beethoven himself subtitled it Sonata quasi una fantasia and, according to his pupil Czerny, grumbled that it overshadowed better sonatas he had written. - Which composer wrote the opera The Magic Flute, with its famous Queen of the Night aria?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mozart composed The Magic Flute to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, and it premiered at Vienna's Theater auf der Wieden on 30 September 1791, just over two months before Mozart died at 35. The Queen of the Night's second aria climbs to a high F. Schikaneder, who ran the theatre, wrote the libretto and sang the comic bird-catcher Papageno himself at the premiere. - Which composer wrote the ballet Swan Lake?
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Tchaikovsky completed Swan Lake in 1876 and it premiered at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in 1877 to a lukewarm reception. The 1895 St Petersburg revival, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov after the composer's death, turned it into a cornerstone of the ballet repertoire. The ballerina dancing the white swan Odette traditionally also plays the black swan Odile, whose 32 fouetté turns are one of ballet's most feared tests. - Ride of the Valkyries, blasted from helicopters in Apocalypse Now, opens the third act of an opera by which composer?
Richard Wagner Richard Wagner wrote Ride of the Valkyries as the prelude to Act 3 of Die Walküre, the second opera of his four-part Ring cycle, first staged in Munich in 1870. Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film made it the soundtrack of a helicopter assault. The complete Ring cycle runs about 15 hours over four evenings, and Wagner built the Bayreuth Festspielhaus specifically to stage it in 1876. - The six Brandenburg Concertos, presented to a German margrave in 1721, were composed by whom?
Johann Sebastian Bach Bach dedicated the six concertos to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, in 1721 while working in Köthen. Each uses a different combination of solo instruments, and the margrave seems never to have had them performed; the manuscript sat unnoticed until 1849. The first movement of Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 was chosen as the opening music track on the Voyager Golden Record launched into space in 1977. - Which composer wrote The Blue Danube, the waltz that drifts through the space station scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Johann Strauss II Johann Strauss II, known as the Waltz King, wrote The Blue Danube in 1866 and it premiered in Vienna in February 1867, originally with a choral text. Stanley Kubrick used it in 1968 for the docking sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Vienna Philharmonic plays it every year as an encore of its televised New Year's Concert, followed by the Radetzky March by Strauss's father. - Handel's Hallelujah chorus comes from which of his oratorios?
Messiah Handel composed Messiah in about 24 days in the summer of 1741, setting biblical texts compiled by Charles Jennens, and it premiered in Dublin in April 1742. The Hallelujah chorus closes Part Two, which covers the Passion and Resurrection. The custom of audiences standing for the Hallelujah chorus is traditionally traced to King George II rising at a London performance, though no eyewitness account confirms it. - Frédéric Chopin spent his adult life in Paris, but in which country was he born?
Poland Chopin was born in 1810 in Żelazowa Wola, a village near Warsaw, and grew up in the Polish capital before leaving for Vienna and Paris in 1830. His mazurkas and polonaises are built on Polish dance rhythms, and he never returned home. After his death in Paris in 1849, Chopin's heart was smuggled to Warsaw by his sister and is sealed in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church. - In the Hall of the Mountain King, the creeping tune that speeds into a frenzy, was written by which composer for the play Peer Gynt?
Edvard Grieg Edvard Grieg wrote the incidental music for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, first staged in Christiania, now Oslo, in 1876. In the Hall of the Mountain King accompanies Peer's escape from the trolls, which is why it starts at a tiptoe and ends in chaos. Grieg privately disliked the piece, writing that it reeked of cow pats and Norwegian self-satisfaction, yet it became his most recognised melody. - Nessun dorma, the tenor aria Luciano Pavarotti made a global hit during the 1990 World Cup, comes from which Puccini opera?
Turandot Nessun dorma is sung by Prince Calaf in the final act of Turandot as he waits to learn whether the icy princess will discover his name. Puccini died in 1924 before finishing the opera; Franco Alfano completed it and it premiered at La Scala in 1926. At the premiere, conductor Arturo Toscanini stopped the performance at the point where Puccini's own music ended and laid down his baton. - Which composer wrote Rhapsody in Blue, premiered in New York in 1924 with its wailing opening clarinet slide?
George Gershwin George Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue in a few weeks for bandleader Paul Whiteman's concert An Experiment in Modern Music at Aeolian Hall on 12 February 1924, playing the piano part himself. Ferde Grofé orchestrated it because Gershwin had little experience scoring for an ensemble. The opening glissando began as a rehearsal joke by clarinettist Ross Gorman; Gershwin loved it and asked him to play it that way with as much wail as possible. - Which English composer wrote The Planets, the orchestral suite that opens with Mars, the Bringer of War?
Gustav Holst Gustav Holst composed The Planets between 1914 and 1917, giving each of seven planets a movement based on its astrological character rather than astronomy. Earth is left out, and Pluto was not discovered until 1930, so the suite ends with Neptune's fading offstage choir. The broad tune in the middle of Jupiter became the hymn I Vow to Thee, My Country in 1921, a pairing Holst's daughter Imogen felt cheapened the movement. - Dvořák's Ninth Symphony, written while he was living in the United States, is known by what nickname?
From the New World Dvořák composed the symphony in 1893 while directing the National Conservatory of Music in New York, and the New York Philharmonic premiered it at Carnegie Hall that December. He said African American spirituals and Native American melodies shaped its themes, though every note is his own. Neil Armstrong took a tape recording of the New World Symphony to the Moon on the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. - The Canon in D, now a fixture at weddings, was written by which Baroque composer?
Johann Pachelbel Johann Pachelbel, a German organist and a friend of the Bach family, wrote the Canon and Gigue for three violins and continuo sometime between about 1680 and 1706. Three violins enter in turn playing the same melody over a two-bar bass line that repeats 28 times. The piece was all but forgotten until a slow, lush 1968 recording by Jean-François Paillard's chamber orchestra turned it into a worldwide favourite. - Mozart died in December 1791 leaving his Requiem unfinished. Which composer completed the score?
Franz Xaver Süssmayr Franz Xaver Süssmayr, Mozart's assistant, finished the Requiem in 1792 after Joseph Eybler gave up, filling in the orchestration and composing the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei. Mozart's widow Constanze needed a complete work to collect the fee from the anonymous patron. The patron was Count Franz von Walsegg, who had commissioned the Requiem in memory of his wife and apparently intended to pass it off as his own composition.
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