Talk:Also sprach Zarathustra/Archive 1

Public Domain
I doubt that Strauss's work is yet in the Public Domain (he only died in 1949); therefore, has the legality of the linked MIDI file been investigated? I would hazard a guess that it would violate copyright law, myself. Just a hunch. <<213.105.224.16 18 August 2005 19:00>>


 * It is an external link, not under Wikipedia control. I suppose it could be argued to be contributory infringement to link to an infringing site, but my (cursory!) reading of the legal literature says it isn't; and I am not a lawyer. --Macrakis 23:18, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
 * External links tells us to not link to things that are clearly copyright violations. I'm removing the link. &mdash; Saxifrage ✎ 21:52, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Regarding public domain, IANAL: if Strauss composed the song in the United States at the time, then yes, it would be in the public domain, since it was created before 1923 (1896). However, it is a German work, and Germany's copyright law says straight 70 years after the author's death. So 1949 plus 70 equals 2019, the earliest it can be in PD, subject to any changes in the law. See List of countries for info. --Geopgeop (T) 02:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

An anonymous user has added a section called "The Rest Of The Piece". I don't want to revert it as this section could have merit, but it desperately needs to be rewritten. It doesn't sound at all like an encyclopedia! 7Munkys 23:23, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I cleaned up that section, and attempted to give a little more detail into the piece. --Setrajonas 02:49, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Capital
Shouldn't "Sprach" be capitalized? Tim Long 23:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * If it were in English, yes. Other languages like German have different title-capitalisation conventions. &mdash; Saxifrage ✎ 08:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ja, das stimmt!

Introdution
Sorry, I don't have a wikipedia account, but I noticed that the introduction seems to contradict itself. It says the piece was written in 1896, but then it says it is "one of the most recognized pieces of music of the last 50 years". Unless the article was written in 1946, that doesn't make sense. Anyway, I'm not sure that an opinionated description like "most recognized" should be in an encyclopedia article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 153.104.121.18 (talk) 01:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

I think it does make sense, since it probably only became widely known over the last 50 years (mainly due to 2001: A Space Odyssey).


 * Still it needs to be sourced... even though I agree it is very recognizable.--Shadowdrak 08:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Other wrestlers entrances
1 in a thousand would only mean 6.6 million according to the current U.S. population. They alone would make your estimate seem a fraction of what it should be or would have been had you done more research on the subject.My fiancee abhors professional wrestling and is very well educated, yet she relates that music  to Ric Flair. This is partly because a lot of people under 40, unfortunately have not seen 2001. Flair has wrestled in over 30 countries on more than one occasion for most of them. He is almost as old as Margaret Court and he is still working. One can call it a long period of saturation or poisoning but you cannot deny how many people could make that association during that time.

Cheers!

Can someone show what other wrestlers have used this piece besides Ric Flair?

I really don't believe in the "It is widely known for its use" in relation to a pro wrestler. Yes, there have been some notable pro wrestler's, but it is hardly a world-wide phenomenon. Compared to the connection with 2001, I doubt that more than 1 in a 1000 would relate the piece to Ric Flair. As such I will be removing this reference. Martyvis 04:41, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

And this was also used by Elvis Presley as his entrance music in most of his later live shows ... any more information and a link would be helpful. Nick (lanzarotemaps) 90.194.38.198 (talk) 00:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC) (sorry - wp won't let me sign in today!)

WTH
I could have sworn this was by Nietzsche's friend, Richard Wagner. --Wasted Sapience 23:00, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Well you'd be wrong. This piece is as about as Stauss as you can get. --Alexs letterbox 10:53, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I have a CD with the introduction on it. But it's called thus spoke Zoroaster. Is that a translation?
 * Yes. Emoll (talk) 20:00, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Today's Use
Removing this section as Ric Flair has already been mentioned and 'Ric Flair has not been seen in WWE since back in August' is rather unencyclopedic and at any rate belongs in Ric Flair's article. Jimduchek 11:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Reference to Americans
I've removed the token swipe at Americans in the reference to "2001 ASO". Not only was it irrelevant ('as is typical, Americans don't know the real source of the piece'), the English was appalling... and I'm not American --Pheasant (talk) 20:19, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Songs
Assuming that this is a song as in vocal music, this should not be in WikiProject songs. Could someone tell them that? Vltava 68 (talk  contribs ) 02:46, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm taking the template off. It doesn't belong here. Vltava 68  (talk  contribs ) 02:47, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Title
At some stage it was "Also sprach Zarathustra (Strauss)" but has been moved to "Also sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss)". Was there any good reason for this? - it wasn't discussed here. There were no other Strausses who wrote a piece of this name, so the inclusion of "Richard" seems somewhat unnecessary to me. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Introduction
I read in the article that the opening pitch is "... a sustained low C, 32' pitch, on the double basses, double bassoon and organ." However, the equivalent of a 32' pitch is a 16.35 hertz frequency (if A4 = 440 hertz) which not a single standard orchestral instrument can play. Shouldn't it read something like: "The piece starts with a 32' low C on the organ pedal, a 16' low C on the contrabassoon (,C), as well as a 16' and 8' low C on the 8 Double Basses (,C; C)." Thank You for your time. --Basstrombonebfd (talk) 23:10, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Cello/woodwind or woodwinds?
Re this edit, which says "Cello is an informal word that is not proper English".

