Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

[rob]

Personally I think the name Rautavaara is very special since 5 of the 10 letters are 'A's, and it's only the t, u & v which are not repeated. So that would be 7 out of 10. But the rules as stated would dismiss the A entirely!

There are two composers with the name Hannikainen (father & son I think), and 8 of the 11 letters repeat, half of those being 'N's.

[Timtin]

Yes, by relaxing the rules a number of curious situations arise.
Essentially it may boil down finding the longest possible
composer name which uses the least number of letters,
rather in the Mississippi mould.
Reverting to the original rules for a moment, there is a very famous
composer who has 20 letters in his (hyphenated) name, although the
second part isn't usually used.

[rob]

...there is a very famous
composer who has 20 letters in his (hyphenated) name, although the
second part isn't usually used.

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
2 x e
2 x n
2 x d
2 x l
2 x s
2 x o
2 x h
m
b
a
r
t
y

Still, Michel van der Aa can't be beaten. I even have some of his music!!!

[fredbucket]

Essentially it may boil down finding the longest possible
composer name which uses the least number of letters

How about the longest possible composer name where no letters are repeated?

Regards
Fred

[rob]

Essentially it may boil down finding the longest possible
composer name which uses the least number of letters

How about the longest possible composer name where no letters are repeated?

Regards
Fred

Since vowels would limit the length of such a name I would suggest going for a composer from a country where the language is noted for consonant clusters. The Caucasus abounds in such languages, and so the Kartvelian group (Georgian, Mingrelian, Laz & Svan) would be the first place to look, since Georgia has a well established 'classical' music culture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant_clusters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Caucasian_languages

Some regard should also be paid to how names usually written in non-Latin-based alphabets can be transliterated. Shcherbachev in its German transliteration always amuses me: Schtscherbatscheff!!!

[fredbucket]

Some regard should also be paid to how names usually written in non-Latin-based alphabets can be transliterated. Shcherbachev in its German transliteration always amuses me: Schtscherbatscheff!!!

Gezundheit...(sorry Klavierelch, couldn't resist...)

Regards
Fred

[Timtin]

The answers are all surnames of composers from various countries.

1. Sky-coloured Oxford river churned up. (8)
2. I have, more than once! (4)
3. European Union glided down into chaos. (6)
4. Kick vast old man of Orkney around. (11)
5. Attila a small Jovian moon? (6)
6. Japanese electronics company within me in France. (7)
7. Why not amnesty? A possibility! (7)
8. Lionel, is that acceptable? (6)
9. The upset of total lack of stomach fluid! (7)
10. Horse anger - madness! (5)

To help, note that the clues are all cryptic and obey
the standard rules of 'crossword-ese'.

Here's an example:-

Q. Choppy man-made water course in Germany. (5)
A. Alkan.

Why? Because 'man-made water course' is a 'canal'.
A 'canal' in Germany is a 'kanal'.
A 'choppy' 'kanal' is a crossword's way (one of many
(others include chaos, around, upset, churned up etc.))
of saying that it's an anagram of the word just found.
So, we need an anagram of 'kanal'.
Which composer has these letters in his name?
Simple - Alkan.

Note that not all the clues are anagrams, although
they are all cryptic, i.e. each clue tells you in a coded
way how to construct the answer. Most of the composers
are very famous, and none of them has appeared in any
of the previous quizzes.

[Nogbert]

Lest I be accused of hogging this this thread, I'll tackle just half of Tim's cryptic contributions.

1. SIBELIUS (anag. Blue Isis)
2. IVES
4. TCHAIKOVSKY (Anag. Kick vast Hoy)
6. MOSONYI (Anag. Sony moi)
8. BARTOK

Jo

[Timtin]

Well done Jo - 5 out of 5. Easy weren't they?
As an extra clue for the other ones, these were their nationalities:-
3. English
5. German
7. Czech
9. Italian
10. Norwegian.
Out of these 5, only the German isn't VERY famous!

[rob]

Well done Jo - 5 out of 5. Easy weren't they?
As an extra clue for the other ones, these were their nationalities:-
3. English
5. German
7. Czech
9. Italian
10. Norwegian.
Out of these 5, only the German isn't VERY famous!

3. Must be Delius - not that I really understand the clue - except that it contains EU and most of the letters of glided
10. is Grieg - GG Ire - geegee being baby talk for a horse in the UK (ned or neddy is another). The word 'ire' is now quite rare.

Told you I was crap at crosswords.