Named Symphonies Quiz

Work	Name/nickname	Year
Haydn 45		1772
Mozart 31		1778
Mozart 38		1786
Mozart 41		1788
Haydn 94		1791
Haydn 103		1795
Beethoven 3		1803
Schubert 8		1822
Beethoven 9		1824
Schubert 9		1827
Berlioz, op. 14		1830
Mendelssohn 4		1837
Schumann 1		1841
Mendelssohn 3		1842
Tchaikovsky 1		1866

Work	Name/nickname	Year
Tchaikovsky 6		1893
Dvořák 9		1893
Mahler 2		1894
Mahler 8		1907
Vaughan Williams 1		1909
Nielsen 4		1916
Prokofiev 1		1917
Stravinsky		1930
Hindemith		1934
Shostakovich 7		1941
Messiaen		1948
Vaughan Williams 7		1952
Shostakovich 13		1962
Gorecki 3		1976
Glass 4		1996

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There are 36 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

Named Symphonies Quiz

by davidr

Created Nov 14, 2008 in Music
Featured Nov 14, 2008
Game Plays 13,475

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	hi19hi19:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 04:56 GMT		5 points
	I only knew Eroica. This is a hard one!

	MrEnglishman:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 08:00 GMT		4 points
	I was surprised there weren't more Haydn symphonies - Military, Clock, London, - even the weirdly-named Trout, Bear, Hen, Schoolmaster and Palindrome symphonies!

	davidr:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 09:36 GMT		5 points
	I didn't want to overload it with Haydn so I just chose three fairly well-known ones. But there's plenty of scope for a Haydn symphonies quiz if people would be interested.

	iurewhiuerw:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 09:48 GMT		3 points
	Great quiz! Only remembered one though :-S and only recognised a few others when the time was up...better go listen to some of them now to jog my memory (or lack of it) would the haydn symhonies quiz go symphony 1, symphony 2, symphony 3... ;-)

	OwenHerring:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 09:50 GMT		2 points
	RVW 7 isn't spelt like that - there is only one c in it. And a lot of these aren't 'nicknames', they're names the composer gave to them (Stravinsky, Messiaen, RVW 1 and 7 and more). Oh, and several of Hindemith's symphonies have names, took a while to work out which one was wanted. I don't know a Trout Symphony by anyone - and I know all of Haydn's.

	OwenHerring:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 09:51 GMT		2 points
	Sorry, take that stuff about the names back - didn't read the header properly.

	Bethannie:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 10:34 GMT		3 points
	I managed 8....and I'm proud of that!

	Edu:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 11:29 GMT		4 points
	Just got two... Pathétique ;)

	Chris156:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 12:28 GMT		1 point
	I got 1 (New World) and I've never heard of any of the others. Could this be the hardest quiz on Sporcle?!

	Ribhump:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 12:35 GMT		2 points
	got 7 (using all my will to not put in random european capitals and nationalities), although as you don't have saint-saens it may be nice to include the "organ" symphony (no.3) from him.

	davidr:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 13:53 GMT		2 points
	@Owen H.: You're right about RVW 7, though lots of sources have two c's (including the Wikipedia article, which can't make its mind up and uses both spellings). I'll get that fixed. I think 1934 pins Hindermith down to just one symphony (likewise, 1930 for Stravinsky), though I accept that it's more likely that somebody will know a symphony's number than its date of composition. Blame the composers for not numbering them! ;-) And perhaps Simon H. is thinking of Schubert's `Trout' Quintet?

	davidr:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 13:58 GMT		3 points
	@Ribhump: My reason for not including Saint-Seans 3 is that I feel that the term `Organ' is just a description rather than a real name. On the other hand, I included Beethoven 9, to which I would raise the same objection. Oh well.

	davidr:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 14:03 GMT		2 points
	@Chris: As I write this, it's ranked as the fifth-hardest after Banned Books, TV Twosomes, Mark Twain and Retired Hurricanes: http://www.sporcle.com/games/difficulty.php Hmm, only two of mine in the `top' twenty. Obviously, I'm being too soft on you all. ;-)

	Txagsforever:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 14:38 GMT		0 points
	I woke up with some quiz ideas. How about college traditions, such as the 12 man, dotting the 'i', and howard's rock. Also you can do the monty python cast members.

	OwenHerring:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 17:58 GMT		2 points
	@davidr - must have done this with my eyes shut - I didn't notice the years either. And sorry, but I found it just too easy. (Specialist subject).

	ElDavo:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 19:00 GMT		0 points
	I'm not into this sort of music. Maybe I should've gotten more than 0, but after looking at the answers I truly didn't know any of these.

	davidr:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 19:06 GMT		1 point
	@Owen H.: I'm glad somebody found it easy! So far, it looks like there have been only four perfect scores (0.7% of 575). Anyway, how come your name's Owen and not Albert? ;-)

	EWilson:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 20:41 GMT		1 point
	I got all but 3, which I attribute to it being late Friday afternoon. (The Glass is the only one I didn't actually know.) It didn't accept either "Winter Dreams" or "Winter Reveries" for Tchaikovsky's 1st, which should be fixed since you'd find that title on most album covers.