Thousands of dictionaries and music encyclopedias would very much beg to differ. Wikipedia itself has an article called cello. True, it originally entered the language as an abbreviation of "violoncello", just as piano was an abbreviation for "pianoforte". But both piano and cello have become fully accepted as legitimate words, regardless of their origins as abbreviations. There is simply no need, in this day and age, to write 'cello or even violoncello. More than that, it makes us look like a bunch of reactionary old pedants. This is not the 1910 edition of Britannica. This is the 2009 edition of Wikipedia. I've now reverted the above edit. If you disagree, please do what I did and come here to discuss it. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:13, 5 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with the use of 'cello'. IMO it's a well-established word in its own right. We also have a problem sometimes with (plural) woodwind/woodwinds. My view is that this is a collective noun, so the plural should be 'woodwind'. What do other people think? -- Klein zach  23:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The use of "woodwinds" seems fairly common to me. "Woodwind" seems to be more of an adjective. Vltava   68  01:57, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * "Woodwind" on its own is not a plural in this context. I second "woodwinds". Justin Tokke (talk) 02:55, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Me too. --  JackofOz (talk) 03:01, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Fine, I'll follow majority opinion on this then — ladies and gentlemen, can we indent please? It's much easier to read that way.-- Klein zach  03:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe the three responses were in response to a single reponse, not to each other, hence the same indentation for the responses. Justin Tokke (talk) 03:32, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * No, because at first sight it looks like one respondent not three. -- Klein zach  05:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

For the record, this is from COBUILD (usually the best source for modern English usage): "The woodwind is used to refer to all the woodwind instruments in an orchestra, which are thought of as a distinct section." -- Klein zach  05:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Article title
Wouldn't a move to Also sprach Zarathustra (symphonic poem) or something like that be more appropriate? Vltava  68  06:10, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation
Did either of the Johanns or any of the multitude of other musical Strausses write an "Also sprach Zarathustra"? No? Then we don't need the "Richard" in the title. Can someone with admin-like powers fix this, please? --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   21:23, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:42, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Also sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss) → Also sprach Zarathustra (Strauss) – See above: he was the only Strauss to write such a work. Jack of Oz  [your turn]  21:13, 23 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Support. Yeah, good idea. That would match every other article (a couple dozen) that appends his name. Just go ahead and do it, with the Move button. Softlavender (talk) 22:22, 23 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Er ... I naturally tried that back in August 2010 (8 months ago), but just using Move does not work. It needs an administrator, which I called for at the time, but I got zero response.  That's why I've now made it a Requested move.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  22:56, 23 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it's a double redirect, I see now: . If you blanked that page it might possibly then allow a move to it I think, or you can let the admins do it via this move proposal. Softlavender (talk) 23:27, 23 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I fixed Morgen! (Strauss). --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  06:59, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Awesome! Will edit my post a tiny bit. Softlavender (talk) 07:22, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Support – Natürlich. BTW, "Morgen!" could/should have been moved to Morgen!, no? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:17, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Point taken on Morgen! -- that would prevent having to type out a piped wikilink every time. Also, even then there should exist plenty of redirects without the exclamation point and with his name (both, and surname only), because lots of people refer to the song, er, Lied, without the exclamation point. Softlavender (talk) 02:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:PRECISION. Jenks24 (talk) 14:23, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

2 Versions of same page
I have found that there are two versions of this page that vary slightly in content. One uses parentheses in the URL and the other uses %28 and %29.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Also_sprach_Zarathustra_%28Strauss%29 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Also_sprach_Zarathustra_(Strauss)

