oscar@utcsrgv.UUCP (Oscar M. Nierstrasz) (06/14/84)
This quiz comes courtesy of Steve Hull, all the way from the land of
retsina and feta cheese. (It is a followup to an earlier quiz
concerning the curious ways in which some composers have chosen to
die.) If he ever send me the answers, I'll post them.
Oscar Nierstrasz
ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS COURTESY OF ME (ariadne!tugs)
1. What composer died from gangrene, which infected his big toe after he
smashed it with a wooden staff he was using to keep time for his orchestra?
2. This composer was a very devout Jew who kept his copy of the Talmud on
the top shelf of the bookcase, so that it would be higher than any other
book. When he tried to take it down one day, the bookcase fell over and
killed him.
3. Name three composers, alive in the first half of the 19th century, who
had a venereal disease (it is fairly certain) which was at least a
contributing factor in their deaths.
4. This composer died of a brain ailment which affected him in such a way
that for the last five years of his life, though he could think and
compose in his head perfectly well, was unable to communicate or record
his music -- truly a terrifying torture for a composer.
5. Finally, a real-life soap opera. This composer, very ill and with a
wife and young child to support, struggles to finish his opera in order
to get the money to go on. He knows the strain is killing him, but he
does what he must. He dies, penniless, after completing the opera. It
opens and is an incredible success -- one of the most popular ever written.
Name the composer and the opera.
steve @ decvax!mcvax!ariadne!tugs