I rather like Vanhal. Naxos have a few discs of symphonies, but the real winner is a disc by Concerto Köln on Teldec, now available at budget price.

The speculation about puzzle 7 is so entertaining I'd really rather not provide any clues.

I'll just say that the correct answer is hiding up a tree wondering why the sound of barking is so far away...

To be fair, I suppose it's not necessarily the music that made my one experience of playing Vanhal rather boring... 

Hmm, there are no oboes that I can hear in this snatch, but Haydn's Symphony no. 52 is in c minor.  Too bad it doesn't sounds like Haydn.

Not quite we think, but we are grateful to Mr. D for pointing out the discrepancy. At first we feared it was wild life in the programme logic, but in fact it arose simply from our entry of "D" in one place and "D." in another. Turing predicted that computers would by 2000 be able to provide a performance indistinguishable from that of your average man, but he (Turing) has proved to be wrong on that point at least has he not, since he (your average man) would very likely have been able to pick that up in a trice. Anyway we award Mr. D ex gratia 200 points for his trouble and perspicuity! They will appear in the next set of statistics.


Yes indeed, the clock has stopped and the time has come for Mr. Sudden to reveal the answer! It is a puzzle we ourself would not have solved in a million years since there is something about that period - a disloyalty to Bach perhaps - which disaffects us, rather.

Thank you Mr. Sudden; another 480 points are on their way to you. And we, who never (or at least very very rarely) listen to Haydn, venture to congratulate ourself upon having somehow managed at least to recognise that it was one of his symphonies. Is it often played?

Perspicuity aside, we feel that Mr. D is in addition due our gratitude for his perspicacity. Whether that gratitude should be translated into yet further points is of course not for me but for our Question Master to consider.

Thanks to Baz for the Holst (First) Choral Symphony, which I can't have heard for a decade or more, although the LP was played often: I replaced it on CD in an HMV sale just before my move, and somehow it's never been played - it was still in its cellophane wrapper when I took it from its shelf. Spinning now: splendid stuff!

Any hints about how to play an m4a file, Mr. Sudden? Microsoft jibs. We may have more luck later to-day when we copy it to a second computer which is not exposed to the Internet.


We thank Mr. Garnett for pointing that out; it is an important distinction of which we had until to-day been all too unconscious!

Here again are a few random and nugatory thoughts about the snatches outstanding:

14: Still that curious jazz interlude - we wonder whether the rest of the work has a preponderance of jazz over beautiful strings - did some one confirm that it was Stravinsky? - Let's leave it to others, but we shall be interested to learn the answer.

19: Well we suppose it is vulgar enough for Shostacowitch himself, as Mr. I hints - we had better leave its recognition to others too.

21: (modern piano) - not unclever - although some of the rhythm is quite crude and tedious - not a style with which we are familiar - rather like a tired and emotional Schoenberg - American or German probably, and post-1945 - could even be Hindemith at a stretch - again it will be interesting to learn the answer.

22: Long clarinet solo with a piano entry at the end - no idea even of the composer's nationality, but an Englishman is a possibility.

25: The simple yet idiosyncratic harmonic progressions and one or two orchestral turns make us fairly confident that this is one of the several Paganini Violin Concerti; but which one we have no idea. It does not appear to be the First. . . .