I’m wondering if this was intended to be one of those Brendan puzzles we occasionally get on a Monday. It was certainly one of the most straightforward of his that I’ve done – but I found it totally absorbing and most enjoyable, as the theme was right up my street.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that I’ve missed something, especially in view of 24ac! It won’t be to everyone’s taste but I loved it. Many thanks, Brendan.
Across
1 Conduct oneself in original duets from Beethoven, Handel, and Verdi (6)
BEHAVE
First two letters of BEethoven, HAndel and VErdi
4 Famous Bohemian wanting vodka, shaken or stirred? That’s about right (6)
DVORAK
Anagram [shaken or stirred] round R[ight] – I heard the LPO play his Symphony No. 8 here just two evenings ago
9 Peers inside a box (4)
JURY
Cryptic definition – a gem of a clue!
10 Excelling with toy piano in middle of trip (3-7)
OUT-TOPPING
TOP [toy] + P [piano] in [middle of ] OUTING [trip]
11 Sultanate finally independent, earlier administered by British (6)
BRUNEI
[sultanat]E + I [independent] after B [British] + RUN [administered] – a fine &lit
12 Codes I repeatedly broke, resulting in crazy actions (8)
IDIOCIES
Anagram of CODES + I I I
13 Presentation of news about wine years (9)
REPORTAGE
RE [about] PORT [wine] AGE [years]
15 Term of endearment among Welsh musical family (4)
BACH
Double definition
16 Combination of notes that has bars he composed randomly (4)
CAGE
Triple definition: C A G E are musical notes; a cage has bars and John Cage composed [randomly!]
17 Group of musicians one over 8, say? (9)
QUINTETTE
One more than a string quartet [8 dn]
21 Continuous ringing reduced what’s spoken in legal setting, mostly (8)
CLANGOUR
LANG[uage] [what’s spoken, reduced] in COUR[t] [legal setting]
22 Another composer using Monsieur Lehar’s variation (6)
MAHLER
Anagram [variation] of M LEHAR
24 Mean types taking in chief player — they are not to be trusted (10)
MISLEADERS
MISERS [mean types] round LEAD [chief player]
25 Bread and butter, possibly (4)
LOAF
Double / cryptic definition – you might [head] butt someone with your ‘loaf’
26 Score stored in closet went yellow (6)
TWENTY
Hidden in closeT WENT Yellow – easy, but a lovely surface
27 Time in musical piece fine for Hungarian folklorist (6)
BARTOK
T [time] in BAR [musical piece] OK [fine] – Bartok was one of the founders of ethnomusicology
Down
1 French dance, having drunk our beer (7)
BOURRÉE
Anagram [having drunk] of OUR BEER – you can hear Bach’s here
2 It’s unusually handy for father of 8 (5)
HAYDN
Anagram [unusually] of HANDY: Haydn is often called ‘Father of the String Quartet’ [as well as ‘Father of the Symphony’]
3 Combination of sex, love and desire for player (7)
VIOLIST
VI [six, Latin ‘sex’] + O [love] + LIST [desire – archaic]: poor viola players – aren’t there enough jokes about them without Brendan having a go?
5 Product of Cremona — some ravioli, namely (6)
VIOLIN
Hidden in raVIOLI Namely – Cremona is the home of various violin makers
6 Again present in theatre, a king imprisoned? (9)
REPACKAGE
REP [theatre] + A + K in CAGE [imprisoned] or K in A CAGE
7 In archaic style, knows Scottish monarch (7)
KENNETH
Double definition: Kenneth I [843-858], ‘according to national myth’, was the first king of the Scots
8 3, 16 down and two 5’s compose it, as have 4, 20 and others here (6,7)
STRING QUARTET
A string quartet comprises a VIOLIST, a CELLIST and two VIOLINs – and string quartets were composed by DVORAK, MOZART et al
14 Corrupt gaoler holding down one criminal, ultimately, in part of cell (9)
ORGANELLE
Anagram [corrupt] of GAOLER round last letters of dowN onE criminaL
16 Irishman, perhaps, crossing line is player taking a bow (7)
CELLIST
CELT [Irishman, perhaps] round L[ine] IS – a lovely surface, suggesting an Irish rugby player
18 South African plant‘s name is originally entered by European (7)
NEMESIA
Anagram [originally] of NAME IS round E[European]
19 High-flier that sings in 8 by 2 (3,4)
THE LARK
Double definition: you can hear Haydn’s String Quartet here
20 Child prodigy reduced weight in minutes with magic (6)
MOZART
OZ [reduced weight] in M[minutes] + ART [magic]
23 He produced astronomic score in first of tests after break (5)
HOLST
HOLS [break] + T[ests]: ‘astronomic’ reference to Holst’s suite, ‘The Planets’ – another nice sporting surface
I enjoyed the puzzle and thought it a good one, but “misleaders” is the sort of word i’d have thought you’d find in a US crossword, not a British one…
Thanks Eileen and Brendan
I don’t suppose that anyone will describe this as a “mini-theme”! Right up my street, so finished quickly; very enjoyable, though.
