Alphabet associations - I

[subcontrabass]

is the composer British or foreign, please?!?!?

Foreign

[subcontrabass]

is it important for us to decide which play?

The relevant musical reference only occurs in one play.

[BetweenTheStaves]

Is it Visions?

[subcontrabass]

Is it Visions?

No. What is musical about visions?

[BetweenTheStaves]

My apologies...missed the musical link. Thought I had it cracked with Viola....Shakespeare has a character Viola in Twelfth Night. Ruth Gipps is a female composer who wrote Jane Grey, Fantasy for Viola and String Orchestra, and Jane Grey, wife of Henry VIII was beheaded... as a queen does she count as a monarch? Only Ruth Gipps is British.

Time for bed.

[Rowan Tree]

Viol? Shakespeare Viola, Anne Boleyn played and composed for the viol, Violet Archer Canadian composer

[subcontrabass]

Viol? Shakespeare Viola, Anne Boleyn played and composed for the viol, Violet Archer Canadian composer

Right play, but the link is explicitly musical. Anne Boleyn was not a monarch. All three are linked to the same thing.

[BetweenTheStaves]

I have just sped read Twelfth Night! I've tried 'finding' words beginning with V with no luck. Voice appears many times but somehow does not seem right and too broad a term.

Virginal comes to mind but linkage is again tenuous. Elizabeth 1 was The Virgin Queen and beheaded Mary. Is there the pretence of virginity or assumed virginity in Twelfth Night? And there are a few female composers called Virginia and I'm sure there will be other female composers who either play or have written for the virginal.

Another clue, methinks.

[subcontrabass]

Another clue, methinks.

The composer is early seventeenth century and features in a portrait. And I did say the monarch was British.

[BetweenTheStaves]

Many European courts had viola da gamba players in the 17th and 18th centuries. Charles I, King of England (beheaded) was reputed to be proficient enough on the bass viol to contribute a strong voice when playing with his favorite musicians.

The Viola da Gamba Player (»Gambenspielerin«), c. 1630-1640, (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) by Bernardo Strozzi, believed to be of Barbara Strozzi, female composer

Viola - the character in Twelfth Night.

EDIT: Sir Andrew Aguecheek plays the viola da gamba...

SIR TOBY:
Fie, that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gam- boys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature.

[subcontrabass]

Many European courts had viola da gamba players in the 17th and 18th centuries. Charles I, King of England (beheaded) was reputed to be proficient enough on the bass viol to contribute a strong voice when playing with his favorite musicians.

The Viola da Gamba Player (»Gambenspielerin«), c. 1630-1640, (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) by Bernardo Strozzi, believed to be of Barbara Strozzi, female composer

Viola - the character in Twelfth Night.

EDIT: Sir Andrew Aguecheek plays the viola da gamba...

SIR TOBY:
Fie, that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gam- boys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature.

Got there at last. Well done.

[BetweenTheStaves]

That was devilishly hard!

OK, W.

What role connects a high-street trader, an aquatic mammal and part of a road?

[Don Petter]

Not sure I want to enter this section, in view of the next letter, but do we assume there is some musical connection within?

[Simon]

Ah! This has to involve Anne Sofie von Otter, surely!

But as to roles - she's done so many, and I'm no opera buff.

But hang on. Janet Baker, too... Is there a singer called Macadam?

Right lines, bts?

[BetweenTheStaves]

Damn....thought it would take longer for you guys to get on the right threads.. Simon is well on the way.