Knowing the score ... the Guardian team at the quiz
Perhaps if it hadn't been for the threats issued by the editor, team Guardian would never have won the fiendish classical music quiz held at the Royal Opera House last night in aid of the National Youth Orchestra. (An initial "I expect you to beat the Times, the Sunday Times and the Independent" was sharpened to "If you don't beat the Independent you're all sacked" on the night.)
Everyone, of course, assumed it was a fix, since Alan Rusbridger, chair of the NYO as well as editor of the Guardian, had organised the event, which raised £25,000 for the largely self-funded and completely brilliant orchestra. (It wasn't, and just to show that the guv'nor is hard to please, Rusbridger's response to our victory, hard won for the paper's honour with blood and sweat, was, "You weren't supposed to win. You were supposed to come second.")
The questions - set by composer Michael Berkeley, and dispatched to the crowd of contestants by urbane host Jon Snow - were pretty damn hard.
And if anyone ever tells you that the world of classical music is genteel, calm, sleepy or any such nonsense, last night would have provided the ultimate corrective. This was a terrifyingly competitive room of 200 contestants, most of whom were roaring, yelping, emitting warlike cries of triumph and in general behaving with as much restraint as Genghis Khan doing a hearty morning's work on the steppe.
Competitors included Royal Opera music director Antonio Pappano, Sir Colin Davis and Ian Bostridge; tables were fielded by everyone from the Royal Philharmonic Society to the London Sinfonietta to English National Opera.
Now it's your turn to see how you do with the questions. We've altered the format of the quiz to make it multiple-choice, taken out questions involving sound clips (rights issues) and we won't trouble you with the pop music round (it was all Kate Bush and Eric Clapton, you don't need to know about it). Good luck!
- Reckon you know the score? Take the quiz now and find out ...
