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This orchestra trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the whole ensemble, from the concertmaster's chair to the back row of the percussion. There are questions on the instruments (which one gives the tuning A, which is the only string tuned in fourths, what a Wagner tuba actually is), on conductors and how the baton came to be, on the great orchestras of Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, London and New York, and on the pieces that show the orchestra off, from Peter and the Wolf and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra to Boléro, the 1812 Overture and Haydn's Farewell Symphony. It suits a music-school social, a classical radio quiz or a general trivia night that wants one round for the culture vultures. Difficulty runs from easy questions about the string family to expert ones about Mahler premieres and pitch standards. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia and cited on the question, so you can see where each fact comes from.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which instrument traditionally plays the note to which the whole orchestra tunes?
The oboe
Its pitch is stable and its penetrating tone carries, and the custom is about 300 years old.
Q 02To what frequency is the tuning A set under the international standard?
440 Hz
Highland pipe bands play well above it, around 470 to 480 Hz, closer to a B-flat.
Q 03How many main sections does a typical symphony orchestra have?
Four
The strings are the fourth and by far the largest group.
Q 04The word 'orchestra' comes from the Greek name for what?
The area in front of a stage where the chorus performed
'Philharmonic' is Greek too, meaning 'loving harmony'.
Q 05What is the leader of the first violins, who sits to the conductor's left, called in the United States?
The concertmaster
In the UK the same player is simply called the leader.
Q 06A chamber orchestra is generally no bigger than about how many musicians?
Fifty
Wagner and Mahler, by contrast, wrote for orchestras of up to 120 players.
Q 07Which composer's symphony finale with a bass double-reed, trombones, chorus and soloists first stretched the orchestra?
Beethoven
His Ninth also asked for a second pair of horns, and four horns became standard afterwards.
Q 08Which composer is claimed to be the first to conduct with a wooden baton?
Felix Mendelssohn
Boulez, Stokowski and Kurt Masur were among the famous conductors who did without one.
Q 09Which Baroque composer died after striking his own toe with the heavy staff he used to beat time?
Jean-Baptiste Lully
He was conducting a Te Deum in 1687 to celebrate Louis XIV's recovery from illness.
Q 10In the Baroque era, orchestras were often led not by a conductor but by whom?
The harpsichordist or first violin
Some early-music ensembles still work that way today.
Q 11Which 18th-century court orchestra did Charles Burney praise as 'an army of generals'?
Mannheim
Johann Stamitz is regarded as the school's founder.
Q 12Which is the only modern bowed string instrument in the orchestra tuned in fourths rather than fifths?
The double bass
Its open strings, E-A-D-G, are the same as a bass guitar's.
Q 13Which orchestral instrument's music is written mainly in the alto clef?
The viola
It is tuned a fifth below the violin, to C, G, D and A.
Q 14The word 'cello' is short for violoncello, which in Italian means what?
Q 21The celesta, heard in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, was invented in 1886 by whom?
Auguste Mustel
Though technically percussion, in the orchestra it is treated as a keyboard instrument.
Q 22In Peter and the Wolf, which instrument represents the wolf?
Three horns
Prokofiev wrote it in 1936 for the Central Children's Theatre in Moscow.
Q 23In Peter and the Wolf, which instrument plays the duck?
The oboe
The bird is the flute, the cat the clarinet and the grandfather the bassoon.
Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is built on a theme by which composer?
Little big viol
Like the double bass it rests on an endpin, a spike that sits on the floor.
Q 15How many pedals does a concert harp have?
Seven
Sébastien Erard patented the double-action pedal system in 1811, and harpists were among the first women hired by professional orchestras.
Q 16The cor anglais is pitched a perfect fifth below which instrument?
The oboe
It is neither English nor a horn, and oboists usually double on it.
Q 17The contrabassoon sounds how far below the ordinary bassoon?
An octave
A Tulsa Symphony player has designed a 'subcontrabassoon' a full octave lower still.
Q 18The Wagner tuba, despite its name, is usually played by members of which section?
The horns
Wagner commissioned it for the Ring cycle to bridge the gap between horns and trombones.
Q 19Which piston-and-rotary invention of 1815 transformed the brass section?
The valve
Berlioz then wrote the first systematic treatise on orchestration.
Q 20Timpani bowls are traditionally made of which metal?
Copper
Modern pedal timpani can be retuned mid-piece with the foot.
Henry Purcell
The theme is a rondeau from Purcell's Abdelazer suite, and the piece was written for an educational film.
Q 25In Britten's Young Person's Guide, which small instrument starts the closing fugue?
The piccolo
The theme is first played by the full orchestra, then by woodwinds, brass, strings and percussion in turn.
Q 26How many times is the snare-drum rhythm repeated in Ravel's Boléro?
169
Ravel told a friend he wanted to repeat one theme without development while gradually swelling the orchestra.
Q 27Which dancer commissioned Boléro in 1928?
Ida Rubinstein
She had originally asked for an orchestration of Albéniz piano pieces.
Q 28Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture is best known for its climactic use of what?
Cannon fire
Indoors the cannons are often replaced by a bass drum, tam-tam or a mallet on staging.
Q 29How long did Tchaikovsky take to write the 1812 Overture?
Six weeks
It was premiered under a tent beside the unfinished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
Q 30In Haydn's Farewell Symphony, what do the players do one by one during the final adagio?
Snuff their candles and leave
It was a hint to Prince Esterházy that the musicians wanted to go home to their wives; the court left the next day.