University Challenge

[Dave2002]

I wonder if listening takes more time and effort than looking, although it should not. Perhaps my initial reaction was not well expressed. Why is music not as well-known as the visual arts, or any art form - not a rhetorical question, I really do mean "why?"

You question contains a statement, which may not be true. You are assuming that music isn't as well known as the visual arts, but I am not convinced you are right. OK - perhaps we are not discussing the man on the Clapham omnibus, who might not know his Mendelssohn from his Mondrian, but are there really many moderately educated people who can look at a painting and spot that it's a Cranach, or a Poussain, or look at a statue and mention Rodin or Giacometti? [Incidentally, did you notice as I have just done, that Giacometti was Swiss?]

Did you also notice that Paxman mentioned the Italian-French mathematician --- I didn't know that Lagrange was Italian until fairly recently - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph-Louis_Lagrange

Also, re music, heaven forbid that we expect contestants to know about jazz or pop music genres in the final!

[Alain Maréchal]

[Incidentally, did you notice as I have just done, that Giacometti was Swiss?]

Did you also notice that Paxman mentioned the Italian-French mathematician --- I didn't know that Lagrange was Italian until fairly recently - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph-Louis_Lagrange
!

As one whose name disguises his nationality, I never assume that a person's language and name are a clue to identity, so I usually look it up. History has a habit of changing borders, languages and dominant culture while the population stay put; it becomes even more complicated when migration adds to it. (Would you call Rachmaninoff an American composer? He was when he died.)

I do not assume "that music isn't as well known as the visual arts", but I do point out that it was not so well known to those Oxbridge students, or many of the other teams. In my undergraduate days, a long time ago, in another place, we may not have admitted to liking Rachmaninoff but we certainly knew what he sounded like. I was wondering why the ability to recognise canonic visual art seems more commonplace among undergrads than the ability to recognise similar music.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I suppose that the questions set for the final are chosen with the possibility that any of the teams might contain a specialist in the Subjects, so they all have to be as difficult as they would be for Maths, Science etc etc specialists. The Rachmaninoff should be/used to be well-known, so was chosen as the "starter for 10", after which Bellini/Liszt etc was aimed at the specialist (no, I don't remember ever hearing them, either) - similarly the Wyndham Lewis/Vorticists (which I did recognise, but probably wouldn't've done in my University days.

[MrGongGong]

. I was wondering why the ability to recognise canonic visual art seems more commonplace among undergrads than the ability to recognise similar music.

There are plenty of folks in these parts who are unable to recognise what could be considered "canonic" music .....

look at some of the comments about
Bowie, Fripp, Metalica etc

[Alain Maréchal]

Bellini/Liszt etc was aimed at the specialist (no, I don't remember ever hearing them, either).

I did not know the piece, but after an initial stab at early Verdi for the theme my subconscious told me Bellini (and I think it was "suoni la tromba" - how you have avoided hearing that old warhorse blasted out by every baritone or band I cannot imagine). The next part was easy - it had Liszt stamped in large friendly fingerprints all over it (or as a friend once put it, it's more about showing off the technique than composing music). So, as I hinted, enough clues even if you didn't know it. The same goes for other questions: King dies with broken clavicle - probably thrown from horse (motorbike possible but unlikely) - therefore one of the Williams. One need not know the answer, just think about it. (I admit that a lot of science would floor me, but I would still have a try).

The alert ones will have deduced that I did not include examples that I got wrong.

[Alain Maréchal]

There are plenty of folks in these parts who are unable to recognise what could be considered "canonic" music .....

look at some of the comments about
Bowie, Fripp, Metalica etc

Only heard of one, never heard a note of any. Are they taught in British Universities these days?

I will clarify my initial question further: I expect anybody with an education to recognise a well-known Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso or Chagall, or at least have an idea. Similarly I would expect the same with regard to Beethoven, Brahms Tchaikovsky or indeed Rachmaninoff. But it would seem that in the case of the composers my expectation is not met. I do not understand why it is so.

[MrGongGong]

Only heard of one, never heard a note of any. Are they taught in British Universities these days?

See foot
Take aim
Fire

[Alain Maréchal]

I don't understand your point, unless you place them on the same level as Beethoven, in which case you have set another hare running in a quite different direction, and since we will probably never agree or understand each other, I decline to chase it, and will pursue the first one.

Nobody seems to have answered my question, but they have tried to answer a question I did not ask.

[MrGongGong]

I don't understand your point, unless you place them on the same level as Beethoven, in which case you have set another hare running in a quite different direction, and since we will probably never agree or understand each other, I decline to chase it, and will pursue the first one.

Nobody seems to have answered my question, but they have tried to answer a question I did not ask.

Maybe your expectations need questioning?

[MrGongGong]

expect anybody with an education to recognise a well-known Rauschenberg, Turrell , or Whiteread, or at least have an idea. Similarly I would expect the same with regard to Ligeti, Can, Lucier, Oliveros or indeed Feldman. But it would seem that in the case of the composers my expectation is not met. I do not understand why it is so.

Works for me

[Alain Maréchal]

I had not realised that all your examples turned up regularly in questions on University Challenge. I should watch more often, satellite permitting.

[MrGongGong]

I had not realised that all your examples turned up regularly in questions on University Challenge. I should watch more often, satellite permitting.

They don't
but they could be considered to be (to used your word) "canonic"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I would hope that a good general education would include knowledge, understanding, and ability to identify the work and ideas of Beethoven, Coltrane, Picasso, Turner, Milton, Dante, Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Quanta, Genetics, non-English language(s), Bismarck, Dr Who, the Maya, and all sorts of things. But not that these should be "crammed" superficially into the minds of twenty-year-olds - rather that "a good education" is a life-long series of pleasurable and fascinating discoveries and experiences.

As for why these particular twenty-year-olds didn't have such facts so readily to mind; well, considering the astonishing range of knowledge they did have, it may well be that the particular education priorities of Oxbridge has moved from such a wide general basis to more intensive "subject specific" learning.

[Dave2002]

I do not assume "that music isn't as well known as the visual arts", but I do point out that it was not so well known to those Oxbridge students, or many of the other teams. In my undergraduate days, a long time ago, in another place, we may not have admitted to liking Rachmaninoff but we certainly knew what he sounded like. I was wondering why the ability to recognise canonic visual art seems more commonplace among undergrads than the ability to recognise similar music.

I think you are trying to extrapolate from just one example - that being last night's final. There were other teams which got knocked out earlier on but had one or more members who were stunningly good at recognising music, including some fairly obscure pieces - and most of them do/did better at pop music than I do. So, I think you are generalising too much from one contest.

Re art - I have often "recognised" pictures I've never seen before - it's something similar to musical recognition. Also there may be hints - if one knows that a particular artist lived in a certain place at a certain time. The question about copyright - answer Hogarth - almost escaped me, but finally there were enough hints to make it clear, and Ms Woods confirmed my response. I think some of the teams gained a lot of points by reasonably clever and moderately informed guesswork, rather than actually knowing everything 100%.

[Richard Tarleton]

I suspect we will see more of Oscar and the icily poised Ms Hannah Rose Woods...

Her eyebrows have been causing quite a stir, even Sir Roger Moore has commented on Twitter...they have their own twitter site....extensive coverage in today's Times