Crossword and quiz

Can you last the course in this month’s quiz?

1. Later adapted for string quartet and then as an oratorio, The Seven Last Words of Christ is a 1786 orchestral work by whom?

2. Which month is described in the second of Richard Strauss’s

Four Last Songs, setting words by Hermann Hesse?

3. ‘Friends, applaud, the comedy is over’, ‘I shall hear in Heaven’ and ‘Pity, pity, too late’ are among the quotes said to be the last ever words spoken by which composer?

4. Which operas by these composers were the last to be premiered in their lifetimes: a) Wagner; b) Verdi; c) Britten?

5. The plot of which 1918 opera centres on the contents of the last will and testament of the very wealthy, and recently deceased, Buoso Donati?

6. Which conductor made a brief valedictory appearance at the end of the Last Night of the Proms in 1967, two weeks before dying of pancreatic cancer?

7. A member of the Sistine Chapel choir from 1883-1913, Alessandro Moreschi (above) is the last known example of which type of singer?

8. Which venue staged its last ever concert, of Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Dream of Gerontius, on the afternoon of 10 May 1941?

9. Which is the last instrument of the orchestra to leave the stage during the last movement of Haydn’s ‘Farewell’ Symphony?

10. Depicting a scene near his home, The Last Island is a 2009 work for string sextet by which British composer?

See p103 for answers