Monday, June 24, 2019

Musical Numbers solution

Last week's meta, Musical Numbers, asked you to identify a symphony. What were the theme entries? Well, the grid was asymmetrical, so it wasn't immediately obvious, but some googling reveals that six of the across entries are the nicknames of famous symphonies:

ROMANTIC: Bruckner's 4th (also a couple other, much less famous, ones)
POLISH: Tchaikovsky's 3rd
PASTORAL: Beethoven's 6th
TRAGIC: Mahler's 6th (or Schubert's 4th, but more on that after)
RESURRECTION: Mahler's 2nd
INEXTINGUISHABLE: Nielsen's 4th

Phrases like "Bruckner's 4th" suggest taking the 4th letter of BRUCKNER as an extraction mechanism. If you do that for each symphony in order, you get:

BRUCKNER
TCHAIKOVSKY
BEETHOVEN
MAHLER (or SCHUBERT)
MAHLER
NIELSEN

CHOUAL doesn't spell anything meaningful, but CHORAL is the nickname of Beethoven's 9th, so that's our answer. (Or, as one solver submitted, the letter N!)

Monday, June 17, 2019

Puzzle #103: Musical Numbers

This week's puzzle is a meta (pdf, puz, pdf solution), and the meta answer is a symphony. As always, email my at my address in the sidebar to submit your answer, for hints, etc., and the answer will be posted next week. Good luck!