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Stats – We had a spectacular response to this grid with 75 submissions  (a new record – beating 69 which was the highest so far)!.  Of those who submitted 52 managed to complete the grid with zero errors, and 49 went on to get the maximum possible score of 168. Here’s the completed grid.

The following questions had to be answered by the solvers..

What’s the popular name for this tune? (3,5) – A: FÜR ELISE
Name the tune as indicated in the puzzle (9,2,1,5) – A: BAGATELLE IN A MINOR (highlighted in grid)

You can access the Grid with solutions Here – Clicking Reveal ALL will show you the solutions, annotations and the answers to the bonus question.

Here is the Scorecard (sorted by total and then alphabetically). Congrats to  the 49 solvers who maxed the score and to every one who participated. Very well tried.

Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good score of 8.52. It got 22 perfect 10s. The minimum score was 4.

Top 3 Clues:  The most favorite clues were “UNKEMPT” with 22 votes and “MOW” and “KINETIC” with 19 votes each.

Comments from solvers:

1. 🙂 Lovely one! Had me smiling for the next hour.
2. Brilliant!
3. Fun puzzle
4. LOVELY
5. Great effort
6. Bravo, maestro! Encore!
7. Amazing,I’m glad to be part of 1Across , so I get to solve these innovative puzzles.Kudos Oracle, Viresh and Sowmya
8. Very creative!
9. awesome grid!! good fun with a happy ending!!!
10. .
11. Fantastic compilation, configuration and Music designed by Viresh
12. Didn’t like 26A, otherwise delightful
13. Fantastic musical theme. Enjoyed it
“14. Excellent job”
15. It struck a chord with me that I am submitting my grid ( please don’t count me in for the leaderboard .thank you) . Also I got error submitting earlier from laptop – and resubmitting the form from iPhone – plus I had MINOR misspelt as MINER in the earlier one! TY!
16. very easy puzzle, but +1 for being innovative
17. Novel!
18. I have put “For Elise” as my answer, corresponding to “Because Elsie*”. The German spelling is Fur Elise
19. Wonderful surprise at the end! Great work by Oracle, Viresh, Kuldeep and Kaushal!!
20. nice work Viru and Kishore
21. Fantastic
22. Lovely. Wonderful K 1,2,3, Viresh
23. Nice and innovative.
24. Full marks for concept and grid design, but unfortunately can’t give much for the clues. I had to struggle to somehow find ‘top 3’. The preamble at the start page was no doubt clever in a punny way, but seemed completely irrelevant and perhaps even misleading. Sorry to call it the way I saw it, perhaps just not my thing when it could have been so much more
25. Very Clever! I loved hearing the tune at the end!
26. Innovative and enjoyable grid
27. Lovely to hear one of my favourite tunes 🙂
28. Brilliant work
29. Superb!
30. it was an awesome construction
31. Music to the grey cells !
32. Love Kishore’s inventive grids. Great work
33. Even a cruciverbalist would struggle with superlatives for this concept. Loved the grid.
34. Nice and smooth. Great bit of software gimmicks at the end. Loved the layout and design – highly original as is to be expected from the Oracle
35. wonderful puzzle
36. Great effort
37. innovative
38. Fairly easy clues overall but very enjoyable.
39. Very simple crossword, Novel idea of having sound of music in crossword
40. It was wonderful at the end
41. Wonderful concept
42. A masterpiece by a great composer 😉
43. Points for innovation! Wonderful indeed.
44. Simply superb
45. The tune at the end was a great touch 🙂
46. Nice vision, happy to have helped. Looks like it’s another hit from you!
47. Nice puzzle with a lovely twist at the end
48. nice puzzle
49. GOOD AND INNOVATIVE PUZZLE
50. Sound idea, enjoyed it, especially the music at the end.
51. Good clues, Enjoyed solving it
52. It was nice that some black squares lined up with the note heads.
53. Nice construction to match the tune – only apparent after completion.
54. Loved the musical references 🙂 As grids go, this was a pleasant, light interlude. Thoroughly enjoyed it!
55. master craft to sculto a simple and crisp
56. Very enjoyable A novel idea.
57. Nice concept , only wish clues had been a bit tougher
58. Nicely done with the theme and a creative layout
59. Great fun solving.the music at the end was a pleasant surprise
60. fantasitc grid
61. Enjoyed it thoroughly 😊
62. Ingenious puzzle!
63. Wow puzzle … kudos to Kishore and viresh
64. An amazing construction. The variations on 1Across keep getting better and better. Take a bow, The Oracle!
65. Thanks for writing it!
66. Brilliant idea
67. Innovative grid!!
68. Excellent idea and implementation
69. A delightful idea and great implementation, impaired somewhat by rather easy clues
70. wonderful experience…Oracle manages to keep innovating
71. Loved the little surprise at the end!!!
72. Thank you! Got to learn more about Beethoven🙏🏻
73. Lovely puzzle.
74. Nice concept, loved the surprise in the end!
75. Interesting twist in grid construction which lead to many 3-letter words etc. making it easier than usual to solve. Music at the end was cool.

By Sowmya

Sowmya is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and independent financial consultant based in the Middle East (Bahrain). She is a puzzle editor at Amuselabs. She has set over 1,300 crosswords for various publications including over 1000 mini crosswords, cryptic crosswords (under the pseudonym Hypatia for The Hindu) and themed crosswords for Cat.a.lyst (part of The Hindu Businessline). Sowmya runs the Facebook group 1Across where seasoned cruciverbalists interact while setting and solving clues. She has published three compilations of crosswords viz Cryptic Crossroads Volumes 1, 2 and 3. She Tweets cryptic clues daily @somsram

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