-Payne — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.203.108.2 (talk) 14:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Spake/spoke
The first reference has the comment "Overall, 'spake' is more common when mentioning the Strauss music and 'spoke' more common when mentioning the book by Nietzsche." If that's our conclusion, can someone explain to me why 'spoke' is used in the translation, rather than 'spake'? We're clearly referring to the tone poem and not the book here. Also - "was chosen by timpanist Jackie Macdonald for her debut performance with the Scottish Opera Orchestra." I don't see how this is relevant in the slightest. Cheers, Refractions (talk) 14:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why the word "spake" is even mentioned here... "spake" is simply an archaic form of "spoke" which is no longer considered correct in modern English. Nyh (talk)

Related use of inconsistent terminology
I see there is a list of the German titles of each movement, with an English translation. However the text inconsistently uses different English translations in the actual text. For example, the second movement is listed as "Von den Hinterweltlern (Of those in Backwaters)" but in the text refers to "Of the Hereaftergo'ers" (perhaps you need to translate the German literally first (back-worlds-men) then provide the common translation) ... anyway the parts need to be consistently referred to in english if the non-expert, non-German speaking reader is to make any sense of some parts. GermanicusCaesar (talk) 22:27, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

source of recording
"The recording of the opening fanfare used for 2001: A Space Odyssey was a 1959 Decca Records session with Herbert von Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic."

At the time Kubrick made 2001, MGM wa associated with DG. As far as I know, all the film's recordings are from the DG catalog. It's highly unlikely MGM would have licensed a Decca recording. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 19:45, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I added a citation for the conductor and orchestra and added a "citation needed" tag for the Decca Records claim. 12.171.43.82 (talk) 11:07, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I have a vinyl LP, London Stereo Treasury Series STS 15083, by Herbert von Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic, with "(C) 1968 The Decca Record Company Limited, London. Exclusive U.S. Agents, London Records, Inc." with a splash on the front saying "Including the Original Von Karajan recording of music featured in 2001 A Space Odyssey". Can one take it from this that the opening fanfare was from a Decca recording? SingaporeLA (talk) 00:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Probably. I'll let someone who knows how to cite that add the citation to the article. 12.171.43.82 (talk) 12:54, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

'World Riddle Theme' ambiguously identified and explained
The section World Riddle Theme starts "There are two opinions about the World riddle theme ..." but there is nothing in the description of the movements that mentions this theme and nothing in that section that adequately describes what/where this theme actually *is*. Is it the famous introduction note sequence? This is described as the '"dawn" motif' in the preceding text. GermanicusCaesar (talk) 22:33, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree. It's not explained, and also it's written quite poorly. And how reliable is Old and Sold? Chuborno (talk) 19:20, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Elvis
The most famous popular culture use outside of 2001 and the Apollo mission is by Elvis Presley to open his stage shows. His use should be mentioned in the article.174.89.102.158 (talk) 00:29, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * So why isn't it mentioned in the main Elvis Presley article? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Elvis material
The Elvis material is a mess. First of all, the entire piece was obviously not performed in any Elvis concert, because it's half an hour long. Secondly, it is not a song. Thirdly, none of the information or claims are cited. Fourthly, the titles are seemingly not even correct, as they do not produce Wikilinks when I attempt that. Can anyone who cares about this Elvis material please cite it and clean it up? Thanks. Otherwise, I don't know that it's all that significant; I don't even know if it belongs in the article. EDIT: I cleaned it up a bit, but it still needs two to four citations. Softlavender (talk) 08:37, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

