What happens when two of BBC's biggest music lovers go head to head in a tricky music-themed quiz?
Here at BBC Bitesize we asked Radio 1 presenters Lauren Layfield and Maia Beth to put their knowledge to the test in the ultimate crossword-style puzzle. From classical to rap, Lauren and Maia will be challenged to draw upon a breadth of musical know-how.
You can take on the challenge yourself and also watch below to find out which music maestro comes out on top.
Maia: Hello, I'm Maia Beth.
Lauren: And I'm Lauren Layfield, and we're going to be taking on the BBC Bitesize brainteaser challenge. It's music-based. We should be good at this.
Maia: Let's see how we get on. Now, I know that Lauren knows her stuff.
Lauren: Quizzes. I think I'm good at them, but they're not my theme,
Maia: So let's try. Question number one.
Lauren: The composer of Ode to Joy. Okay, that's the hard one to start with. Thanks, guys.
Maia: I feel like a lot of the Beethoven songs are called like symphonies.
Lauren: Ode to Joy is the one that goes da da da da da da da da. So I'm gonna go with Beethoven. Yes! Okay, we've started really well.
Maia: So maybe I'm gonna go with Bernstein. And I was incorrect, it was Beethoven. Okay, so apparently, Ode to Joy was a poem used in a symphony.
Lauren: Let's do one down now. Hit song by Scottish DJ Calvin Harris and American singer Kelis. So I know that from the off, it's a tune. It is Bounce. De de de de de. It's correct. Bah bah bah bah bah bah. Next.
Maia: A musical instrument named after the inventor who painted it in 1928. Okay, so a trombone which led boom, boom boom, boom boom, and then a triangle and then a theremin, which is like, I think where you have like a thing like this and it makes this noise and I feel like theremin feels quite 20s to me. So I'm gonna try that one. Yay! That's right. Woo! See, after a bad stop, then we got a lot better, a lot quicker.
Lauren: And the question is birth country of composer J.S Bach? Bach? Bach I reckon. And I think when you go 'ch', like that, that's giving German. And the options are Denmark, Germany or Belgium. J.S. Bach I'm going to go Germany. Stick to the guns. Kind of celebrated like a child.
Maia: Um, oh! I love this band. I love this band. They are getting down with the trumpets. The word that follows Rizzle in the name of the music duo. It's not knock. It's not knots. It's kicks. See, she didn't know a classical music, but she knows about everything else.
Lauren: The definition of the musical term 'adagio'.
Maia: I used to do piano and I was quite good at the piano, but I could not do the music theory, and I got just about everything wrong. But something in my brain makes me think it's slow.
Lauren: There's an iconic dance song, I think, from the 90s called Adagio for Strings, and it starts off like really slow.
Maia: Oh! Something stayed in and it was slow.
Lauren: And I feel like when I used to learn keyboard, was there like, there was terms. If you sped up, if you sped up your playing or you slow down, your playing. So I'm going to go for slow. Adagio is an instruction to play slowly. Right, shall we reveal it?
Maia: Yeah. Okay.
Both: Three. Two. One.
Maia: 90%.
Lauren: 100%
Maia: How did you get the first one? I don't - Ode to Joy.
This article was published in March 2026
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