Talk:Edward German

Personal Life
Would someone who has a copy of A Musical Peacemaker or someone otherwise well-read on this stuff be able to write a personal life section? I have a few brief details that I know of, but they're all somewhat unrelated and without more detail don't flow together at all. Among these, Edward German was very good friends with Elgar who liked his music, he was always a bachelor (as far as anyone knows, anyway), and he really, really liked following cricket. I get the impression, especially from reading the mini documentary on Fallen Fairies over at the Gilbert & Sullivan archive (as well as the title of the Brian Rees book) that he really liked to avoid conflicts and try and resolve them, which probably is indicative of his personality. If someone with the book could write in more detail about his personality, hobbies, and relationhips and put it into the personal life section, it would be fantastic. --Anivron 17:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

We have this gentleman's old hat, so it is known that he favoured Herbert Johnson, Hatters, who were then based at 38 New Bond St. The style is BT.11. His sister was known to accompany him on tours and frequently employed the services of a lady's travelling companion. Sir Edward presented said travelling companion with the hat at the end of her engagement, in recognition of services rendered. Thisisnotapipe | Message 22:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Blue linking the years
Why are you blue linking the years in the list of works? I don't think that clicking on the link gives any really useful info, unless you are making the links to something like "musical events/operas written in 1895|1895"? Or did you have something else in mind? We have not been doing this in the G&S articles generally. Also, most dates are linked in the list, but some are not. And one or two are linked in the narrative section, but most are not. -- Ssilvers 22:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Detailed Article on German
Check out this article: http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?catNum=223419&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English  -- Ssilvers 15:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks a superb source, it does! Adam Cuerden talk 15:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Good source. I had looked at Naxos album liners for German stuff before, but I had no idea they weren't identical.  This one is different than one of the other ones I read.  Thanks.  I bet I can find most of the stuff they wrote in "A Musical Peacemaker" when my copy comes in, and I did an ILL request for "An Intimate Biography".  JSTOR has lots of great resources on German, but the university library, though subscribing to JSTOR, seems to not have that particular JSTOR database.  Could someone else with better access dig around some more in JSTOR? --Anivron 22:31, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Composer project review
I've reviewed this article as part of the Composers project review of its B-class articles. This is a really nice article, approaching A. I have a few quibbles with it; they are in my review on the comments page. Questions and comments should be left here or on my talk page.  Magic ♪piano 16:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Rosina Brandram photo
There is a photo of Brandram as Queen Elizabeth on this page, but the caption incorrectly identifies it from "Tom Jones" instead of "Merrie England." But when I go to correct it, it's fine. What gives? Slfarrell (talk) 19:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I fixed it. The image page is labeled correctly, it was just the caption in *this* article that was mis-labeled, so I edited the caption.  Should be OK now everywhere.  All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:49, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Hard G, soft G
Re this edit: Basically, I think there's a confusion here. The hard G may have applied to his Welsh birth given name German – see here. But when he decided to make German his surname, there's no way he could ever have expected anyone in England, where he was studying, to say it with a hard G. He may have insisted for a while that people said it hard, but would have given it up as a lost cause before too long, and he must have accepted quite early that his name was inevitably to be pronounced Jerman. In English, we have a way of noting a hard G at the start of a word, viz. gh, e.g. Ghana, ghastly, ghat, ghee, gherkin, ghetto, ghost, ghoul. I might be wrong, but I don't think there are any words spelt Ge- that are pronounced hard, apart from 'gear' (where the vowel is actually the diphthong 'ea'), and foreign names like 'Geiger'. He chose NOT to spell his name Gherman, and in making that choice he effectively fixed its pronunciation as a soft G, exactly as everyone has pronounced it forever.

Another thing: No disrespect intended, but if we were going to be embarking on a campaign to re-educate the entire music-loving world about how to say Sir Edward German's name, I think we would need significantly more to go on than the word of a Lydia Crowe who is somehow associated with Iowa Public Radio. -- ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  07:10, 16 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with the general statement about pronunciation in English above. I can immediately think of get and gelding.  But I agree that this edit's reference source is unconvincing at best.  I've reverted.  -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:44, 16 June 2012 (UTC)


 * My vote for "soft G" German in this case (for what it is worth). Never heard that anyone ever wanted to pronounce it any other way. I have sometimes wondered how "our" G. coped with the anti-German hysteria of the First World War period, when even German Shepherd dogs (not to mention the Royal Family) underwent a change of name - perhaps the idea of giving G's name an eccentric pronunciation stems from that period? --Soundofmusicals (talk) 23:23, 16 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Maybe, but why is this issue news to just about everybody? It would be like suddenly discovering that Parry's name was actually Perry and we've all got it wrong forever. I found exactly one other online mention of the hard-G pronunciation, and it was hidden in a CD review by an anonymous person on Amazon, and qualified with "I think".  This supposedly correct pronunciation is so unnatural and counter-intuitive that it would surely have merited a mention in many reference works, were it actually true.  And not just a mention, but an explanation of why it was pronounced that way.  But no such references exist, to my knowledge.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  23:56, 16 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The silvery one has already changed the text - I think we all agree with you! --Soundofmusicals (talk) 00:59, 17 June 2012 (UTC)


 * In that case, I agree with myself. Done.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  01:16, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 14:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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External links modified
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