One of the ways I kept myself entertained during the pandemic was to come up with fifty or so clues on any given subject for a Sunday morning crossword puzzle. It would be something to keep me occupied while walking, doing the dishes, or having a coffee out on the lawn. As a friend of mine once quipped, “Man, you were made for COVID.”
Anyway, the clues are mine, but the grids were generated by a computer program. I would click through a few of them until I got one that seemed passable, although if I were ever to publish them, I would be more thoughtful about how and where the boxes intersect, in order to provide some additional hints about the answers.
Here’s one I put together in August 2020. As an addendum to my weekend of radio shows on Greco-Roman mythological themes, it’s a crossword about Classical myths in classical music.
To fill out the puzzle, follow the link and select “solve online” at the bottom of the page. You’ll then be able to type directly into the squares. Once you feel you’ve exhausted the clues, you’ll find the solutions by clicking on “Answer Key PDF.”
There’s classical, and then there’s “Classical.” Strap on your thinking cap and your goat leggings, and then head on over here:
https://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/Data/2020.08/1608/16082045.682.html
Tag: Classical Music
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Schubert’s Unfinished Symphonies Revealed
Franz Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony is not his only unfinished symphony.
Schubert began thirteen symphonies, of which nine are generally numbered; but of these, he only completed seven. And regarding the canonical nine, there has been some discrepancy over the centuries as to the actual sequence of their composition.
Schubert began his famous “Unfinished” Symphony (now widely accepted as No. 8 ) in 1822. It consists of two complete movements. Despite the fact that Schubert would live another six years, for whatever reason, he never finished the other two. There’s a nearly-completed scherzo that exists in short score, with only two pages in the composer’s orchestration. (Another fragment was discovered in an attic in Vienna only in 2017.) It’s been speculated that material originally intended for the last movement may have wound up in another piece, or that Schubert was distracted by work on the “Wanderer Fantasy,” or that the symphony ultimately held bad associations for him, since it coincided with his having contracted syphilis.
But Schubert wasn’t exactly the kind of guy to fall into crippling despondency.
The symphony was given its first performance on December 17, 1865 – 37 years after the composer’s death. A characteristic Schubertian blend of geniality and passion, the piece was immediately recognized as one of his most beautiful orchestral works. It is sometimes referred to as the first Romantic symphony. It certainly is a moody one.
There have been a number of attempts to complete the symphony over the years. Like Michelangelo’s abandoned “Pietà,” it continues to fascinate, despite – or perhaps because of – its orphan status. The music is some of Schubert’s most famous. It has been used in numerous movies and cartoons and as the basis for other composers’ compositions.
Just don’t get the idea that Schubert never finished anything. He may have died at 31, but in a career that spanned less than 20 years, he managed to complete about 1500 works, including symphonies, overtures, incidental music, quartets, quintets, an octet, twenty piano sonatas, operas, masses, some fifty additional choral works, and about 600 songs.
Then, this was before Facebook.
Happy birthday, Franz Schubert.
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