I enjoyed this very much indeed. Thank you Gozo.
The theme today is types of musical composition. For me Gozo is a master of themed puzzles: his themes are always contained and well defined but never so limited that answers can be guessed from word counts alone. I had heard of all the themed answers but could not have said what all of them were exactly. I enjoyed looking them all up in Wikipedia. Thanks Gozo!
| Across | ||
| 1 | AUBADE | Broadcast invocation to Shakespeare (6) |
| sounds like (broadcast) “Oh Bard” (invocation to Shakespeare) – a morning song. I have seen this word written many times but did not know it verbally and naively assumed it to be pronounced “oh bade”, the opposite of serenade. | ||
| 4 | NOCTURNE | Go in once, out and about (8) |
| TURN (go) in anagram (out and about) of ONCE | ||
| 9 | SHANTY | Youth leader will not precede worker in experiment (6) |
| Youth (leading letter of) following (with…preceding) SHAN’T (will not) and also ANT (worker) in SHY (try, experiment) – a sailor’s song | ||
| 10 | SARABAND | Middle Easterner in desert surroundings (8) |
| ARAB (Middle Easterner) in SAND (in desert surroundings) – a lively Spanish-colonial dance | ||
| 12 | MADRIGAL | Capital and festivity both cut (8) |
| MADRId (capital) and GALa (festival) both cut short – secular and unaccompanied choral song | ||
| 13 | PAVANE | Sheet of glass in museum? Quite the opposite (6) |
| VA (the Victoria and Albert museum) in PANE (sheet of glass) – a slow processional dance from the Renaissance | ||
| 15 | LIED | Listened outside (4) |
| LIstenED (outside letters from) – German song, poetry sung to music | ||
| 16 | GAVOTTE | Donated – far too much accepted (7) |
| GAVE (donated) contains (accepted) OTT (far too much) – French folk dance | ||
| 20 | TOCCATA | Jazz fan in Puccini opera without soprano . . . . (7) |
| CAT (jazz fan) inside TOsCA (Puccini opera) missing S (soprano) – a virtuoso piece for solo keyboard player | ||
| 21 | ARIA | . . . . Frenchman left Callas (4) |
| mARIA Callas missing M (monsieur, frenchman) – an expressive and melodic piece for solo voice | ||
| 25 | MINUET | Thirty seconds with Rupert’s not odd (6) |
| MINute (half a minute, 30 seconds) with rUpErT (not odd letters) – French social dance for couples | ||
| 26 | GALLIARD | Lass departs, embracing deceiver (8) |
| GAL (lass) and D (departs) contains (embracing) LIAR (deceiver) – an energetic and structured Renaissance dance | ||
| 28 | OPERETTA | Twisted tree-top – top of ash (8) |
| anagram (twisted) of TREE-TOP then Ash (top letter of) – light opera | ||
| 29 | ANTHEM | An article by the master (6) |
| AN (an article) by THE and M (master) – a celebratory composition often symbolising an entity or group. I am struck how both AN and THE appear in the clue. Unusual for a cryptic, and unusual in that both words appear in their own definition: “The is the definite article” and “An is an indefinite article”. I wonder if this is done deliberately to confuse us, hiding things in plain sight? | ||
| 30 | SERENADE | Not worried about sales device (8) |
| SERENE (not worried) containing AD (sales device) – an evening song | ||
| 31 | CHORUS | Game in cape and short stockings (6) |
| RU (Rugby Union, game) in C (cape) and HOSe (stockings, short) – a work for voices, the same melody repeated for each verse | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ASSEMBLE | Bless me! Head of art arranged get together (8) |
| anagram (arranged) of BLESS ME and Art (head, first letter of) | ||
| 2 | BRAND-NEW | Fresh fibre at start of diet gets three points (5-3) |
| BRAN (fibre) with Diet( start of, first letter) with N, E and W (three points of the compass) | ||
| 3 | DETAIN | Outcry over nationalist group’s arrest (6) |
| DIN (outcry) contains (over) ETA (nationalist group) | ||
| 5 | ORAL | Exam on Beethoven’s Sixth’s not over (4) |
| pastORAL (Pastoral Symphony, Beethoven’s sixth) missing PAST (over) | ||