I particularly liked the misdirection of “score” in 26ac – we are supposed to jump to the conclusion that it is another musical reference.
Irishman = celt (rather than Pat, etc.) was a novelty for me.
In what circumstances would one write “quintette” rather than “quintet”, I wonder – I don’t think I have ever seen “quartette” (though the “Quartetto Italiano” were a famous example of the type).
Thanks for the blog.
I was convinced that 19 was ‘The Bird’ (another of Haydn’s string quartets) which meant I had to give up on solving 25 and 27.
Thanks for the blog, Eileen: I totally agree with your assessment. Juat to pick a pedantic nit, The Planets is more astrological that astronmic(al). I was also going to say that Bach didn’t write any string quartets: I’m pretty sure Johann Sebastian didn’t, but his son Johann Christoph Friedrich (part of the “musical family” in 8d) did.
Thanks, Andrew.
I should have picked up on the astrological / astronomic point!
I don’t think Brendan [or I] implied that *all* the composers included wrote string quartets.
This was right up my street too, though I didn’t know ‘organelle’ and had to work it out from the wordplay.
Wife and I off to the Sage, Gateshead, tonight to hear the Royal Northern Sinfonia.
Thanks to Eileen for the blog. There were a couple of cases where I had the right answer but not the parsing – you explained those.
I was like muffin@2 in trying to find a musical connection for 26.
For 19d I had SKY LARK fixed in my head for a long time but when I cracked 17 I realised that SKY could not be the first word.
Now that I have looked again at 17 I have spotted that little word ‘say’ which presumably leads you to the uncommon spelling of the answer.
On 13 I spent some time trying to force ‘vintage’ into the answer, with no joy ðŸ™
Thanks, Eileen.
Very straightforward puzzle if you know your stuff (as I did), but none the worse for that. I found it much easier than this Monday’s but far more enjoyable.
Good clues, as we expect from Brendan; I especially liked BRUNEI (one of the best &lits we’ve had for a long time) and HOLST.
‘The Planets’ suite does have movements taking their character from the traditional astrological characters, but it’s difficult to imagine how their more scientific attributes could be conveyed musically. Also, the piece was composed before the discovery of Pluto, so there is no corresponding movement for this body. Pluto is a planet as far as the astrologer is concerned (as are the Sun and the Moon) but has been demoted by astronomers to the lower status of ‘dwarf planet’. So Holst’s catalogue is properly astronomical after all!
DVORAK reminded me of his diacritics. I know how to produce the ‘grave’ on the A (like so: À!), but the ‘hacek’ on the R is beyond me. I believe that in Czech Scrabble (and presumably crosswords also) the C, N, R and S with the hacek are separate letters from their unaccented variants.
I also had trouble with MISLEADERS, as I thought the chief player was LEADER rather than LEAD and couldn’t see that MISS is a mean type. Such is life. But all very enjoyable.
Hi drofle
I initially had the same thought about LEAD – but then realised that Brendan is again leading us up the garden: think of the ‘lead’ in a play!
Thanks Eileen and Brendan. Good, straightforward fun. On QUINTETTE: I see that Chambers gives quintet, quintette, quintett AND quintetto (the last as a separate entry)!
Yes, good puzzle, not too difficult for a Friday.
Thanks Eileen; I had got an extra ‘e’ in the wordplay of the South African plant, but as usual you explained all.
For VIOLIST perhaps Brendan could have added ‘old’ in front of desire to indicate the archaic usage, which I wasn’t familiar with.
I particularly liked the simple JURY.
Thanks to Brendan for an enjoyable puzzle and Eileen for the blog. My musical knowledge was just about up to it and I liked a lot of the surfaces. One of my favourite solutions though has to be the biological ORGANELLE. I wonder if Brendan tried to fit ORGAN or ORGANIST in and ended up with this instead?
Like chas @7 I did try for some time to force vintage into 13, but it just wouldn’t go!
Robi, re LIST
I was familiar with this from the AV: ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth’ and, of course, it’s the root of ‘listless’, which is what this puzzle is, [reportedly!].
You can’t say that the musical knowledge would be beyond the ken of most cryptic solvers, so I think the theme is fair enough. All fell into place nicely in the end – which is what should happen with a daily cryptic.
I was okay with MISLEADERS, Ian: one of those words you wouldn’t use very often, but as a derivative of MISLEAD then it will be in dictionaries. TWENTY was a favourite today.
I think BACH as the ‘Welsh endearment’ means ‘little’ or ‘little one’, but a native speaker can put me right if not.
