Many thanks for all those who took the trouble to enter our 2022 Christmas Quiz — and the entries certainly showed that there were quite few people who could go on Mastermind with brass banding as a specialised subject.
Winner
The winner was John Atkinson of Darwen who will be donating the Besson Prodige cornet and assorted goodies to the Longridge Youth and Training Band.
He told 4BR: "It was a great quiz — and I felt a little bit of a nerd trying to work out all the answers. The instrument will be well used I'm sure."
4BR will be making arrangements with Band Supplies and Buffet Crampon to get the prize to John as soon as possible.
The answers
These were the answers…
1. What surname links the inventor of the Christmas Cracker, the three-time winning conductor of the British Open in the 1850s and the principal cornet player of the current Brass in Concert Champion?
Answer: Smith
Tom Smith is credited with inventing the Christmas Cracker (although not the terrible jokes usually found in them) in 1947. Richard Smith led Leeds Railway to British Open win in 1854 and 1856 as well as Leeds Smith's in 1857. Tom Smith (no relation to the Christmas Cracker inventor we think) is the principal cornet of Brighouse & Rastrick — winners of the 20222 Brass in Concert title.
2. What's the link between Prof Philip Wilby's latest major test-piece to a 1960s fictional crime buster played by Roger Moore, the player who scored the winning goal in the 1965 FA Cup Final and the set-work for the 2004 European Brass Band Championships?
Answer: Saints
Prof Wilby's European test-piece was called 'Saints Triumphant', whilst Roger Moore played Simon Templar — 'The Saint' — in the 1960 television series. Ian St John scored the winning goal in the 1965 FA Cup Final and Kenneth Downie wrote 'St Magnus' for the 2004 European Championships.
3. What surname links a former 1970's President of the United States of America, with the original 1970s television series 'Wonder Woman', with an actor who played both a butler in Downton Abbey as well as the conductor who led Grimley Colliery Band to success on stage in the film 'Brassed Off!"?
Answer: Carter
The 39th President of the USA was Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), the original television 'Wonder Woman' was played by Linda Carter, and the actor Jim Carter played both the butler, Mr Carson' and the euphonium player, Harry, who led Grimley Colliery Band to National success in 'Brassed Off! as Pete Postlethwaite (Danny Ormondroyd) listened by the side of the band.
4. Which English Premiership football team has a Cornet player in its squad?
Answer: West Ham United
Gnaly Albert Maxwel Cornet is the Ivorian winger who plays for West Ham United.
5. Which Norwegian brass band and former European champion celebrated its 100th anniversary in November 2022?
Answer: Manger Musikklag
6. Which European Championship set-work is inspired by a half human, half monster character from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'?
Answer: 'Caliban' by Arthur Butterworth was used in 1980
7. What major title did 18-year-old Jordan Ashman win in 2022?
Answer: BBC Young Musician of the Year
8. What title did Swiss-Italian Boris Oppliger win in 2022?
Answer: Brass Band Conductors Association Conducting Prize
9. What title did Festival Brass win for the first time since 2008 this year?
Answer: Championship Section of the Belgian National Championships
10. In what year did the National Championships of Great Britain first feature an arrangement of a work written by this Black composer?
Answer: 1902 — It was an arrangement of highlight excerpts of 'Hiawatha' by composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor.
11. In what year did Prof David King make his conducting debut at the British Open Championship — and off the number 1 draw?
Answer: 1987 (He directed Kennedy's Swinton to 7th place)
12. Fred Partlett was the first winning conductor at which major entertainment contest in 1977?
Answer: Brass in Concert Championship with Grimethorpe Colliery Band
13. Which renowned English composer, celebrated this year, wrote an opera entitled, 'The Poisoned Kiss'?
Answer: Ralph Vaughan Williams
14. Which renowned brass band composer wrote a march celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Trades Union Congress in the UK in 1968 as well as a colourful test-piece a year later for the British Open?
Answer: Gilbert Vinter
15. Which celebrated brass band composer wrote short works that marked the UK's entry into the then European Economic Community in 1973 and on leaving the European Union in January 2020?
Answer: Edward Gregson
16. What does the musical term 'spiegando' mean?
Answer: Unfolding — ie. becoming louder (according to The Oxford Companion to Music)
17. A major 3rd in a tonic chord at the end of a composition which is otherwise in a minor key — as in 'The Coventry Carol' is called what?
Answer: tierce de Picardie (Picardy 3rd)
18. Die Moritat von Mackie Messer is better known as whom in a song by Kurt Weill?
Answer: Mack the Knife ('The Ballad of Mack the Knife' from his 'The Threepenny Opera')
19. Actor Kirk Douglas played the part of Rick Martin in the 1950 film, 'Young Man with a Horn' — loosely based on the life of which famous cornet player?
Answer: It was loosely based on the life of Bix Beiderbecke, the jazz cornet player (1903-1931)
20. Which great American trumpet star (who dubbed Kirk Douglas' playing in the film) was married to the actress Betty Grable?
Answer: Harry James (1916-1983)
21. In the classic film, 'Some Like It Hot', Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon join Marilyn Monroe in an all-girl band called 'Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators' — but what instruments did all three play?
Answer: Tony Curtis (tenor saxophone), Jack Lemmon (string bass), Marilyn Monroe (ukulele)
22. Which composer wrote an opera about a man who wakes up one morning to find his nose has left his face and taken on a life of its own?
Answer: Dmitri Shostakovich
It was written in 1928 and premiered two years later based on a satirical work by Nikolai Gogol. It was last performed in 2013.
23. What is the name of this brass instrument?
Answer: Corno da caccia
24. Who is this famous instrumental methodologist — born in Lyon in 1825, died in Paris in 1889?
Answer: Jean Baptiste Arban
25. Who is this famous British composer born in Lydney in Gloucestershire in 1892?
Answer: Herbert Howells
26. Which band won the Grand Shield contest for a third time in 2022?
Answer: Rothwell Temperance
27. Which conductor won three top section Area titles in 2022?
Answer: Prof Nicholas Childs (Black Dyke, NASUWT Riverside and Whitburn)
28. Which soprano player claimed individual awards at the British Open, National Finals and Brass in Concert in 2022?
Answer: Richard Poole of Foden's
29. Which composer's life is explored in the test-piece 'Journey of the Lone Wolf' by Simon Dobson?
Answer: Bela Bartok
30. Which recent British Open test-piece whose opening movement is inspired by Anton Bruckner takes its title from a remark written by Sir Isaac Newton to rival Robert Hooke in a letter dated 5th February 1675?
Answer: On the Shoulders of Giants by Peter Graham
31. At which contest will you hear 'Le Chasseur Maudit' in 2023?
Answer: 'The Accursed Huntsman' by Cesar Franck will be performed at the British Open Spring Festival Senior Trophy. The arrangement was made by Edrich Seibert and the piece was first used at the 1973 British Open.
