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2023 Christmas Quiz
Time to test your musical knowledge

We have a fantastic prize of a Besson Prodige Cornet and other goodies worth over £600 up for grabs if you can get the answers right to our musical quiz.

Time to put your thinking caps on if you are going to be in with a chance to win a fantastic Christmas present thanks once again to our friends at Besson and Band Supplies.

There are 30 questions to answer   A little bit of searching on the worldwide web or on 4BR should see you OK.  If not have a guess. 

Prodige cornet and goodies

There is a Besson ‘Prodige’ cornet, plus goodies and CDs worth over £600 – so what better way to start the new year of 2024. 

As always we would like people to help us support the next generation of young players by donating the cornet to a band of your choice that has a commitment to promoting youth development if you win. 

Best of luck...

Answers: 

Answers to be sent to: quiz@4barsrest.com

Closing Date:

The closing date is 11.59pm on 31st December 2023!

REMEMBER: PLEASE SAY WHICH YOUTH/LEARNER/STARTER OR TRAINING BAND BAND OR ORGANISATION YOU WOULD LIKE TO DONATE THE PRIZE IF YOU WIN.


1. Which major test piece this year recalled the incredible story of Antonie de Saint-Exupery and Andre Prevot?

2. A solo entitled ‘Lament for Lost Tomorrows’  played by Arfon Owen of Stavanger Band at the Siddis Entertainment Championship this year was unique for what reason?

3. Which King’s trumpets were ‘discovered’ alongside 5398 other “wonderful things” when his tomb was opened 100 years ago this year – and around 3,300 years after they were perhaps last played?  

4. Which actor played the fictional orchestral conductor Lydia Tár on film? 

5. Is this…

a) The recently discovered crypt of St Cecilia the Patron Saint of Musicians
b) The inside of a 250 year old violin
c) A musical themed Swedish sauna

6. ‘Lip Transplant’  by Derek Bourgeois, ‘A Matter of Seconds’  by Gilbert Vinter and ‘A Comedy of Errors’  by Cyril Jenkins are better known as what at the National Championships of Great Britain?  

7. What ‘first’ was presented at the Royal Albert Hall National Finals in 1980 and hasn’t changed since? 

8. What job is undertaken by a Souffler in French Opera Houses, or a Rammentatore in Italian ones?

9. Which Peter Graham major test-piece takes its inspiration from a dystopian Fritz Lang film that has been interpreted as a Marxist/Leninist critique of the corrosive underbelly of the inter-war German Weimer Republic – as well as featuring a famous female 'Maschinenmensch' robot?

10. Nicholas Childs (four times), Russell Gray, Allan Withington (twice) and Garry Cutt are the only conductors to have won which National title? 

11. Name the composer and the artist and at which contest venue will you find them?

12.  Conductor Dennis Masters celebrated his 100th birthday in March 2023. In which year did he lead the Langley Band to the Second Section National Championships of Great Britain title?

13. Which brass instrument was played by former Formula 1 World Champion racing driver James Hunt, actor Samuel L Jackson, football pundit Jimmy Hill and King Charles III? 

14. Which composer wrote a piece called ‘Skittle Alley Trio’?

15.  Name the conductor (below) you pass as you walk upstairs at the main entrance at the Royal Albert Hall?

16. Which famous conductor died at the age of 72 in New York in 1990 and was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn with a pocket score of Mahler’s 'Fifth Symphony', a piece of amber, a lucky penny, a copy of Alice in Wonderland, and a baton in his casket?

17.  True or false. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon in 1969 was also a baritone player?

18. Which composer has been played in films by actors Gary Oldman (1995) and Ed Harris (2006) and on the famous American ‘Saturday Night Live’ comedy television show by John Belushi? 

19. Which composer wrote the ‘Beano Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra’ which was premiered by the BBC Concert Orchestra and soloist Colin Currie earlier this year at the Southbank Centre in London?

20. What was the ‘Miracle’ that gave Haydn’s ‘Symphony No 96’ its name?

21. Which is the only regional (Area) championship event that Prof Nicholas Childs has never conducted at?

22. How many pedals does a concert harp have? 

23. Which George Lloyd test piece was commissioned by a brewery, and whose company name also describes its initial thematic motif cleverly used in the work itself?

24. What occurrence is believed to have happened for the very first time in UK banding history at the Leicestershire Brass Band Association Contest in Loughborough in November this year?  

25. At which European contest city was this marching band found in May this year?

26.  What musical instrument is referred to in German orchestral scores as Becken or Tschinellen, in Italian scores as Piatti or Cinelli and in Spanish scores as Platillos?

27. What does the musical term lasciare suonare mean?

28. Which two Russian revolutions does Shostakovich commemorate in his 11th and 12th symphonies?

29. Who was this incredible polymath musician who passed away aged 96 in February 2023? 

30.  What were number 1 in Yorkshire and Wales, number 5 in the North of England, number 7 in Scotland and London & Southern Counties, number 9 in the Midlands and the North West and number 11 in West of England this year?   

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