Thanks to S&B.
BEHAVE got us off to a good start, and there are other fine clues here, but I’m afraid I’m a bit more nit-picky than most. QUINTETTE has already been commented on, but I was thrown by 8d: not that the answer wasn’t obvious, but that it can either be composed of players, or of instruments, but surely not a combination of both?
You have to have both a violin and a violist in a string quartet…
Even I got the theme today! I don’t have a great knowledge of classical music, but agree with K’s Dad @ 15 as I was able to solve this easily today. Some lovely clues. My COD was JURY and I really liked ORGANELLE and BRUNEI as well. LOI was misleaders, which I was OK with once the penny dropped.
Despite our limited knowledge of the theme we managed to complete this without resorting to electronic assistance. We did however use the check button for QUINTETTE!
Congratulations to Brendan for managing to include so many thematic references and thanks Eileen for the blog!
Yes all jolly good stuff.
Of course some us came to classical music by more indirect methods. Symphonie Fantastique was my first buy blind (i.e. having no clue about it!) ‘cos the title sounded a bit weird, and in the late 60s weird was good in the music scene! After that Nice, ELP and Jethro Tull had a lot to answer for, which latter 1 down reminded me of! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWJgJkVL0xM
Derek Lazenby @ 20
That was one of the few classical pieces I learnt on the guitar before giving up classical in favour of folk.
Very enjoyable as the theme was just up my street, too.
You might have missed that it’s almost a pangram. No X, though you might say (with tongue in cheek) that 26ac provides two of them in the Roman numeral XX.
What a delight and how interesting that so many solvers said this was right up their street. I was playing string quartets this morning! Thanks, Eileen, for explaining violist and misleaders. I dont see why we were supposed to translate from Latin. I was doing an anagram of love and it, and trying to lose an e and find a bit more!
Hi julia @23
Forgve me if you’ve commented before – I don’t remember your name [but my ‘children’ complain that I don’t always remember theirs these days] – but welcome!
I do hope you’re not a violist, since I included all those jokes!
[It’s worth filing away that sex = six = VI does crop up from time to time.]
And hi allan_c
As regular readers know, I’m not really interested in / tuned into pangrams and so yes, I had missed it – but I like your explanation! 😉
Gervase@8 May like to know that Colin Matthews composed a Pluto to complete Holst’s famous suite before it (Pluto) was down-graded. Tony Pay@17. Hello….
Hi Derek @20
Many thanks – I came across that clip in my research this morning and would have included it if I’d had time to follow it up: I’m afraid I’m more acquainted with Jethro Tull as a figure in the Agricultural Revoution! I hoped someone else might mention it.
I needed to check ORGANELLE and QUINTETTE, and I correctly guessed BOURREE rather than “bouerre” from the anagram fodder, but other than that I found it mostly straightforward.
Re 26 ac. – TWENTY. Haydn’s string quartets that led to him being called the father of the string quartet were Opus 20. Presumably deliberate on Brendan’s part.
.Thanks all
I had the same thought as drofle @9 and the theme was definitely not up my street but that didn’t stop me enjoying it. Favourites 9a, 11a ,16a.
Thanks all: very enjoyable puzzle and thread.
Surely there must be the odd one-time LEAD guitarist out there?
COD 9a for me.
A pleasant enough puzzle though once you saw the theme, which was slapping you around the face and shouting “Look at me!”, it was ludicrously easy.
Some nice clues though. LOI and favourite was 9A.
Is Friday becoming the new Monday? Perhaps the posters on here with a direct line to THe G’s Crosssword Editorial Policy will let us know. It is you duty after all. 😉
It was nice to read that Eileen shares my interest/enthusiasm for pangrams. (Can someone please try to explain this bizarre fascinatiion.)
Thanks to Eileen and Brendan. (Although I don’t expect to resort to the “Genius” on a Friday!!!!!
Thanks to Eileen
Thanks to Brendan and Eileen. Don’t know that I would agree that it was “ludicrously easy” but
I enjoyed the puzzle nonetheless. OUT-TOPPING and NEMESIA were new to me but I have led a
sheltered life-style.
Cheers to all…
Thanks Eileen and Brendan. Andrew @4 had me thinking for some time. The study of the planets is astronomy so I think the clue works. Attributing characteristics to the planets (Bringer of War etc.) does, however, suggest astrology rather than astronomy. So thanks to Andrew for the extra fun.
Lovely little puzzle, thanks Brendan, and Eileen and the rest of you for the blog.
Banged around at it a bit late last night, sat down today to see three answers filled in – VIOLIN, MOZART, and HOLST.
My only disappointment was a complete (as far as I can tell) lack of mention of Brahms – not due to any musical preferences, but because he belongs in this crowd.
I also notice that Brendan tastefully avoided an operatic references…