	EWilson:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 20:43 GMT		3 points
	By the way, I like that you included the Nielsen 4th, though it would have been amusing if you only accepted the DANISH title for it---Uudslukkelige

	davidr:	Nov 14th, 2008 at 21:05 GMT		2 points
	@EWilson: Not sure about `most' - I just checked on Amazon.co.uk and found nineteen `Daydreams', nine `Dreams' and no `Reveries' in the first fifty hits for `Tchaikovsky Symphony 1' (not all of which, obviously, were relevant). Anyway, they clearly are alternative names that I wasn't aware of so I'll get the ad(d)mins to add them. Thanks for mentioning it. As for Danish, I'm not sure it would have significantly decreased the number of people who got that answer. ;-)

	OwenHerring:	Nov 15th, 2008 at 07:08 GMT		2 points
	@davidr - Albert Wingrave is my evil twin.

	Kamara853:	Nov 19th, 2008 at 18:15 GMT		0 points
	Good gosh this was hard...

	raggedyanne:	Nov 21st, 2008 at 12:22 GMT		2 points
	I knew going into this quiz that I'd suck at it and I didn't disappoint. Well done to the author.

	EWilson:	Nov 21st, 2008 at 14:53 GMT		1 point
	I'm thinking a good quiz would be to name a symphony in every key. I'm not sure how you'd do it, though, since there are tons of symphonies in C Major. It'd be much easier for keys like F#.

	davidr:	Jan 7th, 2009 at 12:34 GMT		1 point
	@EWilson: But then the quiz software would have to know, essentially, every symphony ever written. And it would be really boring to sit there typing "Haydn 1", "Haydn 2", "Haydn 3", ... So it's an interesting idea but I don't think it could be made to work.

	ishowell:	Jul 7th, 2009 at 14:36 GMT		2 points
	my music history professor would be ashamed of me, especially for missing one of the mendelssohns. Sorry dr. strasser.

	buppyspek:	Jul 24th, 2009 at 15:36 GMT		2 points
	I was a music major. I scored horribly on this quiz. My music history professor gave a fantastic lecture on Beethoven's 9th, but I couldn't for the life of me come up with a nickname for it. Should have known it would be something os simple. That lecture was the best lecture I've ever heard. Runner-up goes to the same professor's lecture on Don Giovanni.

	jen7074:	Sep 2nd, 2009 at 13:18 GMT		2 points
	Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms is not a symphony. It is a choral work, unlike Beethoven's 9th which is a symphony with choral parts in the 4th movement.

	Chromatos:	Sep 26th, 2009 at 13:05 GMT		0 points
	You should be more specific about the Hindemith "symphony". Hindemith wrote several pieces he entitled a "symphony". Mathis der Maler is more a collection of themes from the opera of the same name (as is Die Harmonie der Welt). The Symphonia Serena would fit the description more accurately.

	davidr:	Mar 11th, 2010 at 21:14 GMT		1 point
	@Chromatos: I was more specific about the Hindmith symphony: I gave the date of publication. Neither the Symphonia Serena nor Die Harmonie der Welt was written in 1934, so neither can be the answer. I accept that people don't know the dates of composition but I do think that Mathis der Maler is the best known of Hindemith's works entitled `symphony'.

	ButtercupSausage:	Apr 19th, 2010 at 14:47 GMT		2 points
	Enjoyed the quiz, but would have liked "Sea" accepted for RVW 1.

	melomania:	May 11th, 2010 at 03:19 GMT		1 point
	Too bad Stravinsky had more than one symphony.

	eyhung:	May 11th, 2010 at 11:45 GMT		1 point
	I wanted "Sea" and "Babi Yar" to be accepted, but they weren't.

	14111184:	Jan 26th, 2011 at 16:54 GMT		0 points
	Please add on some Mozart symphonies. You only had three Mozart symphonies and three Haydn symphonies, so I would like to have some more. I also think you should cut symphonies 3 and 9 by Beethoven. Other than that, this was a good quiz.

	Waterice_Man:	Jul 13th, 2011 at 13:29 GMT		1 point
	Without realising that this quiz existed, created my own one, which is more comprehensive, listing, for instance, all of Haydn's named symphonies. http://www.sporcle.com/games/Waterice_Man/common-names-of-symphonies

	spoiler141:	Aug 15th, 2011 at 16:43 GMT		1 point
	Got 20/30! I failed to spell Turangalîla correctly (I entered "Tarangulila"). Endorse comment that "sea" ought to be acceptable for VW 1. Otherwise, an EXCELLENT quiz.