Alphabet associations - I

[mercia]

well one "obvious respect" in which three people can be "identical" is that they are triplets

I'm not sure in what other "obvious respect" three people can be identical

e.g. I wouldn't say that three people named Ian are "identical"
(or three people with the same surname beginning with I)

[Flay]

But it is the "single" i that gets me. Is it an initial? Or the first person?

[Flay]

I can't let the I Musici idea go.

<<Born to a family of musicians, Bruno Giuranna was one of the founding members of 'I Musici', a member of the Quartetto di Roma and of the Trio Italiano d'Archi>>

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/forbesfest/programme/jury/

[Don Petter]

well one "obvious respect" in which three people can be "identical" is that they are triplets

I'm not sure in what other "obvious respect" three people can be identical

e.g. I wouldn't say that three people named Ian are "identical"
(or three people with the same surname beginning with I)

Good morning chaps and chapesses!

Well, the question would be no different in effect without the 'obvious', and might even have been better without it. I suppose it got there because, in my mental image, if you saw all three 'in action', there would be two obvious similarities, though they would not, as you surmise, be identical in a tripletical sense.

[Don Petter]

But it is the "single" i that gets me. Is it an initial? Or the first person?

Oh dear! I cannot complain at the microscopic examination of the wording, as it is often significant, but in this case, again, the 'single' could have been omitted with no ill effect. (Though the 'A' would have to be 'An', of course. )

[Don Petter]

I don't know if it's time for another clue, and Norfolk Born will probably say this only complicates the issue, but I would say that after three years of retirement I have rather lost the will to work (if I ever had it), and this probably includes having to think of a different type of question. So, rather lazily, the format of the answer to I is identical (pace Mercia) to that of H.

[Norfolk Born]

Itzhak (Stern, Perlman and Rashkovsky)?

[Norfolk Born]

On a different tack...there are I Musici in Venice, Rome and Montreal (and who knows where else?)
On another different tack: there are I Musici and I Fagioloni (the latter founded by Edmund Blackadder to cope with Baldrick's insistence on more beans).

[Don Petter]

Itzhak (Stern, Perlman and Rashkovsky)?

You read my clue correctly! Not these three, but you need to bring in the ensembles of the types already established by fhg.

As a further help, the countries where these ensembles were, or are, based are USA, Germany and anywhere.

[Nick Armstrong]

What a teaser this is!! Been turning it over in my mind since it hit the airwaves at 5.05pm yesterday but....

[Don Petter]

I've got to go out shooting shortly, and then have lunch. (Not connected - I only shoot cardboard!) Back about mid-afternoon.

There have been two close attempts so far: fhg's summary in #11214 (Though the 'sur' is now known to be wrong and one of the 'in's should be a 'with'), and NB's suggestion in very much the right format. (And if you think about it, the instrument involved can only be one of two possibilities.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There have been two close attempts so far: fhg's summary in #11214 (Though the 'sur' is now known to be wrong and one of the 'in's should be a 'with'), and NB's suggestion in very much the right format. (And if you think about it, the instrument involved can only be one of two possibilities.)

So: a forename with members of a Piano Trio, a String Quartet (so either two violinists or two 'cellists) and an Orchestra (which suggests a conductor, as the names of individual orchestral players aren't as well-known as they ought to be).

Hmm. A five-pipe problem, this! (A quotation not from Sherlock Holmes but my plumber regarding the puddle in my kitchen.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Itzhak (Stern, Perlman and Rashkovsky)?

Isaac Stern, not Itzhak: any use?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

No: doesn't play "in" an orchestra but "with" them. A concert soloist!

?

[Norfolk Born]

Isaac Stern, not Itzhak: any use?

I couldn't see any reason why Oskar Schindler's accountant shouldn't be part of the answer.