Here's the Score

A funny thing happened on the way to the "What’s the Score?" quiz, found in the 2003 issue of Oberlin Conservatory (now online): the editors were hoisted by their own petard.

Here’s what happened. As regular players know, "What’s the Score?" asks readers to identify the composition--and its composer--from the excerpt that appears on the front cover of the magazine. Trouble was, in this particular issue the back cover photograph featured a violinist and her score. You guessed it. Contestants correctly guessed the compositions on the front and the back covers.

Being a fair-minded sort, we decided to award prizes (CD recordings of Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer’s Le Pouvoir de l’Amour) to the first three correct players--front and back.

These individuals correctly guessed that the front cover excerpt featured George Crumb’s Black Angels:

Jonathan Dawe ’87 (he also correctly identified the section-- #7 Threnody II)
Ann Fairbanks '64
Julian Pranata ’84

As for that back-cover bonus, the first movement of Ravel’s String Quartet in F, the winners are:

J. Melvin Butler ’67
Fred Carlson ’56
Nancy Daniel ’65

The violinist in the photo, Julia Sakharova ’03, says of the score: "This is my own part with my marks written in English and Russian. It is very special to me."

Congratulations, everyone. Next time, we won’t be so easily duped!