Classical Match For Kids Trivia Quiz

Answer: Wolf

"Peter and the Wolf" was written by the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev and first performed in 1936. It is performed by an orchestra with narrator and tells a story about a small boy (Peter) who, with the help of a friendly bird, catches a dangerous wolf.

Each of the characters in the story is represented by an instrument of the orchestra: the bird by the flute, a cat by the clarinet, Peter by the orchestral string section, and so on.

Answer: Sugar-Plum

"The Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy" is a short dance from the ballet "The Nutcracker" by Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky, first performed in 1892. It comes in the second act and is a showpiece for the leading ballerina. The music includes an instrument called a celesta, which looks like a piano and makes a sound like tinkling bells.

The whole work is set at Christmas time and is a popular introduction to ballet for children.

Answer: Tuba

"Tubby the Tuba" is a short piece for orchestra and narrator composed by the American George Kleinsinger in 1945, with words by Paul Tripp. It tells of a tuba who wanted to play a proper tune instead of just being in the background of the orchestra. It was popular enough to be recorded several times, and a full-length cartoon version was made in 1975, starring the voice of Dick Van Dyke.

Answer: Zoo

"Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo" was composed in 1970 by Joseph Horovitz, with words by Michael Flanders. It tells the Biblical story of Noah's Ark and was originally intended to be performed by schools and other children's groups. The music publishers Novello commissioned it as a follow-up to Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1968 piece "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat", which was also originally written to be performed by schools.

Answer: Carnival

"The Carnival of the Animals" was originally written by the French composer Camille Saint Saëns in 1886 as a 14-movement musical suite for two pianos and small orchestra. He originally wrote it for private performance only, as he was worried that its light-hearted nature would damage his reputation as a serious composer.

It was only published after his death in 1922 and quickly became one of his most popular pieces. Each short movement portrays a different animal including lions, tortoises, kangaroos and fossils, with witty and vivid orchestration. It is now a popular piece for children.

Answer: Orchestra

The composer Benjamin Britten enjoyed working with children, and he originally wrote "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" in 1945 to be performed as part of a documentary film about the instruments of the orchestra. It takes the form of a series of variations on a theme by the English composer Henry Purcell, the different variations highlighting particular instruments in turn.

It was originally performed with a spoken narration describing the different instruments, but these days is more often performed without this.

Answer: Apprentice

The French composer Paul Dukas wrote his orchestral piece "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in 1897, inspired by a poem by the German poet Goethe. The poem tells how a young apprentice magician tries to use magic to complete his chores but discovers he is unable to control the spell, causing chaos everywhere. Fortunately, his master returns just in time to sort things out.

The work soon became Dukas' most popular work, and it became even better known when Walt Disney used it as one of the episodes in his 1940 animated film "Fantasia", with Mickey Mouse as the young apprentice.

Answer: Flight

"The Flight of the Bumblebee" is a short orchestral piece by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, which as part of Act 3 of his 1900 opera "The Tale of Tsar Sultan". It illustrates a scene in which Prince Saltanovich is transformed into a bumblebee by a magic swan, so he can fly off to see the Tsar, his father.

The opera isn't often performed these days, but this short interlude has become very popular and is often played as an orchestral showpiece.

Answer: Elephant

"The Story of Babar the Little Elephant" began life as a children's book by the French writer Jean de Brunhoff, published in 1931. The French composer Francis Poulenc later composed a version of the story for piano and narrator, which was first performed in 1946.

He remembered being inspired to compose the piece by a group of children in a house where he was staying in 1940, who gave him the book and asked him to "play the story". A version for orchestra was produced in 1962 by Jean Françaix.

Answer: Wild

Children who know Maurice Sendak's 1963 book "Where The Wild Things Are" may be surprised to hear that there is an opera version as well. It was written by Oliver Knussen and first performed in 1980, with a final version in 1984. Maurice Sendak worked closely with Knussen on the opera, and the costumes in the original productions were based closely on his illustrations for the book.

The two later worked together on another children's opera based on Sendak's book "Higglety Pigglety Pop!"