| 6 | TEA PARTY | Alcoholics Anonymous pretty upset about social drinking (3,5) |
| anagram (upset) of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and PRETTY | ||
| 7 | REAGAN | Western star on a horse falling over (6) |
| RE (regarding, on) then A NAG (horse) reversed (falling over) – Ronald Reagan | ||
| 8 | EDDIES | Spins ends of cribbage board with pegs out (6) |
| cribbagE boarD (end letters of) then DIES (pegs out). Nice misdirection – this clue had me looking for anagrams of PEGS +… for ages. | ||
| 11 | JAMAICA | Preserve area of land, reportedly, on isle (7) |
| JAM (preserve) and AICA sounds like (reportedly) “acre” (area of land) | ||
| 14 | FOOTMAN | Royal household member who wouldn’t take an inch? (7) |
| cryptic definition, this guy only takes feet | ||
| 17 | FORESEEN | Expected warnings over Aegean, regularly (8) |
| FORES (warnings, on a golf course) on aEgEaN (regularly selected) | ||
| 18 | BREATHER | There’s a rest in bar three, stupid! (8) |
| anagram (stupid) of BAR THREE | ||
| 19 | MANDAMUS | Fellow to block The FT with legal order (8) |
| MAN (fellow) DAM (to block) US (the FT) – a judicial writ issued as a command to an inferior court or ordering a person to perform a public or statutory duty | ||
| 22 | EMBOSS | Do an outstanding job? (6) |
| cryptic definition – to work at embossing items | ||
| 23 | IN GEAR | Popular equipment when driving (2,4) |
| IN (popular) GEAR (equipment) | ||
| 24 | PLINTH | Pub glass contains line with height from base (6) |
| PINT (pub glass) contains L (line) then H (height) | ||
| 27 | STUD | The horse breeding boss (4) |
| double definition/cryptic definition | ||
*anagram
definitions are underlined
Thanks, PeeDee, for the blog and Gozo for an enjoyable puzzle.
I got almost to the end of my first run trough the clues without spotting the theme. It was ANTHEM and ARIA that finally alerted me. I thought it was clever of Gozo to make every one of the across answers a musical composition.
I liked the way we had the contrasting AUBADE and NOCTURNE in the top row, balanced by SERENADE at the bottom and was thinking it was a pity about 31, then realised that if we put ‘dawn’ in front of CHORUS we have another morning song. 😉
Non-themed – although they were associated – favourites were 5dn [a nice change from Beethoven’s Fifth = H] and 18dn, for the lovely surface.
Very like yesterday’s Guardian puzzle in that all across clues were themed and undefined but thank goodness the down clues were less difficult so this went in more quickly. We’ve had AUBADE in a few places lately, but even so I still spelt this incorrectly which held me up for DETAIN, in retrospect a not too difficult clue, but my last in. I liked the Pastoral symphony reference and its association with the theme. My favourites were the SHANTY dd/td and TEA PARTY and REAGAN, making up a kind of Republican mini sub-theme.
Thank you to Gozo for such an original theme and to PeeDee
Thanks Peedee and Gozo.
Always like Gozo without double grids alphabetic 🙂
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
STUD jumped out when first looking at the puzzle and then naughtily used an anagram solver early on to find OPERETTA and after quickly getting SERENADE, the theme became apparent. Took two shortish sessions to get through the puzzle then with a number of unusual musical compositions that required a look up check after getting them – GAVOTTE, TOCCATA and GALLIARD. Of the down clues, MANDAMUS was new for me.
Missed the second wordplay for SHANTY by simply seeing the first part and not paying attention to the rest of the clue. Was interesting to see Ronald REAGAN clued as a western actor rather than a president. 🙂
A good variety of devices to keep the solve interesting. Finished in the NE corner with SHANTY, AUBADE (I would have pronounced it similarly to yourself) and DETAIN (which was tricky to confirm with the ETA as the nationalist group taking a little while to see)