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Instrumentation Cleanup
I've made a few quick changes to the instrumentation section: The trumpets and horns are primarily in F and C respectively (as they were listed previously) but both are also written in E; most noticeably at the end. The clarinets were listed as "3 clarinets in E-flat and B-flat" but none of the clarinets double so it seems more accurate to say "clarinet in E-flat, 2 clarinets in B-flat" For timpani "two players" was specified. The score indicates "2 pauken" but this refers to two drums. One player is all that is required for this part. The basses listed "several with low C string" but in the latter half of the work there are passages where all 8 basses are written below written E2. True, in most orchestras not all bassists would have an instrument capable of playing down that low so some would transpose up an octave but that is not what is written. 72.204.15.42 (talk) 18:04, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Could you make that this in order of appearance.?173.86.35.209 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:44, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Hinterweltler/Backwaters
I think this is a wrong translation, confusing "Hinterweltler" with "Hinterwäldler". Hinterweltler are people who believe that there is another "welt" "hinter" the one we can perceive. --188.194.212.40 (talk) 17:26, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not a Nietzsche specialist, and people disagree about the meaning of his neologisms "Hinterwelt" and "Hinterweltler". In terms of the Strauss composition, there seem to be a variety of translations, many of which are contradictory and/or overly clunky. It's difficult to translate the sense of Nietzsche's word accurately, but my best sense of it having read a number of sources via Google would be to translate it "Of the Background World Dwellers". There is too much apparent disagreement to translate it literally as "Afterlife", because many sources stipulate he did not mean afterlife, but something more akin to Plato's "other world". In addition, the "ler" seems to indicate "dwellers" rather than "people who believe in", although I could be convinced otherwise by enough sources. Anyway, I'm going to change it to "Of the Background World Dwellers". Softlavender (talk) 20:30, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Also sprach Zarathustra (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 03:47, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Softlavender's revert
, hello, I want to ask that you self-revert [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Also_sprach_Zarathustra&diff=906815593&oldid=906814448], everything is summarized from the article Also_sprach_Zarathustra. I only did not copy the citations because they are already in the article.Dartslilly (talk) 14:01, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Reception
The article presently neglects to comment on this piece's reception in Strauss's own time.

Seems it did okay:


 * Cambridge University Press landing page (doi)

The success of Also sprach Zarathustra in the concert hall was largely bound up with Strauss's conducting career.

Although other conductors took it up, Strauss himself performed it on tours in numerous European cities.

His letters document these as a succession of triumphs.

In addition to his engagements in such German cities as Düsseldorf and Strassburg (as it was then), Strauss took Zarathustra to Belgium (Liège and Brussels), Amsterdam, Paris and Zurich before the century ended.

As an indication of the acclaim with which Zarathustra was greeted, the first performance in Cologne may again be cited, with the work being accorded even more calls from the audience than the soloists received.

He took particular care to make sure that Spitzweg knew of the good impression that his latest publication was making.

Performances in Berlin seem to have been of a particularly high standard, and he considered one occasion in October 1898 as 'the finest performance of Zarathustra which I have experienced'.

His friends took these accounts of triumph at face value, though whether they accepted Strauss's valuation of the work as 'by far the most important of all my pieces, the most perfect in form, the richest in content and the most individual in character' is difficult to ascertain; that it was 'faultlessly scored' must have seemed all too credible.

It went without saying, however, that a large critical faction found Zarathustra hard to take, and this did in time have its effect on performance and audience reactions.

But this source is a little heavy, and I've leave it to some musicologist to decide whether better can be found. &mdash; MaxEnt 20:27, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

"Sonnenaufgang" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Sonnenaufgang. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 March 6 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. signed,Rosguill talk 20:23, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

In popular culture
"In opening scene of U.S. sitcom The Big Bang Theory is the song played by stereo, controlled by signal sent from a laptop around the world through the internet." Umm... what? Maef (talk) 21:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Exactly. Whole section is gone. Ceoil (talk) 02:05, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Was this piece really not known to the general public until Kubrick's film? I find that hard to believe. Mkcmkc (talk) 07:08, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Hardly any classical music is known to the general public. Though I was aware of the work, I had never heard anything from it until seeing the film. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 19:36, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

In addition to the use in 2001: A Space Odyssey, I believe the piece was also used a the opening titles to the BBC's coverage for the Apollo moon landings. A quick Google didn't turn up any reliable citations; can anyone give one? Dricherby (talk) 14:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Very true as a very young child back then in England it has always been synonymous with the BBC Apollo coverage of 1969-72 to me and even for those too young to have known about its use in the Kubrick film has been associated with space exploration in the UK ever since. Surely that deserves to have a place in this section of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.155.199.53 (talk) 03:30, 21 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Arthur C. Clarke mentions this in his 2001 movie notes, either at the end of the novel's 2nd printing or The Lost Worlds of 2001. I don't currently have either on hand at the moment to verify which one though... Cowbert (talk) 23:39, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Not for here though, keep it to one of Clarke's pages. Ceoil  23:46, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Why is Ric Flair mentioned in the opening paragraph !?!? Madness. More appropriate to move him to the Pop Culture section? 90.214.153.86 (talk) 13:53, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Ouch. Gone. Ceoil (talk) 14:06, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

"massive chord"?
It is childish to use the word "massive" to describe a chord.77Mike77 (talk) 14:34, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Reception Section Needed
Most articles of this type feature a representative selection of contemporary reviews of the piece. If anyone has access to these documents I'm sure they would improve the quality of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chemprofmatt (talk • contribs) 03:09, 17 May 2022 (UTC)